I Cleaned My Chainmail with Soap
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- Опубліковано 30 вер 2024
- I have an early medieval (so Viking Age appropriate) chainmail hauberk, and it's pretty mucky. Covered in machine oil that leaves my hands black and greasy. Some people say "that's period!" but being covered in synthetic engineering oil from goodness knows where is not a period accurate way to prevent rusting on your mailshirt, no matter how grizzled the reenactment dude is that tells you so. Especially if his armour is rusty.
So I did an experiment with dish soap and lanolin! Washing up liquid is a great degreasing agent, and you know what sheep are? Waterproof and rust proof!
So let's see if I can get my Viking Age armour clean and shiny, using washing up liquid and a lanolin spray I bought on the internet :3
Historical? Absolutely not! But you've got to break a few anachronistic eggs to make an historical omelette. Or something.
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Intro by @Anttimation
My grandfather was a blacksmith and made (not riveted) mail gloves for meat cutters at a local hog butcher. The mail gloves would regularly be sent back for repairs and de-rusting. He used a mixture of boiled linseed oil and some sort of silty grit (very fine sand) he collected from a local stream in a barrel he had attached to a small cement mixer to de-rust the mail gloves. Afterwards, they got a wash with tool shop soap (pretty much dish soap without the fragrance, etc), a through rinse (something along the lines of six times). Then he would towel them dry and spray them with gasoline (petrol), sun dry them, then rubbed them with some manner of oil (boiled linseed oil mostly). When I first got into re-enactment, he made me a riveted mail shirt and whenever it got rusty patches, he did pretty much the same thing as he did with the butcher's mail gloves. So not all that different from what you did here.
Interesting--thank you.
I have had to use lanolin at various times in my life, and I used to bag wool for my folks when I lived there (they're ranchers.). I am not fond of it. Sticky, stinky. Update us as to whether you get layers of dust where it's got lanolin. Watch out for certain dish soaps, they will make your mail dull.
I wouldn't use a strong degreasing one. Mild soap. Castile. Whatever you put on for waterproofing, lanolin, oil, or whatever, you have to roll it in towels thoughroughly to remove the excess.
What was wrong with just uing a hair dryer?
Too cool, takes too long
Why not put it in the oven?
"Well ackshually it's not called Chainmail because at the time--" At the time people spoke a completely different language that eventually became English after getting merged with a language that wasn't quite French yet so unless you're going to finish the rest of your comment in Anglo-Saxon, shove it.
J. Draper also had to preemptively I AM CALLING IT CHAINMAIL FOR PRACTICAL PURPOSES IT DOES NOT MATTER DO NOT @ ME in one of her videos. Says something that this issue comes up in more than one channel I subscribe to?
Viking 1: How did you get that scorch on your mail?
Viking 2: Dude, I fought a dragon.
Viking 1: Nice!
New explanation!
Not a re-enactor, but work in maintenance. In place of the heat gun, make your last rinse off in boiling water. That will evaporate very quickly on its own without the heat gun. I was impressed by the use of lanolin, that's a favourite of mine. I use "Fluid Film", a commercial lanolin based rust protectant. It doesn't dry like your product and does indeed smell like wet sheep but it soaks into the metal and provides long term rust protection. Totally environmentally friendly for outdoor use too.
I'm a Viking pacifist. I don't wear chain mail. This is the sensible thing to do if you're like me (and Graeme, probably) and run a mile if anyone comes at you with a chunk of metal. So I turn up at events as a somewhat elderly (maybe even grizzled) but reasonably astute trader with silver coin weighing me down but lacking both armour and weapons. So it's necessary to befriend or bribe guys in mail to watch my back, and I will pass on your expert advice to my bodyguards, many thanks.
😂😂😂😂
I think I've found my reenactment goal 😮
72 year old grandmother of 5 here. Will I ever need to care for any kit. NO. but it's good to know. Horse tail, the plant, scrubs great.
Very high silica content in horse tail too.
So then it doesn't shrink when you wash it?
No. That only happens if you hit the pub too often between wearings.
@@marcellacruser951
That's what the armor stretcher is for.
Could you just get a sheep to wear the shirt in order to apply the lanolin naturally?
0:24 - random thought just occurred to me; should a mail shirt made of iron be called a FeMail shirt? 🤔
😜
Yes. Let's make this a thing.
Can we all agree Jimmy is a treasure! FYI I’m gonna need a T-shirt that says History is Nuanced… IN THE DARK! 👏🏾🤷🏻♂️😏
Do I own chainmail, no. Am I close friends with someone who owns chainmail, also no. Did I consider this video to be useful information to have, yes. Will I ever use this information, probably not but now I know it in case emergency chainmail washing happens. You never know.
Can't believe you're almost at 80k! Your 5k chainmail run feels like just yesterday, and I'd already been a viewer for about around a year when you posted it. It seems appropriate that (what I presume to be) the same mail shirt is getting a clean new start haha. As always, I look forward to future shenanigans whenever you post them
Right? Makes me a bit vertiginous when I look at the numbers now!
@@TheWelshViking And you deserve every single one of them!
Roll it in a towel after it stops dripping and then - Oven …put it in the oven, on low, take out when dry, grease it up whilst warm, put back in the oven, on a bit higher. This is sort of the same process used to ‘season’ an iron pan.
Edit: oops, saw you tried to oven dry it, but were ‘denied permission’ - why on earth would someone deny permission to dry clean metal in the oven? Ok - maybe they’re vegan and didn’t want the lanolin spray in the oven for step 2, but really, have they never cured a fryer or saucepan?
"They probably cleaned more than we think they did." Given my norwegian family is so obsessively clean that I would feel comfortable eating, like, meatballs off their MACHINE SHOP floors, I would guess that's true.
Having cleaned a fair amount of filthy wool, I do find the idea of lanolin being non-sticky or non-greasy rather hilarious!
It does have the ready-made applicator option if you're looking for something potentially period, though. I bet you could get into lots of little cracks with greasy hunks of fleece. Heck, the easiest application method may simply be to roll up the mail with a raw fleece.
It is also worth noting that ammonia is potentially actually *good* for steel, because it can reduce iron oxides. It would also help with getting rid of the grease, and stale urine (aka, ammonia) was a common method of laundering clothing, so the idea of using it to clean mail isn't that farfetched.
Tell us you're ADHD without telling us you're ADHD.
(Giggling in recognition)
✅ jumped into a project with less time than would be ideal
✅didn't have all the materials ready
✅second guessed yourself on which tool to buy
✅had to stop the project part way through (before the lanolin) and put it aside for longer than would have been ideal
✅explains multiple alternative ways to potentially accomplish the same thing with well considered pluses and minuses for each
✅but for some reason didn't think of, or explain why "the obvioius alternative" a hair dryer wasn't an option
✅jumped out of order at least once while telling the tale of all of this (and that's with editing!)
✅recognizes that experimentation really is interesting and useful content, and feels no need to act like this is anything other than an experiment
Feels like my brain. Thank you Jimmy.
Rather than a heat gun, wouldn't a hair dryer with a heat function work, and be less of a hazard?
I'm surprised that your chainmail isn't in a worse state. I saw how much you sweated on a 5k run and a lot of it must have been next to the metal. I'm surprised it isn't a lot worse.
What would the equivalent of washing up liquid have been to your average Viking? Did they have a way to concentrate the lanonin from wool to treat metal?
Oh, and by the way, I'm not an insurance salesman. 😂
Good question! I’ll do some digging and see what the general consensus seems to be on Viking Fairy!
I gave the thing a damn good scrub after the 5k and basically bathed it in 3 in 1 oil! It was grim work, I tell thee!
Well if you’re not then I demand a refund! 😂
@@TheWelshVikingNo idea on Viking times, but at least in historical US times, wool would get boiled which melts the lanolin which then floats on the water I believe similar to oil. Skim it off and maybe reheat to evaporate more water that got stuck in it? I've often wondered why people would do this to clean the wool before processing it, because wouldn't leaving it in make it easier to work with? But I have done no fleece cleaning, separating, spinning, weaving, etc.
@@GoingGreenMomwool can be spun in the grease (with lanolin) or with it removed. Leaving the lanolin in helps to waterproof the wool so it’s good for outside layer garment in someone working in the rain/sea spray. It still smells quite sheepy, will make your spinning equipment dirty and greasy wool won’t take dye evenly. Also if you want the wool to end up absorbent (wick away sweat etc) then you need to take the grease out. (Also maybe tetanus in the dirt stuck in the grease from being outside on an animal 😮 that’s a new one for me)
Or brucellosis or woolsorters disease!
'Graham, look at me! You are not a viking.'
I love you so much.
Don't you have an hair-drier? (Sorry, I have this bad habit of commenting half-way through videos when I don't want to forget something). Anyway, dishsoap was my go-to lifesaver when I worked with vaseline, it's the only thing that cleans that crap. And when I read 'lanolin', my first thought was "but doesn't it stink?" (fun fact: my greatgranma washed her hair for her wedding and then rinsed with lanolin water… bautiful result, stank to high heaven 😂)
Before you even got to that point, I was thinking "I bet the important thing is getting it dry as quickly and thoroughly as possible." I was thinking 175 F in the oven with the door cracked.
Sadly I was denied permission as I thought that too!
Yeah, I have a few carbon steel cooking things. I usually dry them using the stove. Not sure if maille would be a good plan to hold over a gas burner. But an oven might work
Rust-proof sheep. That is in my head forever now. Thank you.
That's exactly what I took away from this video too. :)
Unfortunately the sticky is going to be there--as will the smell of sheep once the metal gets heated by the sun. Fiber artist here - not into mail, just know a LOT about lanolin as I have cleaned enough wool to insulate a 3000sqft house. Incidentally, we have ALL been there before - start of project and at the crucial moment realize we forgot the 1 or 2 items necessary to complete it. I do wonder though how you didn't burn the crud out of your hands when you were using the heat gun to dry the metal?
I heard of a guy (so this may be an urban legend) who was a re-enactor and who was traveling home, wearing his mail shirt under his jacket because that was the easiest way of transporting it. And he got into a bit of an argument with some of the local lads and decided to run away. He felt a push in the back and when he came home he had a large cut in the jacket on his back... one of the guys had stabbed him and who knows what would have happened if he hadn't been wearing his mail shirt?
Lesson learned. Always wear mail when going into the bad parts of the neighborhood.
Dang. Why you gotta call out Graham like that? 😂
Omg you DO have nearly 80k subs!! I think I was one of abt 3k when I found you 😂😂 grats, mate! Every video since then has been an utter joy, 10/10 would sub again 🖤
The way I was told to de-rust mail is to stick it in a sack and give a mars bar to whoever can chuck the sack the farthest. Also, who stuck their mail in a bonfire? Burning the grease off definitely ran through my head during the video, so they're not alone in their...brilliance...
plunge in oil when scary hot to give it a black oxide finish...
I actually DO have a fun chainmail cleaning experience! Though getting it dirty in the first place is far more entertaiing than cleaning it afterwards was. I made it myself with no real knowledge of how to do it (made it in the very early 2000s before there were tutorials all over the internet) so it's butt-edge fence wire coils I made by wrapping it around a 3/8" diameter pen and cut into links myself.
I wore it when I went paintballing because I wanted to see if it helped. And also to see if running around in the woods all day in an extra 8 lbs (shut up, it's only 16 ga and I'm little) of body armour made much difference to my stamina (not really, though it did significantly reduce how long I could go without shinsplints when I went jogging in it one day). And of course all that day I took zero body shots and only got hit in my face and extremities, because of course I did. So one of the guys who worked there asked afterwards if he could borrow it for a few minutes and he'd volunteer to get shot point blank by another employee... so half a paintball hopper later, my chain vest is splattered with yellow paint and bits of the paintball coverings, and the guy who borrowed it is covered in black welts where he had no chain mail and red link prints where he was armoured..
So I took it home (I don't recall precisely how I got it home from the paintball place without getting yellow paint all over my car, proably a garbage bag or random bucket or saddlepad or something) and took it upstairs, put it on a heavy duty plastic hanger like they use for displaying suit jackets, and took it into the shower with a dish scrub brush and scrubbed all the paintball bits out of the links and rinsed it really well, then I hung the hanger off the back of a chair with a fan blowing to get it to dry out quickly before it started rusting.
Bonfires are for cast iron pans that need to be stripped and reseasoned :)
Is it even an experiment/adventure if you don't have to run out for supplies part way through? 😂
Can you weave showing off your motorcycle into a video somehow? Vikings something something motorcycles, the episode writes itself.
Agriculture and iron age transportation!
In the past I've cleaned my maille (hauberk, chausses, and aventail) by sticking it in a plastic barrel with a seal-able lid with a bunch of sand and rolling it around for about an hour or two.
That apparently was the medieval method.
I think it was a Bernard Cornwell novel I read that spoke of warriors scrubbing their mail with vinegar and sand. And the only mail shirt I've ever worn was when I worked for the US Postal Service a long time ago--it said "US Mail" on the shoulder patch!
If you use water, add some baking soda. It neutralizes thr water so you don't have to worry so much. Boiled linseed oil and/or some wax dries quite nicely too and is common blacksmith finish. I like the lanolin idea, and i'll have to try it on something. Its super for waterproofing, but sticky. I ise it on leather. Dont get moisture near hot oil. And while i have a heat gun, i would have probably usedthe hair dryer. Its a very good one, and has much more air flow.
I thought hair dryer as well.
My regimen has been wire brush off any red rust, drop into boiling water for at least a half hour, then while hot bake in oven 300F for an hour. Pull onto plywood big enough to lay out flat wipe with rag with light mineral oil and return to hot oven for 10 minutes then switch off and let cool to room temp I have used other "natural" oils as well as lard and bacon grease... in my experience light mineral oil has the least smell.
The temptation to make a Welsh and 'smelling of sheep' joke intensifies with that post-credit scene...!!!😅
Pro tip, you can temper at 500 degrees in an oven, so water wouldn't be a problem. also you can put your oven on the lowest setting and crack the door to let out moisture overnight. will be fully dry and much less effort. You can then say its fresh baked. lol
You tell my housemates that next time, ok! 🤣
@TheWelshViking Oh yes, I hadn't considered the possibility of the scents of freshly baked maille. hehe😂. My spouse will be happy to know you have enlightened me before I have to clean my own. I'm still knitting it. the rivets are nice, but hard, slow work.
I recently degreased a maille shirt which was coated in some thick black sludge.
I waited for a sunny clear day
filled a tub with some degreasing agent made for engines and left the maille submerged for 5-10 minutes
hosed it down while brushing with a stiff handbrush until and the degreaser was removed (took about 10 minutes)
When the grease and degreaser was gone i hung it from some bins in direct sunlight until it dried
In direct sunlight it only took 3 mins per side to completely dry from dripping wet
while drying it developed some flash rust which was easily brushed off.
Sprayed with some wd-40 then wiped and now my maille is clean and wearable
Don't know if this is helpful, but might i reminded a hairdryer with a diffuser attachment? Also, in the same isle as the hairdryer you'll find a great protectant glove that is used for curling, hot combing, flat ironing and so on (at least in the US).
Another suggestion are those heat lamps with the clamp on the end (like for raising baby chicks). They are cheap and easy ☺️
And now, I am picturing a flock of chicks peeping away on a warm chain mail nest, under their heat lamp. 😀
What if you got someone who spins 'in the grease' to maybe get a weaver to make you a large storage blanket for your chain mail? That way it would be stored (inside and out) with a lanolin infused fabric to cut down on rust when not in use. From a fiber person, just spitballing here...
Vikings would NEVER have called it chainmail! NEVER! They didn't speak English.
Frankly, it's good to know the ancient terms. However, a lot of times, those ancient terms were vague, imprecise, contradictory, overlapping for different things, etc. They usually didn't care about proper nomenclature. I strongly believe that we benefit from having modern terms to clearly communicate ancient concepts, while also acknowledging what the ancient terms were. This is not a contradiction. This is about communication.
Totally agree! I thought something similar when he did the disclaimer
My partner interrupted this video to tell me again about the chainmail he saw in a museum in Winchester which had been dropped into a bucket of oil (presumably to prevent rusting) and the oil had gone hard like pitch tar so the curator couldn't get it out
Why is yours metal? King Arthur’s was knitted.
How'd you know he's a king?
He hasn't got any shit on 'im!!!!
Jimmy. Spread it out on a baking sheet and stick it in the oven for a while at greater than 100C. It’ll make all the water evaporate off. Then let it cool off completely so you don’t burn yourself.
That's how I dry my mesh sieve or metal cookie cutters after washing - to avoid rust. And yet it didn't occur to me while watching this. Good call!
Motorcycle?! Just when we thought you couldn’t get any cooler, Jimmy!
Loved this video a lot. The stuff of yours I tend to rewatch the most are the experimental videos testing out this or that. So this is for sure going on my rewatch pile 👌
In the DAAAHHK is now stuck with me. Thanks Jimmy 😂 my poor life decisions have left me in that position many times myself and my neighbors quite curious why I’m cleaning an oven door outside at 2 am 😅
Also a hair dryer at a second hand shop would have been my first thought. Not energy efficient but they’re meant to dry a large surface area quick! I’ve used it for a variety of projects that can’t go into the oven, dryer or line dry or some reason or the other. I live in Florida so the humidity and weather sometimes makes rust protection of metal objects impossible attempting to restore more difficult thus I have used a heat gun but usually a combination of a box fan or my makeshift wig oven (a cardboard box with holes in it and a hairdryer attached and a rack for whatever object requires drying).
"Of fustian he wered a gipoun
All bismotered with his habergeoun
For he was late y-come from his viage
And wente for to doon his pilgrimage."
Those things have been bismotering people for centuries. What a great word- definitely one that deserves to be revived. Bismotered, bismotered, bismotered.
That quote does imply that soldiers (even veray, parfit gentil knights) may not have cleaned their mail very thoroughly on campaign. But it's from the late medieval period, not the Viking age, so obviously may not reflect the practice of earlier times.
I still have two spring steel washer mail shirts a long one with separate lower sleeves and a coif for 11th century & a short one for 10th and 14th century as an archer stuff a placket over it and whose to know I used to hang them on the outside line and scrub the rusty bits with wd40 & a wire brush. On site I used to roll in in a small barrel with dry building sand and collar a child or several to roll it around in a very slow traditional foot ball like game for an hour or two, recover it shake the dust out hang it off a spear shaft and oil it with olive oil worked a treat. As for under armour I tended to wear a doe skin outer tunic to protect my good clothing if under armour was not attested.
The worse I ever had it was when I was persuaded to lend it to a larper & it came back covered in what was effectively green enamel paint as so terrified where they of getting it dirty that they had soaked it in several bottles of wd40. However they where playing an orc with green skin paint & the wd 40 dripped off the mail mixed with it and turned into oil paint which I had to remove with a wire brush and the oil with a cooking blow torch set to as cool a flame as a could. That's a mistake you make only once
Oh my GAWD 😯
How about next time you clean it try using a wool wash laundry detergent, rather than washing up liquid. Wool wash had some lanolin in it but doesn’t come off sticky or smell like sheep. A good soak then wrap it in thick towels to get the worst of the moisture off. If you have somewhere to hang the shirt indoors to dry,an old dressmakers dummy would be a good thing to let the air circulate round the thing.
Take care Jimmy, love the vids❤❤
The bonus is if the wool wash isn’t brilliant, you’ve already got it to wash your jumpers in😊
Interesting vid Jimmy, I’ve only heard of the warriors’ serfs cleaning the mail in a sack with sand to get the rust off.
Could you towel-dry it and then finish the drying process in the oven? Could you cure the lanolin the same way you season a frying pan (again, in the oven)?
A bunch of thoughts to throw into the comments:
1. If you don't have a heat gun, it seems to me that putting your mail into the oven should dry it pretty well. Assuming you're willing to use your oven for that. Maybe in a covered pot.
2. I have a mail shirt that I've owned for 6 years and *never* worn, mostly because of pandemic, but before that because I didn't want to get oil all over my kit (it came *soaked* with machine oil) and I now have a project for the spring, so thanks!
3. Many of the people I've done historical fencing with like to wear stainless steel butcher shirts *under* their pretty 16th century clothing; the butcher shirts (sometimes called shark suits, apparently?) are basically just fine gauge stainless steel wire machined into welded mail (they cost maybe US$200, and are quite durable and excellent protection from things like broken rapiers). The common practice among my friends that wear such mail is to put them in the dishwasher, on grounds that it works for the stainless steel cutlery so why not for the stainless steel mail, right? (My practice with the used butcher shirt I bought was to never wash it at all: it's stainless steel!)
And now that I've posted my comment, I'll go read the earlier comments. Oh, okay, my point the first (1.) has been well covered, unsurprisingly. Right, good then.
I've put mine in an old pillow case and spun it in the washing machine to get as much water out as possible. Then mixed lanolin with natural turpentine and sprayed on sparingly. After the turpentine evaporates it keeps it rust free for quite a long time. Living in Australia and our warmer climes may help though.
When restoring old carpentry tools I used to use a beeswax polish to rustproof it also blackened the metal and gave a nice vintage look
One set of my maille also came heavily greased, although it's stainless steel so... anyway, i tried the clean sand in a bucket with a lid rolling technique. All i got was sandy maille and sore arms. I think I'll try your technique next. Mind sharing some ideas for your lanolin spray, I'm not asking you to endorse any product. Thanks for your great work mate.
pin cushions used to be stuffed with wool to keep the pins and needles stuck in them from rusting. the little pieces of fabric in needle books used to be wool for the same reason. graphite filled cushions were used to sharpen needles and pins. rubbing chain mail with raw wool, or wool with some lanolin left might be enough. If I were a man and had to care for chain mail I would store it rolled in wool fabric for sure. great video.
I picked up a load of cheap sheepskins and they work well you can also add more oil to the wool if it dries out
Years of chainmail shirt and coifs have left my hands arthritic. Sand and WD40.
I do have a chainmail-cleaning tale! I reenact late XII century, wearing a hauberk with mittens and a coif attached. The coif ventail and the mittens both have leather lining. So I was met with the issue of cleaning this armor a couple of years ago, since it had rusted rather badly. I ended up opting for dumping the armor in a tub filled with simple white vinegar and it came out shining, it even hydrated the leather rather handsomely. No clue how accurate it would be, but the result was perfect and it took about thirty minutes in the sun to dry completely. This being an italian summer, though... it did have a very characteristic smell afterwards, but not an entirely upsetting one.
I like to picture my ancestors watching as I perform various tasks - marvelling at the ease and comfort I do them in. I imagine there would be both “Wow! That cleaning process was so much quicker than how we did it!” and “Why on earth is he doing it himself? Where’s his serf?!”
so you washed steel, then heated it, then used concentrated sheep on it...
Sounds like a lot of work LOL
It was!
The book I checked out of the library when I was a kid talked about people putting chainmail in barrels of sand and vinegar and rolling it around to agitate it, but that was in the 1400s.
And that would be to shine it up all nice an bright.
My only mail cleaning story is that we were dragged in front of a medieval reenactor in primary school who said that a 12-yo page could clean a 15 kilo mail shirt by tossing it into a wooden chest (another 15 kilos) filled with sand (probably more than 20 kilos), picking it up and shaking it until the rust was gone and several of the people in our class basically told him we'd believe it when we saw it.
He claimed he couldn't because they don't make tweens like they did in the good old days.
Two decades later and now aware of how people were fed in the good old days, I'm still willing to believe a 12-yo might have been able to lift the thing, but not hold it and shake it for half an hour.
Rolling a barrel down a hill tho...
I don't own armour, so the answer to this might be blaringly obvious to those who do, but why not just put the wet mail in the oven/grill to dry it? (door open to facilitate evaporation)
If you - or anyone reading - want to make your cloak even more weatherproof, you can give it a spritz or two with that lanolin spray.
IN THE DAAHK is a pretty good description of my working hours for such projects. 😂😂😂
I have heard (don’t know from whom, it was decades ago) that play sand is good for cleaning mail. Just put it in a container big enough, ruffle the mail shirt about in it, tip it around a few times, get it out and give it a good shake.
It occurs to me that if you were to mix your chosen grease in with the sand it would do both jobs at once. Just don’t let the kids play in it afterwards (unless you want them thoroughly moisturised).
Was your mail shirt a purchase or did you link it yourself? I'm currently linking away on one as a way to pass the time recovering from surgery, getting close to the halfway point.... I think?
Excellent! I hope the healing proceeds too!
I degrease my flintlock (the action, not the whole musket) by boiling it (disassembled) then spreading it out on a clean cloth while still hot and leaving it to dry and cool.
Maybe you just needed a really big pot mate.
Do you have an oven? I dry and cure my cast iron cookware on gas mark 4 with a bit of vegetable spray. I bet it'd work for chainmail. 😄Flaming arrows! LOL!
Silversmith here. I use a lot of iron based tools. I live in Oklahoma, USA, an inland state with no seas, but plenty of ponds, rivers, and lakes. Very high humidity(annual avg. 60-70%) Constant battle with rust. I have discovered that drugstore/grocery store handcleaner, (the clear aloe and alcohol based stuff) mixed with rubbing alcohol is an amazing rust dissolver. 3:1 3 parts 91% isopropyl to 1 part hand cleaner. The wax in the hand cleaner may drop out, but will go back into solution after a while. I have used this to completely unlock rusted shears and remove rust from files. It also cuts through grease to a degree, but it's big claim to fame for you would be as an after degrease wash/rinse to take up the excess water in imposible to reach places and then spead the drying process through rapid, lower temp evaporation. It also leaves a protective layer, but I usually oil or wax after for longer protection. I am thinking alcohol would have been a possible period cleaning option?
Not really, for most. Distilled alcohol was developed a bit later, and certainly wasn’t a commonly available item for many people, but an *excellent* choice if you’re not too fussed on your solution being period accurate!
If the 'whiff' is annoying, you could consider scenting with lavender, rosemary or similar. The sticky/tacky feel could be reduced with cornstarch (baby powder). This would be less likely to leave remnants as the graphite did.
Mmm, lamb and rosemary. Just need some potatoes at this point
I just love cleaning hacks. I doubt this particular one will be used in my non Viking life, but I do love to learn. The best tip I know is to use a mix of 50% white vinegar and 59% water to clean most anything in your house. Eg. Spots on the carpet, kitchen, table tops, the entire bathroom, etc. it also is great to put in a small mister to clean your nasty cell phone at the end of the day! Totally off topic, but maybe it will help someone. (Much less expensive that all those cleaners on the market!)
Soda crystals.
Are my non viking tip for life back.
I cleaned kids scooters with a wire brush and soda crystals and a shammy a bit like Jimmy with his chain mail.
But more domestic,
Shiny Shiny.
I have a question actually. For the Internet world.
How do you get the "Sheepy" smell out of natural wool?
I have transported the chunk O Sheepy wool on a train making no friends.
But I would like to not smell of "Pour du baaaa d stonk"
4everever
Ta.
Sticking it in the oven would probably have been easier than a hot air gun.
(Baking vegetable oil onto the mail, like seasoning a cast iron pan, might be a good rust resistant coating too. Might look odd though)
I thought the same thing about the oven, though (as Jimmy has pointed out in other comments) there's other issues with that, such as having cohabitants who are okay with you using the oven for that purpose. Hair dryers aren't very hot really (they're meant to remove a very small amount of water from a quite small volume of hair, without burning the hair-- a mail shirt is about 10x the volume of even my spouse's magnificent long locks, and if she uses a hair dryer it takes a half hour...)
Who would have thought that a lesson about cleaning a chain mail shirt could be so entertaining! Another brilliant video Jimmy 😃👍
Well, silly UA-cam captions don't seem to know what mail (or maille, or whichever spelling one uses) is, so they always call it a male shirt (I've seen this on other videos as well). LOL
I love the effort you go to to hide the brand of washing up liquid but any British person will instantly recognise it anyway! But yes, no free advertisements so I'm not saying the brand either.
Yeah, I wasn’t sure what the situation would be copyright wise so tried to play it safe Classic Blue Peter style!
@@TheWelshViking Biddy Baxter would be proud!
I’m not sure about the history, but a novel about the Crusades (from my father’s books so, early’50’s - ish) the squire put the chain mail in a cask of sand and rolled it around to clean it.
Very interesting! Just a hypothesis--your lanolin spray might cure (oxidise?) faster and more thoroughly if you can leave your hauberk in a place where air freely circulates around it.
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Its a very nice male, it looks good.
In Australia, there's an old reenactor's tale/tip that you put it in a clip lock box full of sand in the back of your car and take a windy road, or you get a small cement mixer full of sand and send it for 20min or so and it comes out like mithril shiny. I've also had friends use petrol to strip oil/other detritus, though give it a few days to air out before you wear it otherwise you'll get a bit of a headspin.
That said, I will definitely give this a go, as I swear the "affordable merchants" of the internet use what I swear must be used motor oil to lubricate/protect it from rust.
...couldn't you have used your oven to dry out the mail shirt?
Had I been given permission ;)
As I live in a house with a garden, I'd probably clean mail by overturning my gardening cart, putting one of my empty rain water collection barrels on top of the wheels so it can spin freely, toss the mail in along with a shovel of fine sand, a bucket of warm water and a dollop of pine soap, put the lid on and start spinning the barrel for a quarter hour.
Then take it out, hang it up on an IKEA clothes stand in the shower and rinse it off.
If satisfied with the result, dry it off with a bath towel while hanging and if nessesary, dry it at 50°C
thoroughly enjoyed this! there are soaps intended to lanolize wool diaper covers, in the states the main brand is eucalan. they have the benefit of rinsing and drying without becoming tacky, and if its not quite enough lanolin you can of course revisit the spray in a lighter application. i'm delighted to hear it stopped smelling of sheep once cured.
Very cool! Gotta admit, it was kinda surprising to hear lanolin mentioned as a non-sticky alternative coating since all the lanolin I have handled is very sticky. Certainly rust-proof, though! I've heard that's why spinners are told to store cards tooth-down in greasy wool.
That also protects you from the sharp points which will get you when you reach for it or forgot you put it on the bench and sit on it...not that I would know about that as an American colonial reenactor 😅
So now we know and I will have to remember. One of my kids is slowly making chain male eventually he will want to clean and protect from rust. He doesn't watch videos I send him and will be another one who doesn't have all his supplies together before starting. Thanks for the info!
Just use Mithril instead
I’ve done a couple of shirts with lanolin - the stickiness never goes (it’s been a few years). Overall I’m still a fan of the method, though I think you were wiser to use a nice spray rather than what I did, which was use more solid lanolin and sort of melt it in.
Why didn't you roll it up in a towel or blanket first to soak up some of the water? This is a serious question. I wonder how it would work to sprinkle baking soda on it to absorb the water? Then you could rub it off and polish it at the same time. I use baking soda to polish silver with a flannel rag.
When I first went out in my newly made chainmail, it was, unfortunately, at a wine soaked renn faire during a thunderstorm. I found myself drunk and alone singing in a field before several friends dragged me to shelter. When I sobered up, I also realized it is good to bring a change of clothing. Driving home in chain mail over wet linen and wool is NOT fun.
" I smel like sheep." really gave off "I smell like beef." vibes.
Edwin Tunis wrote that they used to put the mail in a barrel with oil and sand and rolled it around to remove rust and lubricate didn’t say how they got the sand out.
Had a old butted coif . I put wd40 and veg oil. put it in a plastic shopping bag. Left it for ages and it turned to jelly on it had to use petrol and boil it in oil pot to get the stuff off .
Outstanding!
I have used a cement mixer for de rusting some pretty sad mail in the past lol, this looks like it would definitely save the ear drums
No way! Yoy did the thing!! Did it work?!
@TheWelshViking yeah it didn't do too bad of a job! Was noisy as all hell though, neighbours definitely were glad when it was finished
Some e of my mates did this. Two points:
1. Ensure you take the blades out or it may tear it up.
2. Ensure the barrel is thoroughly cleaned prior or the maille ends up rusting worse than you started.
😂
I always wipe down the maille straight after and use a lanolin spray. WD40 just wasn't enough.
Where did you get your mail shirt? I would love a video about good quality sources for period correct gear for those of us who cant sew
I second this query. But if I had to guess I would say it looks like a Cap-a-Pie shirt. The company, being named Cap-a-Pie and being from Wales (i think). They make great maille shirts
Not sure if this is helpful but making a mail shirt is definitely nothing to do with sewing. Closer to blacksmithing probably, even. It's not too complicated to do, so long as you're patient and are willing to sacrifice some softness in your fingers.
Yes, providing sources for good kit would be a great boon. It's difficult to determine what's actually good from the internet.
Handy to know. Clean mail is happy mail. Could you pop it in the oven at 250F/120C? for a half hour or so to dry it?
But what sort of adventure would you have, with all your supplies ready to go before hand? :P
I read the title and all I could imagine was Jimmy chasing a small barrel filled with sand and his mail around his back garden.
I think I would try a hair dryer rather than a heat gun. It might take longer to dry, but there's less risk of scorch marks.
I'm very very curious how the story of the bonfire chainmail ended. Don't leave us hanging like this!
In one of the episodes of Worst Jobs In History with Time Team's favorite Tony Robinson, where they clean chainmail with pee and sand and nut shells or egg shells for extra scrubbing.
Also when I dry my giant cashmere and wool sweater I wrap my yoga ball in a blanket and put it in front of a fan. If you are smaller then you can let some air out. I do also re-lanolize my sweaters when i wash them. Which is handy for rain or washing dishes.