Or rather, one of the things I sometimes do in my spare time.

So, once upon a time, I saw a cool bracelet design on a craft book in Michael's or one of those. After flipping through, I decided it was worth my money, internet access being somewhat sketchy at the time. I'd had friends who took up chainmail with the intent of making chain shirts for Ren Fair. Never got into it myself, but this bracelet interested me. Picked up some aluminum & steel wire & some metal rods. Found steel too difficult to coil by hand, but aluminun worked ok. Snip cut a whole ton of rings in various diameters of 0.0455" diameter wire & went to work.


This is the bracelet that got me started. A variation of a weave called Conundrum II. 3/16" & 5/16" inner diameter rings. When I first made this, the smaller rings were placed somewhat differently, making it less stable & causing the large rings to jump to places they shouldn't. Drove me crazy until I restructured it.


This was my second project. 3/16" inner diameter rings. A pattern dubbed Byz Bees to Butterflies, it was a fun, easy weave that led me to an easy method for Byzantine units.


So, I made myself a three chain Byzantine bracelet from 3/16" id rings.


One of my mom's friends saw pictures & wanted a row added, so I made a four chain bracelet. Ended up making another for my mom.


Shortly before that, I ran into the M.A.I.L. forums & the massive weave library. There I discovered Persian Dragonscale. This one is 1/4" id rings.


A slight tweak to the way you stitch it up & you get Dragonback instead. 1/4" id rings again.


Made this one both to practice Persian & because crosses sell. This one never did. A combination of 3/16" & 1/4" id rings.


This was made for a "one ring size" contest on the M.A.I.L. forums. Essentially a double-wide Alligatorback. I don't think I ever entered it. All 3/16" id rings. While it may look ok, this one was a huge disappointment. The center area didn't have enough stability no matter how much I tried to compensate with the bars at the end.


There was no point in having an unwearable piece, so I partially deconstructed the double-wide Alligatorback & rebuilt it into two chains. This was the last thing I did before taking a break, during which I decided that if I was going to do chainmail again, it would have to be stainless & not snip cut. Aluminum may be easy to work with, but of course it comes at the cost of end product durability.

When I got back to it recently, my early experience with coiling steel told me making my own rings would not be worth it. I don't have a proper winding rig & I don't have the patience nor the time to do saw cutting & deburring. Fortunately, I know a supplier or few who do for a decent price.


Picking up where I left off, I rebuilt the Alligatorback in 3/16" id. stainless. As simple as it is, this is one of my favorite weaves, both to make & the finished product.


But not before I remade my mom's bracelet in stainess. I've had to patch up the aluminum one a few times after some rough encounters with something or other. In one case the clasp almost ripped free after catching on something. This one is noticeably heavier, but it should fare better in the long run.

And that's where I am now. I'm not sure what my next project will be, but my sister keeps pestering me for not making her something, so it may be that, when she figures out what it is she wants.

This is incredibly cool.

Thanks.

I forgot this:

I forget exactly when I made it, but generally speaking, most people who do chainmail end up making at least one dice bag, if not for themselves, then for someone else. 3/16" id aluminum European 4 in 1 with a drawstring made from stuff I had sitting around. Fun fact: you make a coif essentially the same way you make a bag. The only real diff being a hole for the face.

How are chainmail dice bags anyway? Decent? Or do they mostly end up just being a novelty thing but less practical than using a 'real' cloth bag? Or ye olde crown royal bag ...lol

Not quite sure how to answer that one. The aluminum one I made is decent, but I wouldn't trust it to throw around or just jam in a pocket like a cloth bag. Not that it wouldn't hold together, I'm just overly cautious until a piece has proven that it can take knocking around. Having repaired the Byzantine bracelet, I would be constantly checking the bag for ring seperation.

A stainless bag *should* be ok. Durability in general is really dependent on the aspect ratio of the rings being used (ie. wire gauge & inside diameter) as well as the metal. If I made another bag, I might go 16 gauge (awg, I think?) 1/4" id. I would also make it bigger, so it would accommodate more than the one set of dice.

Weight is another consideration. An aluminum bag might be as heavy as a thick cloth bag, while a steel bag will be much heavier.

Kind of like asking "How are [insert any other broad category]?". Tldr: it varies, depending on the metal, the ring size, the bag size, if the bag has some sort of lining material...

So, it turns out my next project is going to be another stainless Alligatorback. My mom mentioned that she liked mine & asked me to make her one. She tried it on & it fits perfectly, so it's just going to be a ring-for-ring dupe job. Awesome. Love not having to make adjustments once I have a design nailed down.

I knew a guy who did this sort of thing with copper wire. He only had a little bit from shop class though, so he just kept reworking the same rings into new stuff.

I think copper would be cool to mess with at some point. I've seen some pieces done in heavier gauge that might be fun.

My sister finally decides on what she wants & it turns out to be another (shorter) Alligatorback.

So, it looks like that & the dupe for my mom will wrap up my work for the year.