Why isn't Toothless' tailfin made strong?

[buckmana]

I've been wondering for a while now why Toothless' tail is made with fabric.

Granted, it has to be flexible, but when I saw the fabric torn off by a waterspout, I'm thinking a more durable material needs to be used.

The most logical choice would be fine chainmail, although the links would have to be very small indeed to make a fabric thin enough to be suitable.

So, is there a reason why they've never made something like this?

I did a search on the topic and although surviving examples are rare, Vikings did indeed know how to make chain mail armor.

So, in theory, Hiccup could forge a metal fabric tail for Toothless.

[Sunny]

my guess is that the material used would have to very closely resemble the original tail fin for it to work.

i dont suppose chain mail would have similar texture and dynamics to the actual fin. whereas material would be a pretty close match.

I could ofcourse be mistaken as i dont know anything about chain mail or the likes. do you think its close enough to work?

toothless' actual fins seem to have been pretty frail to begin with considering one was torn right off when hiccup shot and captured him as opposed to only being damaged. //shrugs

[TheCube]

Wouldn't mail be too porous and heavy for providing the necessary lift? Unless Vikings had the technology to build mail as fine as modern shark suits, I doubt the mail would be able to create the air pressure difference simply because it's so full of big holes.

Plus, the brightly colored fabric with the seal also looks bad-ass.

Leather might be a pretty good alternative, though under rain it might cause a disaster...

Sent from my Nexus 4 using proboards

[Sunny]

yes, it seems to me that chain mail just wouldnt work.

leather was used for some of the fin was it not? so long as its not to rigid it could be used for the whole thing. actually i was under the impression that the fin was made with leather, at least to begin with in the movie. i didnt put much thought into it though, it was just an assumption, so i might be wrong.

I wonder if they have water proofing methods at all. wax could possibly work, however i dont know how flexible it would be. i cant imagine a lot though.

[buckmana]

It depends on how finely you wove the mesh and crosslinked it so there were no gaps.

If the work was fine enough, it would resemble a sheet of metal cloth, not an actual chainmail shirt.

But that would require a lot of precise work, it would take months, if not years to fabricate a chainmail mesh that fine.


As for leather, even the ancient leatherworkers knew how to treat it so that it was waterproof.

Since you would be wearing it outside, inevitably, the leather would get wet sooner or later, so the waterproofing is necessary.


As far as I know, the tail is made of some kind of fabric and apparently, a very light one, considering how easily it is damaged.


And about Toothless missing tailfin, I assume the weapon didn't tear off his tail, it's when he crashed through a tree at speed that it was torn off.

When Hiccup finds the trail later, you see a tree that's been nearly snapped in half, I'm assuming that's the one that cost Toothless his tailfin.