Page BottomI've made a few coifs, vests, shirts, teddies, wrist braces, knife sheaths, and whip handles. I don't any more. Seems people immeadiately thought that's what all disabled people do.
There's also plate maille, both one piece and small overlapping pieces sewn to a cloth or leather backing. I don't make those.
Tina Turner on stage in chainmaille:
While i cannot locate most of my older photos, i kept some of the maille, and took more recent pics. These are bits, kept as examples of howto. These are not the European middle ages styles most people think of. The bottom two designs are quite heavy in large sheets suitable for a shirt, and are too heavy for a coif.
This is particularly delicate when the rings are not welded or soldered closed. As far as i know, i am the only one to make this design. The top pic is of a heavy wire, the bottom is light wire.
A strap, used for making teddies, wristbands, that sorta thing:
This was all that was left of the lathe when i gave up making chainmaille after several bad responces to making the stuff. The wire spool hung between the two legs on the left. The wire fed up to a 3ft long solid rod over the white steel, this solid rod determined the id of the rings. The solid rod was chucked in a 3ft long threaded rod which caused the solid rod to back to the right as it turned. The threaded rod was chucked in a drill which was held in a traveler which was held captive in the rusty frame on the right mounted on the white steel. I could turn several different id loops, with several different loops per inch. The lower the loops per inch, the easier to cut with the power assist nippers. That was important for heavy wire. Since the nipper could do several loops at once in smaller guages, i'd wind more loops per inch. There was a wooden rub block to keep the wire tensioned as it wound on, but left the spool free to turn easily.
I've since cut it up with the torch, and either reused bits or scrapped them. I put a lot of time and energy into making some nice chainmaille clothing. I had soldered the links closed on one shirt, and then ground them all smooth.
The solid and threaded rod i used:
A box of 1/2 length spools of loops:
Here's a couple unusual wire sizes. The pic on the left is stranded guy wire, it's extremely tough, even to untwist to get each wire. The wire on the right is stainless steel wirefeed weld wire.
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This is actual real chain. It's one inch thick "wire", about 6 inches id, and this length of chain weighs about 80 lbs.
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