Here it is... about 3 weeks late, but here it is.

This is my hauberk, original design by myself with the aid of a tutorial for the shoulder areas because I thought the design was awesome.

The cross inlay is of my own design, there are many many crosses out there so I'm sure it looks a lot like something you may have seen but let me assure you that I spent about 4 hours planning and weaving that inlay myself.

In all there's around 60 hours worth of work, 26,000ish rings (in the neighborhood of $200 worth) final weight comes in at 22 1/2 lbs which makes people ask me "and you wear that?"

The rings are all 16g 1/4" rings in galvanized steel and bronze. This hauberk is considered armor grade by most, though I'm sure some die-hards would have me rivet or weld the rings to be sure, and I'm not about to do that any time soon.

I'm a small guy and this was a major undertaking, for average sized people and especially the larger people, the amount of work and material would be immense. For this reason I do not intend to sell any items such as this until I have a reliable source of income and some sign of demand for the effort and cost that I put into a project of this type.

Perhaps I will do commission vests that would not include sleeves and would only go to the waist or just barely below. These vests would use either 16g 5/16" rings or 18g 1/4" rings to lighten my work load. Also, depending on how little a customer cared for "accuracy" I would make the rings aluminum instead of steel which would 1) reduce weight to 1/3 the weight of a steel shirt. 2) reduce cost both to me and the customer because aluminum is cheaper than the steel, weighs less so less shipping, and is a slightly softer metal so it would be quicker to work. and 3) The Aluminum I would use is clean as opposed to steel which over time oxidizes and will leave clothes gray after use. Finally 1 more advantage of aluminum is that anodized aluminum comes in all kinds of colors, so for a little extra cost I can make inlays (like my cross there) in various other colors. Keep in mind I'm not very artistic but I can see what I can do.

So, What this means is, the vest you would order would most likely not be armor-grade which means you should not have someone take a sword to you (which is advisable anyway regardless of grade) and also means that it may not hold up quite as long, though with proper care should last a good long time. It also means that the vest would weigh substantially less (perhaps only 5 pounds on the high end), making it great to wear for longer periods of time.

So! let me know what you think of my work here, and send a note to me if you're interested in a purchase and I'll see what I can do about accommodating you.