Phil Parkes Maille

I create copies of archaeological and historical maille items using traditional techniques.
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27/09/2026

A lovely weekend visiting Nicholas Checksfield in Ramsgate where we did some sightseeing (shout out to Crab Museum in Margate where we ending up chatting about maille!) and talked late into the night about making maille. Loads of ideas for fun projects in the future.

Heritage Crafts

22/09/2026

Gammertingen mail sample starting to grow. The riveted rings have been made, and I'm starting to put the piece together.

I'm using the measurements from the publication by M. Wijnhoven, A. Moskvin and M. Moskvina, "Testing archaeological mail armour in a virtual environment: 3rd century BC to 10th century AD" as my aim is to recreate the pieces physically. These riveted rings are ~6mm ID (6.1mm horizontal ID, 5.5mm vertical ID) and 1.5mm wire.

The armour they are creating is going to be an extremely dense weave so I'm riveting a ring at a time as I go otherwise I wouldn't be able to get the riveting pliers in!

16/09/2026

That's 200 or so rings ready for the tumbler. These have been punched to the specs of the Gammertingen rings using punches and dies I've made myself.

I'm using the measurements from the publication by M. Wijnhoven, A. Moskvin and M. Moskvina, "Testing archaeological mail armour in a virtual environment: 3rd century BC to 10th century AD" as my aim is to recreate the pieces physically. These solid rings are 4.9mm ID, 8.6mm OD and 1.3mm thick, within 0.03mm of the specs on the article so I'm pleased with that!

While these are in the tumbler I can get on with making the riveted rings 🔨😁.

09/09/2026

Preparing materials ready for making mail / chainmail rings. The Gammertingen solid rings are 1.34mm thick on average so I've rolled out some 1.5mm mild steel strips down to 1.33/34 mm ready for punching. I may well anneal these again before punching to save a bit of wear on the tools as well.

The Gammertingen riveted rings are 1.5mm in diameter on average according to the publication. I have two big multi-kilo rolls of wire in 1.4mm and 2mm thickness, so I've had to draw some wire down to the correct size. Included a speeded up video of the drawing process. It's always surprising how hot the wire gets by the the 4th or 5th draw!

Specs of the rings to be produced:

Riveted:

Inside horizontal 6.20mm
Inside vertical 5.43mm
X-section thickness 1.50mm
X-section width 1.51mm

Solid

Inside diameter 4.97mm
Outside diameter 8.58mm
X-section thickness 1.34mm
X-section width 1.82mm

02/09/2026

A pleasant mornings work. I've been planning to make a setup for punching solid rings for when I do demos but never managed to get round to it with various other jobs always taking priority. Currently working on another piece of Gammertingen style mail for a commission and I needed to punch out rings of the correct spec, so a good excuse to spend time doing it this way.

I'm using the measurements from the publication by M. Wijnhoven, A. Moskvin and M. Moskvina, "Testing archaeological mail armour in a virtual environment: 3rd century BC to 10th century AD" as my aim is to recreate the pieces physically. These solid rings are 4.9mm ID, 8.6mm OD so I'm pleased with that!

Test rings and tools seem good so now to harden and temper everything to make sure they last a while 🔨😁.

19/08/2026

At last week's events I had a number of people asking where they could learn more about making mail. I have a couple of workshop days coming up on September 20th and October 11th.
These are held at my workshop based in Cardiff, generally run as small groups of up to 5 people so that everyone gets plenty of support throughout the day.
The day starts with a lesson on the history of mail, looking at both original mail and replica samples. Following this you are shown how to make rings starting from wire and everyone gets to have a go at producing some handmade rings. After a break for lunch you learn how to weave mail together and get to put together a patch of riveted mail using pre-made rings. At the end of the day you have your own handmade rings and a patch of riveted mail to take away with you.
Interested? Take a look at https://linktr.ee/philparkesmaille for links to book a course, or use the QR code in the last image.

12/08/2026

If anyone's around in Cardiff city centre today I'm at Monmouthshire building society for their family fun day. Pop along for a demonstration of mail making.

07/08/2026

Two pieces of maille, both the same size in terms of numbers of rings / rows. The bottom piece is a sample based on the dimensions of the Gammertingen mail (c. 570 AD) while the upper is based on the mail from Carlingwark Loch (80-200 AD). The overlap on the riveted rings is clockwise and stumpy shaped for the earlier Carlingwark Loch example while the Gammertingen has an anticlockwise overlap. Solid rings are punched from sheet metal.

I've tried to show the difference in flexibility - the earlier mail can be scrunched into a ball but the Gammertingen is nowhere near as flexible. It also weighs about twice as much!

I'm busy with events next week but hopefully will get another sample done in a couple of weeks time 🔨😁.

Address

Chepstow

Website

http://linktr.ee/philparkesmaille

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