A mate of mine made a full suit of chain using metal washers, took him about 2 years of evenings in to do so, but was very robust... if somewhat cumbersome.
Having worn the stuff I can say it can be quite restrictive, not to mention very heavy (the full suit wieghed about half of what I did.
Plate armour is fun though, people don't tend to stand in the way of someone in that stuff, something about having pointy bits of metal sticking out of joints and shoes...
And the people who do the re enactments are quite mad :-D
