Hamata rust prevention

[Gordak]

Ok, I bought 2 riveted shirts, cut the seeves off of one, and cut the other into a doubler.

Both were covered with bright silver gavinization, 22 hours in a bucket of vinegar and they are now a dark grey color.

My original plan was to let them rust and then hit them with a rust converter paint, (i was told it has the exact same apearance as the burnt oil method)

I really like the natural metal color that it is right now, though i can see its going to rust like hell.

I am at a critical crosroads, what ever I do now is how my hamata is going to look for a long time!!!

should just keep it how it is, and oil the links constantly?

any suggestions???
HELP!!!


-Similis

[FAVENTIANVS]

Well, that depends on your taste, I personally like some bright brownish tone...

[A_Volpe]

Go Shiny, Gordak!

Keep the rust off for as long as you can, and enjoy the shiny-ness

[Dan Howard]

Galvanising was done on mail in India and probably in the Middle East too during the Middle Ages. Don't know when this practice was first performed though. It may not be completely out of period to leave mail galvanised (it is certainly more authentic than stainless steel). The Romans tinned some of their iron. Might be a better alternative.

[FAVENTIANVS]

What's the chemical basis of galvanization?

[Gordak]

I dont quite know how its made, but ss soon as the gavlinisation hits vineger it really starts to bubble!

Ive decided to go with bear Iron, becasue i really like the color, and just oil and a brush keeps it pretty clean.

Roman soldiers spent alot more time polishing and cleaning their equipment rahter than fighting. Im sure a suit of Hamata was a treasure to be painstakinlgy maintained.

-Similis

[Matt Lukes]

Rolling mail around in sand is apparently a very effective way of keeping it fairly shiny and corrosion- free. The setup is often a sort of slow mixer that rotates a drum containing sand and the mail much the way a portable cement mixer or a clothes dryer does. It should be fairly easy to construct such an apparatus- hand-rotated being the easiest, although most tiring, power source.

[Arne Joakim]

Galvanizing is a modern invention. Galvanized steel is covered by a zinc plating and zinc wasn't discovered before 18nth century.

However, they tinned their hamatas but that is entirely different.

AJ

[Matt Lukes]

zinc wasn't discovered before 18nth century.

Well it might not have been recognized as a element until the 18th century, but since it's the major alloying metal in brass, it definitely was known in the ancient world in at least some form.

Given how much rubbing against one another that the rings of mail do, I'd be very surprised if any form of tinning/ silvering would last very long- so I'm curious: what evidence is there that they did this?

Matt

[Arne Joakim]

Well it might not have been recognized as a element until the 18th century, but since it's the major alloying metal in brass, it definitely was known in the ancient world in at least some form.
Matt

Yes, but only as a mineral called calamine and in brass, not in pure metallic form. By reducing calamite and together with copper it is absorbed by copper and a brass alloy is formed. It is thereby possible to make brass without even knowing that zinc is a metal. It is the high reactivity and low boiling point( the Romans didn't know how to handle metallic vapor :wink: ) of zinc that made it so difficult to isolate, which explains why it was unknown except as a mineral and alloy component until 18nth c.
They definitely knew that it existed, but had no way to know about it as a pure metal.

AJ

[Erik D. Schmid]

Zinc as a metal was unknown in Europe until the 17th century. However, the zinc isotope was isolated in the 12th century in India. They galvanized their mail to protect it from oxidation as it was quite often sandwiched between two layers of fabric. How they did this is open to debate.

The method used to tin mail is also something that has yet to be determined.

[Gordak]

Very interesting!!!

I belive even though the tin would wear off the rings, it would cling around the rivet, (the place where the rust is the hardest to clean off) So It would still be an advantage to tin it,

how to tin it, that is one hell of a question.

I can only immagine that the wire was tinned Before it was made into rings????

-Similis

[Erik D. Schmid]

The garment would have been tinned after being made. If the wire was tinned prior to being made into links, the link manufacturing process would destroy the tinning.

There are tinned pieces from the 16th century that look for all intents and purposes to have been airbrushed the tinning is so fine. If they were hot dipped then the process used is far and above anything we can do today. The only thing that comes close is modern electroplating. It is possible that they also used an immersion process, but without the use of an electrical current.

[richsc]

There is a chemical method of transferring copper or other metals to iron, using jeweler's pickle, but I don't know if Roman alchemists would have figured this out.