Long Sleeve LARP Hauberk

(About): The Roleplayer’s Best Friend

Our Long Sleeve LARP Hauberk is the perfect suit of chainmail for any aspiring LARP knight. It is made from a combination of butted aluminum rings and grey rubber rings, meaning that it is both lightweight and extremely easy to don and doff – as well as being much cheaper than an all-riveted suit. Not all LARPers are lucky enough to have a squire to assist them! With it, you can spend longer on the field of battle feeling fresh and energetic, and less time getting tangled up in the dressing room.

A Suit of Shining Aluminum

In the medieval era, chainmail was made mostly from iron, with high-quality tempered steel chainmail emerging in the 15th-century CE. But these historical long sleeve chainmails had their drawbacks. Ferric metals (ie. iron and steel) are prone to rust, and they required constant maintenance by armorers and careful storage to keep them corrosion free. As well, a full ferric chainmail outfit is heavy – it could be worn for battle, but a hauberk would be exhausting to wear for a prolonged period.

Aluminum chainmail is designed to address all of these drawbacks for the modern roleplayer. Unsurprisingly, we cannot really think of aluminum as a period-appropriate material for 100% faithful medieval re-enactment. Medieval people did not have Cola cans or aircraft, and so did not need metallic aluminum. Nevertheless, for those who are willing to bend slightly on slavish historical accuracy, it’s a fantastic material for roleplay and re-enactment. A long sleeve chainmail hauberk made from aluminum is about half the weight of a similar iron or steel maille suit. This makes it a much more user-friendly garment: it is far easier to wear for long periods and less exhausting during strenuous activity, meaning you can don it at the start of your adventuring day, and doff it at the end, without having to take breaks. Aluminum is also highly corrosion resistant – it is always ‘pre-corroded’, so to speak: the surface of aluminum forms a hard, stable layer of aluminum oxide that protects the pure metallic aluminum underneath). This means our aluminum Long Sleeve LARP Hauberk can put up with more abuse in the field – where ferric chainmails have to be kept dry at all costs, aluminum is more forgiving (although we thoroughly recommend you always dry your armor before storage). The only drawback for aluminum chainmail is that it is not rated for contact combat, as aluminum is more likely to crack and break than iron or steel, which are harder and tend to bend. But if you are looking for a long sleeve chainmail hauberk to wear for roleplay or non-contact re-enactment (eg. Renn Faire or similar), then you need look no further!

Butted Rings and Rubber In Disguise

The design of our Long Sleeve LARP Hauberk is calibrated to make it the perfect outfit for a LARP / roleplayer. Historically, chainmail was usually made from rings that were extruded from wire and then riveted in place, either with short lengths of wire peened in place, or wedged shut with metal slivers. However, this was enormously time-consuming – especially when an average suit of chainmail might contain as many as 25,000 rivets! This long sleeve chainmail hauberk is made from butted rings, which are simply closed shut with pliers. Although this means does not produce chainmail that will stand up to combat, it is an enormously more labor-efficient process which still produces chainmail more than robust enough for the rigors of active roleplay and re-enactment – at a far more affordable price-point. It is also far easier to repair than riveted chainmail – should the worst happen, all you need to do is thread a new aluminum wire ring into place, close it shut with pliers and return to the fray.

As an added bonus, the expert chainmail-makers at House of Warfare have added grey rubber rings into the chainmail, indistinguishable from the aluminum links. These provide vital extra flex and stretch in the chainmail at vital points so that it is far easier to put on, and also much more resilient and less likely to come apart. All in all, this is truly the roleplayer’s best friend: an affordable, fantastic-looking suit of chainmail that is featherlight and magically easy to put on. We at Medieval Ware give it five stars!

Looking for a different Hauberk? Check out this other option!

(Curiosity): Aluminum: Why Medieval Life Was So Colourful

Although metallic aluminum wasn’t isolated until the 19th-century, aluminum was still a huge part of medieval society. Alum, a mineral salt of aluminum, was an enormously important component of everyday medieval life: it was a vital mordant in the medieval dyeing industry. Cloth made from flax or wool was dyed with various natural colors and then bathed in alum solution to fix the dye in place. Medieval life is nowhere near as monotone and brown as some depictions would have it; almost all colors would have been available from natural dyes – reds, oranges, greens, blues – only rare colours like deep royal purple would have been hard to achieve with a few locally available plants. Praise be to aluminum!

Complete the kit! Check out this selection of tabards to go above your chainmail:

Sir Galahad Tabard

Medieval Knight Tabard

Medieval Suede Tunic

Technical Specifications:

• • Material: Aluminum / Rubber
  • Ring type: Round
  • Rivet type: Butted
  • Ring size: 10mm
  • Configuration: 4-in-1
  • Weight: Various, see Sizing

• Sizing: