Making Chainmail

[Unorthodox]

I LIKE that small ring one.  Makes my hands hurt just thinking of making one though. 

[Buster's Uncle]

That stuff will still blister your hands, but it's knitting the heavy 12 gauge links that's murder on them.  The callus got over 3/16ths of an inch thick around 1994.

[Buster's Uncle]

The promised detail closups and three diagrams that'll carry you from a chain to adding that third row and making it the beginning of chainmail. 

I tried to get good detail cutouts mostly of the edges, because that's where you can see how the interlock works best, and get the fundamentals of the design shown, too.  Once you understand how it works and have the shape of the armor you're making fixed in your head, the rows where nothing but more rows are happening are booooring.  Those you just do without thinking while you watch (more listen, 'cause you have to look at what your hands are doing, mostly) TV.  Books on tape are fantastic for that, too.

Diagram (A) is just a few rows of mail to show you the pattern - you're now already ahead of how I started, with what-all I've already shown and said.  I'm almost completely self-taught; I saw a diagram of how the links fit together, each linked through two above and two below back in high school in the early 80s before I could just google for more making info, and spent years working out the rest.  Notice how the way rows works means you can go straight just fine, with a link on each end only hooked into two others, but the pattern really loves diagonal edges like on the right.

(B) is the chain, like the one dangling at the end of part one of the instructions.

If you give the chain a few twists, the links start wanting to zigzag into an upper row with the links on top leaning one way and the lower ones turned the other, like the first two rows in (A).  Thread a link through two on the lower half (C) and do it again, and you've got the beginning of chainmail.  I only twist two or three up like that at a time in practice, because the next two links you're knitting a new row under is all you need at one time, and all your can hold straight.


Little story;  my last year at my home renfair, about an hour 1/2 drive from home, I had a girlfriend from the previous show out-of-state also participating, and planned to mostly stay down there camping through the weekdays.  So I got some weekwork (rennie-speak term; the money from the show tended to suck a little for most people, me not usually excepted, and our weekends were five days long, so broke and bored - get something part-time to do and make money on the weekdays) with a shop that sold chainmail.  [shrugs]  I've met a lot of chainmailers but never really talked shop/how to.  He gave me a baggy of light, gold, links and a two dinky needle-nose pliers and I was to make as much three-row mail started strip as I could and he'd pay me by the foot.  Starting mail is a huge pain until you figure out my trick, so mailers tended to farm out the most tedious parts to any ol' droog, and save the shaping into a headband or a chainmail bra for their own skilled hands.

I broke up with the young lady pretty early in the run - she was the incredibly insane one I've mentioned from time to time over the years who looked a lot like Callisto on Xena.  I kid you not, almost that good-looking, and so brain-damaged guys who knew her were not kicking down the door to get at her, or not for long.  I actually worried I'd wake up one morning half out of the tent, killing her bare-handed because she stabbed me in my sleep and the automatics kicked in before my eyes opened.  Really; tiny little wasp-waisted blonde who looked more than a little like a young Hudson Leik and was a cuddly dear when she was calm.  Of course, I miss the little expletive.

So anyway, when I had to dump her, my plans for being around the grounds most days and needing something to do changed.  I think I made about 15 bucks for what I got done in my spare time (pretty girlfriend) on the mail strip the first week - which is all the money I've ever made off chainmail making.  The chainmail guy asked me a question about what I turned in, which is the point of the story; "What's with the chain on the end?"     I explained the twist-and-knit technique for starting a piece, of course.

...Dude who makes the stuff for a living and presumably was taught by professionals didn't know any better than stringing links on a hanging line to start a piece.  You're starting out ahead of where he did...


Now to go start drawing that sexy manmail design...

[Buster's Uncle]

T0 tide everyone following over while I work on this design...

[Buster's Uncle]

Those are previously-posted doll pics, of course, but my talk about this project resulted in Mylochka finally finding the four other remaining barbarians we collaborated on (She Ebay-sold several more before the Barbie market withered early last decade).  Look for some pics in the next hour or so.

-There was a doll show somewhere yesterday - M bought me two Barbies for this project...

I'm going to have to smith some more nails into swords - either she sold most of the good ones I made, or we've lost track, or both, 'cause there's one sword among five remaining barbarians.  -But I did an awesome cross-guard on the one left...

[Dio]

T0 tide everyone following over while I work on this design...

I enjoy the smaller doll in the first picture. It reminds me of an evil, scheming homunculus. The other doll in that picture reminds of me of a made up Dolly Parton.

[vonbach]

Chainmail. Armor for people with too much time on their hands lol.
I've heard about chainmail suits for elephants.

[Unorthodox]

That stuff will still blister your hands, but it's knitting the heavy 12 gauge links that's murder on them.  The callus got over 3/16ths of an inch thick around 1994.

Oh, it's not the blistering, it's the...I dislocated both thumbs and any repetitive work like that is bound to bring out a lasting tendonitis in my wrist/thumb.  Painting can get pretty unbearable for me, even, just holding the paint brush for long. 

[Buster's Uncle]

Ah.  Well the blisters/callus is pretty impressive, too.

That's British understatement.

[Buster's Uncle]

Because of my current chainmail project involving a Barbie-scale prototype, Mylochka dug around and finally found the four other Barbarians she didn't sell off. (Also, bought me two Barbies to work with at the doll show yesterday.)

She doesn't know how the brother front-and-center in the pics below got the sunglasses, but he just looks so much like he's having an indecently good time cosplaying barbarians with his friends that a whole little scene wrote itself in my head:

Fade in on barbarians walking around the con]

Michael had had reservations about setting foot in public in the costume, not least that 'the metal diaper would look fruity', but his friends said he could be the barbarian chief, the girls assured him that his body looked 'yummy' in the gear, and a few admiring stares from bystanders later, he was getting REALLY into it.  Humming the theme from Shaft, he got into his best deep, deep, Isaac Hayes voice.

"Jason; get ready to hand me my sword.   That dragon up ahead look like he think he can keep me down, and I ain't asking either of you twice.  Ladies; you just keep singin' backup."


Who is the man/Who will risk his neck for a barbarian?

SHAFT! Barbarian Shaft.

That's right

"Hey white boy with the camera!  Sit on the floor and get a low angle.  I wanna looomm.











"Awwwww yeah."

[Rusty Edge]

"Hand me my sword. The one that says bad-buttocked mother fornicator"

[Buster's Uncle]

"You got THAT right, baby."

Has anyone actually SEEN Shaft?  When the theme isn't playing, it's just not very good.

[Rusty Edge]

"You got THAT right, baby."

Has anyone actually SEEN Shaft?  When the theme isn't playing, it's just not very good.

Yes. Roundtree was wearing brown leather pants and jacket in the movie, not the black ones as seen on the CBS TV series.

The Detective is visiting Shaft's apartment. Shaft has a naked women there.
Woman (dressed and leaving )- "You know, you're really great in the sack, but you're really Bleepy afterwards!"
Shaft- "HEY! Close the door!"
Woman-"Close it yourself, Bleepy!"

Closing scene-
Shaft (on payphone)- "This case just busted wide open!"
Detective-"Well, close it for me"
Shaft-"Close it yourself, Bleepyy!"

Uh, now that you mention it, the soundtrack was a large part of it. Sunglasses and leather pants, too. But it was definitive cool.

[Buster's Uncle]

Not a fan of the brown leather over here.

[Buster's Uncle]

...I don't know about this one.  It's half-adequate armor; it covers a lot more than, for example, what the two barbarian Kens I posted yesterday were wearing, with camails and loincloths --- but a fellow buff enough to pull this costume off better not have too pretty a face, or he's gone look pretty gay with the side-lacing.  I put that in to keep the front and back panels hugging the torso, which would reduce flapping when moving, improve comfort, and actually improve protection in battle, 'cause the torso coverage isn't going to gap open while you're doing some flashy acrobatic barbarian move just as someone stabs from the side.



I put Conan hair on the figure, but a bearded Viking type could probably pull it off looking a lot straighter...  I need input from women...

The way to do the lacing on the legs, intended to mostly solve the loinflap-swinging problem, would be thigh bands on each leg -one holding a knife sheath- and attach to them.  Independent leg movement, the upper loin armor ain't going anywhere embarrassing, and the rest won't be much of a bother.

...Somehow, this just didn't fire my imagination the same way...