Drac has been cleaning chainmaille and thought he would share his thoughts.

Chainmaille, if made of steel, will rust. Rust is bad for chain, and for china.

Drac has chainmaille, Drac's chainmaille rusted lots.

Drac's background comes from cleaning guns, however chain provides a lot more logistical problems than guns when it comes to cleaning. Therefore there was a lot of harassassing TimB. Thankyou TimB for being wonderfully helpful.

In an attempt to note things down so I no longer have to harass TimB, and possibly prevent others from doing so.

Firstly cleaning chainmaille is the same as any other metal item:

1. Clean with cleaner to remove gunk.
2. Remove gunked cleaner
3. Apply thin coat of oil to surface to protect afterwards

The problem being stage 1, given chainmaille is not a solid object so doesn't sit still. Also, it is hard to get into all the gaps when manually cleaning. The solution is to try and use the chainmaille against itself - by moving it around you get the links to rub against each other, which if they are covered in the cleaning agent of your choice causing them to abrade each other and hopefully remove the crap.

Note that most maille is either rivetted or butted. Either way, it will have literally thousands of slightly sharp surfaces which will gradually wear through whatever you use to clean it with, followed by your skin if you do not notice in time.

The following are methods used and suggested:

Note: Tim strongly recommended against WD40 as either your oil or cleaning agent. WD40 is not kind to leather. Instead he reccomends motorcycle oil. Grayson (Olrich) recommends gun oil. I've personally been using motorcyle, haven't tried gun oil. Oxfordgirl personally reccomends Joker 440. Joker 440 is a spray-can dispensed motorcycle oil, designed to protect leather and metal. Because it is an aerosol, it easily penetrates into the weave of the maille.

1. Cleaning

Cover in oil then wear it

Simple enough, As you run around the rings bounce against each other.

Pros

• Simple
• Can be done at an event

Cons

• Your arming jacket gets covered in filthy oil and you smell like a garage
• Does not clean evenly
• Does not really work on ringmaille.

With ringmaile where there is little/no overlap gravity keeps the rings mostly in place so this isn't that effective.

Do not underestimate the difficulty of getting oil out of clothing. There is a reason most people who work with it have a dedicated set of crap clothes for doing so.

TimB notes: this is also the 'stitch in time' method. If you regularly oil your maille and wear it, you will drastically reduce how often you need to give it a major clean.

Autosol cream

• Get some autosol metal cleaner
• get a supply of teatowels
• put dollops of cleaner on an area of maille
• put a teatowel above and a teatowel below and rub your hands together

Pros

• You are in control of what gets cleaned
• Cleans very well
• Unlike oils, Autosol is a rust-removing cleaner, so will actively help you get rid of the oxide.
• There are stronger polishes on the market, but Autosol is loved by re-enactors specifically because it is non-toxic. If you get some residue of polish in a wound, it won't harm the victim- this is really relevant if you are wearing plate armour, where slight burrs can easily cut people.

Cons

• Death of many teatowels
• LONG! I watched most True blood whilst doing it
• May Unblack blackened chainmaille. See bottom note.

TimB notes: when using Autosol, always be sure to remove the last residue of the polish from the metal. Otherwise it will just corrode again, but harder to clean next time.

Oil

• Coat in oil
• Move/throw around a lot

Pros

• Must faster than autosol
• Throwing it nullifies gravities stabilisation effect so it cleans much better

Cons

• Finding a way to throw it around without getting oil everywhere.
• Unlike Autosol, oil in itself is not a rust-removing agent. You are relying on the movement of the rings against each other to scrape off the rust.

Handling the oil

• LRPStore: One of the guys at lrpstore uses an old pillowcase. He sprays the chain in oil, then puts the chain in an old pillowcase that has been sacrificed to the cause, then sprays that. The entire lot is put in a binbag or 2 then thrown/kicked around. After cleaning, the chain is left in a different oil-soaked pillowcase for storage.
• Drac: Drac acquired a 30 litre blue barrel. Chain is put in barrel, chain is covered in oil, barrel is kicked down hill. Rince and repeat. I did more cleaning in 20 minutes of barrel rolling than in 2 hours of Autosol. Did still leave small bits not cleaned, but that probably could be fixed with more rolling.
• Manual/small areas: Spray the affected area with the chain on the ground. Just shake that area around with your hand. Works very well on small patches, like the armpits if you are oxfordgirl and have acid sweat.

• Barrel method can be improved by using sand, which will add to the abrading. However I have no idea how to remove the sand afterwards.

2. Removing the Cleaner

This is problem number 2 - after you have used the cleaner you probably have a chainmail covered in dirty cleaning gunk. If you used Autosol and really rubbed properly then you can skip to the next stage.

Manual

Same way as the autosol - take 2 teatowels, put 1 either side of the chain and rub together, rubbing the oil off.

Pros

• Easy

Cons

• Takes ages
• Hard to do evenly/get complete cover as the chain shifts
• Hard to tell hat areas have been done on blackened chainmaille at least. Easier on brighter steel.

Sacrifice a shirt to the cause

• put on tesco value polo neck (best colour == white)
• put on chain
• take cloth and rub down chest until all oil removed onto cloth and shirt.
• when arms and front done, wear chain back to front and repeat

Pros

• fixes almost all the cons of the manual method

Cons

• sacrifice to god of clothing
• you look extremely dodgy, but probably have to do it outside.
• still takes a while
• hard to get everything off

Wash

I am theorising this, and it is probably not as crazy as it sounds.

It is how I clean my paintball gun: Soap, water and a scrubbing brush.

• Scrub chain thoroughily in bowel of very hot soapy water to remove all crap.
• Rinse
• Hand dry with long suffering tea towels.
• Immidately proceed to step 3 to coat in oil and drive out rest of moisture.

Pros

• very easy to remove all gunk

Cons

• You must remove all water/soap then re-oil thoroughly immedately.
• I've not tried it on chain, just paintball guns, from which I can guarantee the first bullet!

Sacrifice a sheet or 2 to the cause

Theoretical method to try for next time to do with my barrel

• Take sheet
• stuff sheet inside chain, making sure chain is padded out, including arms
• Take second sheet
• wrap chain in 2nd sheet.
• Place in barrel
• roll repeatedly down hill.

This should clean off the worst of the gunk

Pros

• Quicker than doing it manually

Cons

• will probably require manual "finishing"

3. Re-oil

Once you have cleaned the gunk off, you want a thin layer of oil left on to protect the metal from further rusting.

Choose one of the methods from stage 2 and adapt it. When dealing with solid surfaces less is definately more. Chain is more difficult to do.

Problem is, as you wear the chain the links will rub together, rubbing off your oil layer, so you will need to reapply it, ideally after every event. In persective, 3 days of Cavalcade removed enough oil from my chain that it started rusting by the end due to the rain.

LESS IS MORE. If for no other reason than because it will also rub off on you! Anyone who saw me after the last few events of TT may have noticed that my forearms were a lot blacker than the rest of me, that was all oil!

Blackened Chain

When I got my chain it was very black - anodised rings or some such.

Now, a combination of rust, autosol and oil cleaning appears to have taken off a lot of the blackness. Most of it is now merely "dark grey/gunmetal".

TimB notes: the dark grey look is one of the most authentic looks for both maille and plate armour. Most medieval armour was painted, heat treated or russeted to prevent corrosion. Such armour as was left bare would almost universally have had this grey, oiled look.

You have been warned, prevention (eg regular oiling) is better than cure!

Plate

A quick note on plate.

It being a solid layer, for plate I highly recommend autosol, it has worked like a charm. After you have polished the rust away rub a bit of oil into the plate as a protective layer.

Oxfordgirl has resotred to a dremel and power sander for removing massive amounts of rust from plate in the past.

Advice? Suggestions? Personal experience? Please add!

Question from an ignoramus: does all this also apply to stainless steel chain? --Locksmith

I've had my stainless steel chain for eight years now, and have never cleaned or oiled it, it still seems to be just as shiny. I'm also happy to wear it over a velvet doublet, as it doesnt shed oil and rust flakes! --Zebbie