Besides writing, my other hobby is making chainmaille. Mostly armor, since that's very useful out on the (pretend) battlefield when I play Amtgard, but occasionally I'll do jewelry or belts, or some other random thing.
Here are some photos of various projects:
Three projects I'm working on right now... ALL three of which are the same big, dumb, clunky rings (3/8") and the same big, dumb weave (European 4in1).
Sigh.
Unfinished bracelet, very small japanese 12in2.
I'll finish it up at some point.
Byzantine chain weave, in multi-colored aluminum.
This is the first 'jewelry' weave I learned. Simple, but pretty.
Full Persian in stainless steel.
Half-Persian 4in1, in stainless and aluminum.
(An incredibly annoying/frustrating weave to start, though it goes easily once you're into it).
A patch of european 6in1, in 18 gauge stainless.
Very neat, very slinky, very tedious. Maybe a vest out of this, someday.
My next shirt for me (after I finish the current one). Very lightweight Japanese 4in1 this time around, with aluminum to decorate it.
A simple little bracelet in euro 6in1, aluminum bordered by stainless steel.
The bottom section of the shirt I'm finishing up for me (my 'medium-heavy' one, for Amtgard).
A closeup to show the small bit of fancywork I put in to make it more interesting: the black rings are blackened stainless, the blue/silver patches are european 8in2, in spring-tempered stainless, alongside blue annodized aluminum.
The whole shirt, plus the section I'm working on.
Almost finished....
My first maille shirt: Standard european 4in1 pattern, 7/16" rings (which is really too big, but I wanted to start out with something easy) stainless steel and bronze (worn to work on Halloween)
By the way, never use Bronze, people. Ever. (it looks pretty awful once it has time to tarnish)
The second armor project, this one as a gift for Marlin's wedding (that's him in the pics). Getting slightly fancy with this one; japanese 4in1 stainless for most of it, but doubled (japanese 8in2) for the trim, in black aluminum.
My "+1" chainmaille (yes, some D&D geekery showing through, there), socalled because it's made from 1/4" rings, which gives a very tight weave, and the rings themselves are spring-tempered stainless--VERY tough. The small ring size also means it takes forever to weave. This shirt now has sleeves, and is a hauberk (knee-length), but it's STILL not quite finished. If I had to go into a swordfight for real, this is definitely the shirt I'd want to be wearing.
And then... I got *ambitious*.
o_O
Behold, the TANK armor.
This thing, well, um....
Okay, it's basically me trying to make something that would score maximum points within the Amtgard armor rules that were in force at the time. I ended up with something that gave nearly as much protection as plate armor (on paper), but the finished product was so heavy and cumbersome that I only wore it a few times. Still, it works great for someone defending a fixed position (don't try running in it!), and I'm still proud of it as a technical achievement. Here's some more pics, to show some details.
The combining of the japanese and european weaves like this isn't something I've seen anyone else out there doing, and it worked REALLY well on this shirt. Lots of trial and error, to figure out the combinations of sizes that would mesh like that, yep, yep, yep.
This one isn't my armor, it's my cousin Jeff's. We teamed up on this one, which is a good thing, because it turned out to be a much bigger project than we'd expected. The coat-of-plates was his idea, and he was in charge of that whole deal. The chainmaille mantle was my solution to the problem of trying to put sleeves on this thing (I believe it was my idea to link the plates with paired rings, also).
It's modular!
^_^
Japanese 8in2 again for the mantle (that's become one of my favorite weaves), all in stainless. I did most of the weaving, but Jeff's wife did a good bit also, which helped out a lot. Jeff did all the work on the plates; pounding them flat, grinding the corners to pattern, drilling a zillion little holes.... I did nearly all the linkage work, and the whole process took frikkin' forever.
More fancy stuff; another european/japanese hybrid, this time all designed to be light and comfortable enough for a lady to fight in.
The torso is all aluminum, the sleeves are half aluminum/half stainless, and the skirt is stainless. It's around fifteen pounds total weight, which is LIGHT for a hauberk. It got a good rating for Amtgard combat, too (and won me my highest Arts and Sciences award so far)
I'm working on another one for me right now, but I don't seem to have any recent pics of it. Here's one from awhile back, showing an interesting sleeve design (that I've since reworked):
I kept the nifty european 8in2 section (the silver/blue mix area), but scrapped the rest. I also turned the sleeves 90 degrees, because the experiment with hanging them like this did NOT work. More pics of this one soon, as I hopefully get it finished in time for renfaire season.
Okay, enough armor. Here's my super-awesome belt pouch! (which was as difficult a project as some shirts I've done):
It's big! It's clunky! It weighs 4.4 POUNDS!!!
^_^
My mistake was in making it large enough to hold a paperback book. Once again, it turned out to be too heavy to actually wear, but it's a great piece from a technical standpoint. Japanese 12in2, all in nickel silver and stainless steel. (five hundred years from now, someone will find this at a flea market and say 'Who the HELL made this?!?'
Here are some photos of various other projects, lesser bits of armor, unfinished things, test pieces where I'm playing with a new weave or ring size....
