arbinger's Refuge

-[Bad Company]-

Chainmaille

The purpose of this page is provide news and information related to my chainmaile activities, as well as links to good sources of information for working chain. I may also indulge my vanity and place some goodies about my rig and current projects.


Rig:

Well lets see, first off I make my own rings, but its probably of note that this is more from a cost perspective than any sort of purist motivation. I am making my rings out of 14 gauge galvanized wire I got from tractor supply, this wire is intended for electrical fences, but it has been working great. I am currently running down some leads on a black annealed wire of the same gauge, so I can play with inlays, but we'll see how that goes.

So for me making rings is a two step process coiling the wire and then cutting the coil into rings. I use a frame built out of 2x4's to hold the mandrel(steel dowl) I coil my wire on, if anyone is interested I can put up some pics, but it is basically a copy of a design I found at the Maille Artisans site. Next for cutting rings I had been using a hacksaw, a lot of people use metal shears or bolt cutters, I dont know, maybe I just suck with the snips but for me the hacksaw cuts are nicer, though they take a bit longer. Well I played around with this jewelers saw rig I saw, again at the Maille Artisans site, it seems to work well and makes good rings, the only problem I had was I busted my blades into junk fairly consistanly. Finally I have found my perfect means to cut rings, a bandsaw, I got a hold of a 12 inch bandsaw and but a Lennox bi-metal blade on it, I reduced the speed on the saw(basically switched the pully) and this thing chews up my coils, wow! It was quite the blessing, and I am sure I will get other use out of it as well.

For weaving I just use a pair of needle nose pliers and a pair of mini linesmen pliers, I suspsect as I begin to do larger pieces I will need some kind of loom, but I'll burn that bridge when I come to it.

Projects:

My chainmaille projects

• My first project: A Maille Belt
• Stress Loop

The requisite chainmaile links

• The Ring Lord (Good site for anything ring related)
• Maille Artisans International League (Best site I have seen for finding information about chainmaile)