What is the best way to remove rust from a chainmail shirt?
If your chainmail shirt develops some surface rust, it is important to remove the rust from your chainmail shirt. Mail rings are thin, so if you leave the rust, they will break and need to be replaced.
There are two ways to remove rust from mail.
Chemical cleaning
You can remove rust from mail quite easily using a rust removal product, which you can purchase at a hardware store.
Let the mail soak for a while, rinse off the rust removal product with water, and let the mail dry.
Once dry, treat the chainmail shirt with oil to prevent it from rusting again.
Mechanical cleaning
Mechanical cleaning involves using abrasion to remove the rust. If there is only a very small amount of rust, you can simply rub the mail against itself or wear it for an extended period.
If there is too much rust on your chainmail shirt, you can 'tumble' the chainmail shirt. A rotary tumbler would be the best option, as vibrating tumblers often cannot handle the size and weight of a larger mail piece, such as a chainmail shirt.
You could use a cement mixer drum, but you must first remove the paddles from the drum.
To tumble your chainmail shirt, you need to place a tumbling medium (walnut shells, bran, steel balls, etc.) in the drum along with the mail. This tumbling medium is responsible for abrading the mail. Fun fact: in the Middle Ages, people would put their chainmail shirt in a barrel and roll it down a hill to remove the rust.
When the rust is removed, you must oil the mail again before storing it to prevent it from rusting immediately again.
