Mail Shirt - East Europe / Prob. 2nd half XV cent.

[Jim McDougall]

Originally Posted by fernando

Far from intending to go off topic, but this is indeed a subject rather tempting to raise.
I live less than a mile away from the salty Atlantic coast, and every time i pick up an old sword (or gun) from the walls for whatever reason, i am horrified with how fast topic rust invades the upper areas. Yes, only the upper areas. Whatever recipe of moister and dust creates in the air above and then falls down for assault on top of them.



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Well noted Fernando. that was the term I was looking for ,'topical' rust.
I first came across this apparently consistent phenomenon when reading of arms and armor which resided over long periods as funerary relics in churches' tombs.
Not at all off topic, as one topic queried here has been the variation in the condition of period mail and what might cause some to be better preserved than others.
It is well known in 'arms forensics' that surprisingly some swords found in river beds or in many cases even ocean deposits where silt is so compacted, they are in better condition than those deposited in earth.
This has to do with goethite ? mineral reactions from within the metal.
Uh, that is the extent of my empirical scientific knowledge on this.

I had an old cannonball that sat in my desk for many years. One day it literally disintegrated into a heap of ferric residue, literally having corroded from within! despite it being static for so many years.
This returns to the possible levels or degree of purity ? of the iron used in certain instances, where weapons and armor were more 'worked'..perhaps.