BACKGROUND Chain mail is a material which initially was used to make flexible armour and which generally consisted of small rings of metal, or in later years a plastic material, which were linked together to form a mesh or garment. Chain mail can also be used in many situations such as fashion, body adornments, screens, security screens, or in other locations such as decorations.

Several ways of making chain mail and of linking the rings to form the mail are well known. The usual method is to form a pattern of a 1 to 4 ratio where each ring is linked to four other rings. Other patterns such as 1 to 2 and 1 to 6 are also known.

Historically metal rings from which the chain mail was made were riveted or welded shut and these rings were joined to other rings to form the mail. Chain mail was also made by utilizing split spring steel wire or washers as rings In such a case a split ring would be joined to another ring by using an implement such as a pair of pliers which is used to bend the washer open and then allowing the metal to spring back into shape to secure the ring to the other rings.

The rings can also be formed such as by an injection moulding process of a suitable plastic material or by cutting cross sections from the end of a plastic pipe. The process requires the manufacture of closed rings and open rings and the open rings are then joined to the closed rings in the desired pattern and the open ends of the rings are mechanically fastened, welded or adhered closed such as by the application of heat or an adhesive or solvent.

Another form of mesh/mail consists in assembling initially open rings to closed rings. The open rings were generally formed of a material that incorporates a degree of elasticity and resilience so that to assemble a chain using such rings, the open rings are temporarily deformed to open the joint in the ring which is then engaged on a

contiguous ring. When the deforming pressure is released, the ends of the ring will spring together to form an effectively closed ring. This type of ring can be manufactured only from a limited range of materials because of the requirement for resiliency and flexibility of the ring. Chain mail which incorporates such type of rings has an inherent disadvantage in that only a limited amount of stretching force could be applied to the chain before a ring or rings would deform thereby allowing the joints to open and the chain to fall apart.

PRIOR ART US Patent specification 948,615 (Pratt) discloses a machine for manufacturing link mesh which is now known as chain mail and which is composed of wire formed into rings with the ends of each piece of wire being soldered to form a ring.

US Patent specification 1,028, 904 (Pratt) relates to improvements in the machine disclosed in US 948, 615 and is concerned with supporting the link mesh during the manufacture of the mesh.

Various applications for chain mail have also been disclosed and examples of these are: US Patent specification 3284806 (Prasser) discloses a protective garment such as a diving suit made of a cellular elastomeric substance in which metal mesh, such as chain mail is embedded for the purpose of providing the wearer with protection against abrasion from for instance coral and also to provide protection against bites from fish.

The specification describes the mesh as being a plurality of intermeshed rings but no description is provided of the method of manufacture of the rings.

Another application is disclosed in US Patent specification 4,356, 569 (Sullivan) where a diving suit is disclosed which has a surface in which metal mesh or chain mail is embedded. No disclosure is given of any method of manufacture of the chain mail.

US Patent specification 4,471, 495 (Kruse) discloses a metal mesh protective glove made from a mesh of interlocking metal rings and is concerned primarily with a strap which is used to buckle the glove in place.

US Patent specification 4,565, 539 (Tsuji) discloses a metal mesh network of chain mail which is described as being manufactured by securing metal rings to joining members which are called unit piece members in a manner that four rings are secured to each unit piece member.

US Patent specification 4,599, 751 (Bouwhuis) discloses an undergarment which is composed of chain mail or a soft polymeric material. There is no disclosure of how the chain mail is manufactured.

US Patent specification 5,511, 241 (Ziegler) discloses a chain mail fabric such as a chain mail glove. The chain mail is described as being interconnected wire rings Chain mail formed using the above techniques exhibits an inherent weakness because any ring is made with a weld or a join, will form the weakest part of the sheet of mail. In addition, because of the necessity to individually weld the join, the cost of manufacture and of the labour involved was excessive.

While it is also known to produce chain mail from a plastic material, prior to the present invention, no successful form of manufacture has been proposed because of the need to use open rings and then to join the open ends of the rings. In addition it was not possible to produce chain mail by continuously adding rings to an edge of the mail, that would produce a continuous sheet of the mail without one or more of the above inherent weaknesses.

OBJECT OF THE INVENTION It is therefore an object of this invention to provide an improved method of manufacturing chain mail composed of a plastic or mouldable material that will overcome the above known disadvantages.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION Accordingly one form of the invention may be said to comprise apparatus for manufacturing chain mail comprising interlocking rings each having a solid circumference, the apparatus including: a first die block (9) having a first working face (9a) which includes at least two spaced apart rows of cavities (11,12) with the cavities (12) being of greater depth from the working face (9a) of the block (9) than the cavities (11), wherein each cavity (11) is adapted to receive a vertically oriented first ring (1,3) and each cavity (12) is adapted to receive a vertically oriented second ring (2,4) and a portion of the first ring (1,3) and wherein the exposed faces of the first rings (1,3) will lie substantially flush with the working face (9a) of the first die block (9), a member (13) having a working face (13a) to contact the working face (9a) of the first die block (9) and form a part line between the first die block (9) and the member (13), a second die block (10) having a working face (lOa) adapted to engage with a second working face (9b) of the first die block (9) and having a part line (lOb), a third die block (14) having a working face (14a) adapted to contact a working face (13b) of the member (13) and having a part line (14b), the die blocks (9,10, 14) and the member (13) being constructed that when assembled the working face (9a) of the die block (9) and the member (13) and the part line (lOb) of the die block (10) and the part line (14b) of die block (14) will be in alignment and further wherein the second working face (9b) of the first die block and the working face (lOa) of the second die block (10) each have a rebate and the working face (14a) of the third die block (14) and the second working face (13b) of the member 13 each have a rebate in a manner that when the die blocks (9,10, 14) and the member (13)

are assembled, the rebates will form a cavity (15) in which the horizontally oriented ring (5) can be moulded, the construction and arrangement being that subsequent to the first rings (1) and the second rings (2) being inserted into the respective cavities (11,12), the die blocks (9, 10,14) and the member (13) can be assembled and clamped together and moulding material injected into the cavity (15) to mould the ring (5) to interconnect the rings (1,2, 3,4).

In another form the invention may be said to comprise a method of forming chain mail composed of rings have a solid circumference utilising the apparatus which includes a first die block (9) having a first working face (9a) which includes at least two spaced apart rows of cavities (11,12) with the cavities (12) being of greater depth from the working face (9a) of the block (9) than the cavities (11), wherein each cavity (11) is adapted to receive a vertically oriented first ring (1, 3) and each cavity (12) is adapted to receive a vertically oriented second ring (2,4) and a portion of the first ring (1,3) and wherein the exposed faces of the first rings (1, 3) will lie substantially flush with the working face (9a) of the first die block (9), a member (13) having a working face (13a) to contact the working face (9a) of the first die block (9) and form a part line between the first die block (9) and the member (13), a second die block (10) having a working face (lOa) adapted to engage with a second working face (9b) of the first die block (9) and having a part line (lOb), a third die block (14) having a working face (14a) adapted to contact a working face (13b) of the member (13) and having a part line (14b), the die blocks (9,10, 14) and the member (13) being constructed that when assembled the working face (9a) of the die block (9) and the member (13) and the part

line (lOb) of the die block (10) and the part line (14b) of die block (14) will be in alignment and further wherein the second working face (9b) of the first die block and the working face (lOa) of the second die block (10) each have a rebate and the working face (14a) of the third die block (14) and the second working face (13b) of the member 13 each have a rebate in a manner that when the die blocks (9,10, 14) and the member (13) are assembled, the rebates will form a cavity (15) in which the horizontally oriented ring (5) can be moulded, the method comprising forming a plurality of rings (1,2) from a mouldable material, inserting a ring (2) into a first cavity (12) in the first die block (9) and inserting a ring (1) into a second cavity (11) and into the first cavity (12) of the first die block, clamping together the die blocks (9,10, 14) and the member (13) in a manner that the face (lOa) of the die block (10) will contact the face (9b) of the die block (9) and the face (14a) of the die block 14 will contact the face (13b) of the member (13) and the part lines (lOb, 14b) of the die blocks (10, 14) will meet and the work faces (9a, 13a) of the die block (9) and the member (13) will meet to form a continuous part line between the assembled blocks, and to form a cavity (15) in which the horizontal ring (5) can be moulded, injecting mouldable material into the cavity (15) to form the horizontally oriented ring (5) and withdrawing the die blocks (10,14) to expose the horizontally orientated ring 5, withdrawing the member (13) to expose the work face (9a) of the die block (9), removing the rings (1,2) from the second and first cavities (11,12), inserting the row of rings (1) into the first cavities (12) and locating a new set of rings (1) into the second cavities (11) and into the first cavities (12) of the die block (9) reassembling the component parts and injecting mouldable material into the cavity (15) to repeat the process.

Preferably the removal of the rings (1,2) from the cavities (11,12) is performed automatically.

Preferably the apparatus includes equipment to enable the rings (1,2) to be automatically located within the cavities (11,12).

Preferably the rings (1,2) are moulded as part of the process and are automatically re-located from the moulding/introduction position into the cavities (11,12).

Preferably wherein the rings (1,2) are introduced as part of the process and are automatically inserted into the cavities (11,12).

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS A preferred form of the invention will now be described with the aid of the accompanying drawings wherein Figure 1 is a view of a typical 1 to 4 ratio set of rings as moulded by the apparatus of the present invention.

Figure 2 is a diagrammatic front view of rings moulded by the apparatus of the present invention.

Figure 3 is a diagrammatic end view of a set of moulded rings.

Figure 4 is a sectional view through part of a typical die illustrating cavities required to secure or to mould the rings.

Figure 5 is a further sectional view of part of a series of die blocks utilised for the present invention.

BEST MODE OF PERFORMING THE INVENTION The following disclosure describes a preferred method of manufacturing chain mail composed of mouldable material interlocking rings having a solid circumference, that is the rings do not have a joint.

Referring to the drawings, Figure 1 illustrates a part of a chain mail formed of a series of interconnected rings in which the ring 5 interconnects four rings 1, 2,3 and 4.

In the following description and claims, the terms vertically orientated and horizontally orientated are utilised to distinguish between the orientation of the rings during the manufacture of the chain mail. In this description and claims, the rings 1, 2,3 and 4 are referred to as being orientated vertically and the ring 5 is referred to as being orientated horizontally. It is to be understood however that provided the orientation of the rings 1, 2,3 and 4 is normal to the orientation of the ring 5 during manufacture, the actual physical orientation is not important.

The injection moulding machine on which the chain mail is manufactured includes a die block 9 having a working face 9a and 9b and a die block 10 having a working face 10a and a part line 10b.

The working face 9a of the die block 9 has two spaced apart rows of cavities 11 and 12. The rings 1,2, 3 and 4 are all pre-moulded and the ring 5 is moulded when the rings 1,2, 3 and 4 have been inserted into the respective cavities in the die blocks and the various integers of the apparatus have been clamped together as will be further described.

A pre-moulded ring 1 is inserted into the cavity 11 and the pre-moulded ring 2 is inserted into the cavity 12 which as illustrated is twice the depth of the cavity 11 to enable the face la of the ring 1 to lie flush with the working face 9a of the die block 9.

It will be appreciated that the die block 9 includes a plurality of cavities 11 and 12 so that a series of rings 1,2 and 3,4 can be inserted into the cavities with each cavity being horizontally spaced apart a distance G (see Figure 2).

The working face 9b of the die block 9 and the working face 1 Oa of the die block 10 are each formed with rebates so that when the working faces 9b and 10a are brought together as illustrated in Figure 5, part of a cavity 15 is formed in which the horizontally orientated ring 5 will be moulded.

A die block 14, see Figure 5, has a working face 14a so that when the die block is assembled with the die block 10, the working face 14a will be co-planar with the working face 10a of the die block 10. The die block 14 also includes a face that will form a part line 14b which when the component parts are assembled lie flush against the part line 10b of the die block 10.

A removable member 13 has a working face 13 a and a working face 13b and in the form of the invention herein disclosed will, when the component parts are assembled, lie between a portion of the die block 14 and the working face 9a of the die block 9 with the working face 13a of the member 13 contacting the working face 9a of the die block 9. The working face 13b of the member 13 and or the die block 14 or both the member 13 and the die block includes a rebate so that when the component parts are assembled, the rebate will form the remainder of the cavity 15 in which the horizontally orientated ring 5 will be moulded.

A suitable injection port 16 is formed in the die block 14 to enable mouldable material to be injected/introduced into the cavity 15 to form the horizontally orientated ring 5. The horizontal distance A, see Figure 2, between contiguous cavities 15 is set by the injection process tolerance while the distance B (see Figure 3) from the lower face of the ring 5 is equivalent to the distance between the working face 10a and the faces 10c on the underside of the die blocks 10 and 14 to form a chamfer 20 (see Figure 5).

The distance C is the maximum offset of the rings 1 and 2 and this is determined by the position of the lower horizontal ring 7 (see Figure 2) and the distance from the bottom of the ring 5 to provide an optimum position and therefore sets the position of the butting faces of the die blocks 9 and 10.

The distance D (see Figure 3) is the optimum position to the face of the ring 1 while the distance D of Figure 4 illustrates the distance from the outside edge of the cavity 15 and the vertical face 10a of the die block 10.

To manufacture the chain mail, a lower row of pre-moulded rings 2,4 is inserted into the cavities 12 and are pushed home so the rear face of the rings will contact the root of the cavity 12. The pre-moulded rings 1,3 are then inserted into the upper cavities 11 and into the exposed portion of the cavities 12. It will be appreciated that while it is possible to manually insert the rings into the respective cavities 11 and 12, in a manufacturing process, the insertions will preferably be effected automatically. For instance the die blocks can be formed so the vertical rings are pre-moulded and then introduced into the respective cavities by being mechanically moved from a introduction/feeding position. The mechanical introduction of the vertically orientated rings can be effected in a variety of processes as will be known in the art. Similarly it is possible to utilise a mechanized mould component or other mechanical devices that will move the rings from the introduction cavities into the cavities 11 and 12 after the moulds have been split. The mechanized mould component or other mechanical devices will replace or complement the removable die block 13.

In a basic operation, after the rings have been inserted into the cavities 11 and 12, the die blocks 9, 10, 13 and 14 will be brought together and suitably clamped into the position illustrated in Figure 5. Moulding material is then injected through the port 16 into the cavity 15 to mould the horizontal ring 5. The die block 10 can then be parted from the die block 14 in the direction of the arrows in Figure 5 to expose the horizontal ring 5 which will have been moulded through the rings 1, 23 and 4. The member 13 is then moved in an upward movement until all rings are free from entrapment, This will also expose the vertical rings 1,2, 3 and 4 and the rings are then discharged from the cavities 11 and 12 and dropped downwardly to enable the uppermost rings 1 and 3 to be inserted into the cavities 12. In this position the rings 3,4 and 5 will adopt the positions 4,7 and 8 illustrated in Figure 2 and rings 7 and 8 will be located within the chamfered portion 20 of the die blocks.

It is to be understood that while the positioning of the rings into the cavities 11 and 12 have been described as manual operation, this explanation is provided for the sake of clarity and the operation can be suitably automated by providing robotic assistance and/or appropriate mechanization of the mould component 13 as in known in

the art. The mechanism will dislodge the rings or the like out of the cavities to a location where they can be captured and moved one station downwardly so the uppermost row of rings can be automatically inserted into the cavities 12.

As illustrated in Figures 2 and 3, the distance between the rings 1,2, 3 and 4, and the edge of the ring 8 forms a limiting factor in the scale of the mesh and the size of the rings which can be produced by the present arrangement. This is because the distance represents the amount of material which is required to provide a sufficient shut off face between cavities and also to allow sufficient strength to the mould to resist the injection pressure that obtains in the cavity.

In addition another factor in the formation of the chain mail using this process is that it is necessary to have at least two components that will open to enable the ring 5 to be removed from the cavity in which it has been moulded.

The mould therefore will preferably consist of two main components which move in opposing directions and allow the previously and the newly moulded rings to be released by appropriately timing the internal movements of the subsidiary mould components. One of these subsidiary components moves in an opposing direction to the undercut of the top half of the ring 5 while the other subsidiary component moves in an opposing direction to the mould 10 and thereby allow the two main mould components to part. When the mould is closed for injection, an exit slot is required which enables the production of the mesh without being crushed by the clamping force exerted when the mould is being closed.

Consequently the steps to produce the chain mail according to this invention consist in moving the previously moulded and meshed rings into a position within the mould on which the mould can be closed without crushing the already moulded product.

This enables the next step of placing a blank set of rings on top of the row of rings already interconnected by the previous cycle and thereby enable the two blank rings to be connected to the mesh by injection forming of the ring 5.

Having described preferred methods of putting the invention into effect, it will be apparent to those skilled in the art to which this invention relates, that modifications and amendments to various features and items can be effected and yet still come within the general concept of the invention. It is to be understood that all such modifications and amendments are intended to be included within the scope of the present invention.