Chainmaw Hand Forged High Carbon Steel Medieval Flail | 27 Inch Overall with a 20 Inch Haft | American Walnut Haft and Polished Steel Ferrules | Reenactment Collector Gift | RK-1356

A single spiked ball on a forged chain, hung from a swivel at the end of a walnut haft. The ball and chain flail has a strange reputation, because it is everywhere in film and games and almost nowhere in the archaeological record. What survives in quantity from medieval Europe is the peasant flail, a threshing tool with a wooden striking arm, and its military descendant the two handed war flail. The one handed ball and chain that everyone pictures is genuinely rare in period sources, which is exactly why a properly forged one is worth owning as an object rather than as a prop.

Forged, heat treated and finished in our shop in Memphis, Tennessee, hardened and drawn to 54 to 58 HRC and polished bright. It ships with the leather wrist strap shown, free anywhere in the United States, and it can be engraved with Elder Futhark runes or a Viking pattern before it leaves the bench.

Specifications

What the chain actually changes

Put a head on a chain and you give up the one thing a mace does best, which is putting the mass exactly where you aimed it. What you get back is worth understanding. A chain hung head keeps accelerating after your hand has stopped, so the impact speed at the end of a swing is higher than a rigid haft of the same length can produce. It will also go round the edge of a raised shield or a parrying arm instead of being stopped by it, because the flexible link lets the ball continue on its own arc.

The cost is control, and it is a real cost. A flail cannot be checked mid swing, cannot be recovered quickly, and is perfectly capable of coming back at the person holding it. That is the honest reason the form stayed marginal in real warfare and thrived in fiction. The chain here is forged link by link and closed by hand, and it runs on a swivel at the haft so the ball can turn freely on any axis rather than binding on the second swing.

Why 1095 high carbon steel and not stainless

Every plain steel piece in this group is forged from 1095, a simple high carbon steel with roughly one percent carbon and very little else in it. That plainness is the point. A steel with nothing but iron and carbon to argue about moves predictably under the hammer, takes a clean quench, and comes back to a hardness a smith can actually hold to. These are hardened and drawn to 54 to 58 HRC, which is deliberately a touch softer than a kitchen knife. A head that has to survive impact wants to bend and rebound rather than chip, and 1095 in that range absorbs a bad hit instead of losing a piece of itself.

Stainless alloys buy their rust resistance with chromium, and above about thirteen percent that chromium ties up carbon in carbides that make the steel harder to forge and more brittle at the edge. On a small folding knife that trade is fine. On a head that lands with the weight of a haft behind it, it is not. The cost of choosing 1095 is that it will rust if you leave it wet. Wipe it, oil it, and it will outlast you. There is more on that trade in our guide to Damascus versus stainless.

The hardwood haft

The haft is close grained hardwood, turned to a slight taper so the hand finds the same place on it every time and sanded through the grits before it takes its oil finish. Dense hardwood is chosen over a softwood for a reason that has nothing to do with looks. A dense stave carries the shock of a heavy head into the wood rather than letting it stop at your palm, and it holds a ferrule or a langet tight for years instead of shrinking away from the fitting after one dry winter.

The finish is oil, not lacquer, which is a deliberate choice. Lacquer looks perfect until it chips, then water gets under it and you cannot fix it without stripping the whole handle. Oil wears gradually and is repaired by wiping more oil on. Once or twice a year, a thin coat of boiled linseed or a proprietary handle oil, twenty minutes to soak, then wipe off what has not gone in. See wooden handle care.

Engraving, runes and your own design

Use the rune converter on this page to turn a name, a date or a short phrase into Elder Futhark and we will cut it into the steel or the handle. If you would rather have a Viking pattern than a rune line, choose your own design in the engraving option above the add to cart button and tell us whether it goes on the blade or the handle. Where a piece already carries an engraved design, your chosen engraving replaces it rather than sitting alongside it.

Engraving is cut by hand after the piece is finished and before final oiling, so keep the line short and let it sit where the eye already goes. Names, dates, a line of a poem, a maker mark, a unit or a crew number all work. If you are unsure where a line should sit, send us the text and we will suggest a placement before we cut. Full details and examples are on the engraving page.

Care and sharpening

Carbon steel rusts. That is the only demanding thing about owning it. Wipe the steel down after handling, because fingerprints are salt and moisture and they will etch a bright surface in a week if you let them sit. A thin film of mineral oil, gun oil or paste wax on the metal is enough to keep it stable indoors. If the piece lives on a wall in a room that swings between damp and dry, check it every few months and re oil. Left alone in a garage or a basement it will spot, and once it spots the mark is permanent even after the rust is removed.

The edge is finished sharp from the forge and does not need attention until it stops biting. When it does, a coarse then fine whetstone, kept wet, held at the angle the bevel already carries, will bring it back in a few minutes. Do not take a powered grinder to it. Our guides cover steel care and sharpening with a whetstone in more detail.

Forged in Memphis

This is made in our shop in Memphis, Tennessee. Nothing in this listing is drop shipped from an importer catalogue and nothing is bought in finished and re labelled. The steel is cut, heated, drawn and shaped here, the heat treat is done here, and the fitting and finishing are done here by the same small crew. That is also why the lead time is honest rather than instant. Pieces in stock ship within two to three business days. If yours has to be made, or if you have asked for engraving, allow two to three weeks before it leaves the shop. We will tell you which it is when you order rather than after. Shipping inside the United States is free.

A note on handmade variation

This is hand forged. It is not machine made, not cast and not bulk produced, so what arrives will not be a pixel for pixel copy of the photograph on this page. The grain of the wood, the tone the steel takes from the fire and the oil, the exact run of a pattern, the precise curve of a profile, all of it shifts a little from one piece to the next because each one is worked by hand from natural materials. Two hafts cut from the same board will not read the same. Two etched blades from the same billet will not carry the same swirl.

What does not change is the specification. Dimensions, steel, hardness, fittings and build are the same every time. The character is the part that is yours alone, and it is the reason to buy something forged rather than something stamped.

Frequently asked questions

Are the spikes on the ball sharp?

They are pointed but dressed with material behind them rather than taken to a needle. That is correct for the type and it stops the points bending. They will still puncture anything soft, so treat the head with respect.

Can I swing it or use it for reenactment?

No. A live steel flail is the least controllable weapon there is and it will injure the person holding it as readily as anyone else. It is sold for display, collections and film or stage work.

Can I have runes engraved on it?

Yes. Use the rune converter on this page for Elder Futhark or choose your own Viking pattern. On a flail the practical surfaces are the steel ferrule at the head of the haft or the flat between the spike rows.

Will mine look like the photograph?

The steel, the ball size and the chain length will match. The walnut grain differs on every haft and the chain links are forged individually, so no two chains hang in quite the same way.

What is the difference between this and a morning star mace?

A morning star fixes the spiked head to the haft. This hangs it on a chain. The mace is accurate and controllable, the flail is faster at the moment of impact and much harder to handle. Historically the mace was far more common.

How long does shipping take?

Two to three business days to leave the shop if it is in stock, two to three weeks if it is being made or engraved. Shipping inside the United States is free and tracking is sent when it ships.

What is in the box

• One hand forged single ball flail in 1095 high carbon steel
• American walnut haft with polished steel ferrules and swivel
• Hand forged chain and spiked ball head
• Leather wrist strap and care notes
• Forged and finished in Memphis, Tennessee

Explore the range

More in flails, maces, war axes and viking weapons, and read the guides.