Chainmaile 101

Turning your Den into an Armoury

Any time someone does a card trick, 29 times out of thirty, the very first response is "Wow", the very second is "How did you do that?" I get the same response when showing off a piece of maile I've created. In an effort to share the "secrets" of my craft I've compiled the following step-by-step instructions to aid the beginning maile armorer. I ingeniously call this written lecture "Maile 101." Just the basics, all you need to know to get started in this wonderful craft, and with it you will all be my apprentices, in a manner of speaking. Neat, huh? Now without further delay...

Let Us Begin your Lesson

1. Getting Started
2. Tools of the Trade
3. Materials Used
4. Assembling your Workbench
5. Fashioning the Rings
6. Beginning the Knitting

Getting Started

The art of creating maile from (somewhat) raw materials is a very time-consuming passion - and I do mean passion. If you're going to create anything of aesthetic value out of maile it is going to literally take you hours and hours and days and weeks and sometimes months before a single piece is finished, and if you don't have a passion for it, you're going to be sick and tired of looking at thousands of little metal rings before too long. In short, this is a hobby for those who love working with their hands, and who love creating things, and who have great patience. 90% of the time spent is drenched in near-mindless repetition - especially for larger projects like manufacturing a coif, or a vambrace or a hauberk, which can take as long as 100 hours of work to complete. It also helps to be good with your hands, makes the work easier as time goes on. So you still wanna get into this, huh? Then read on.

When settling down to do a few hours of "knitting" (the term used when describing the assembly of simple metal rings into a maile fabric), I make sure I'm good and comfortable, I don't have to lean too deeply forward, and my workspace doesn't require I hunch my shoulders too much - it's really easy to get a sore back or neck or shoulders after just an hour of "work." I usually set up in my living room in front of the TV set, I find it's easier and more enjoyable to work on the maile with just a hint of sensory distraction - I refer to the TV as background noise in those instances. If you're the type who gets caught up in whatever's on that box, maybe you should use a radio instead.

Making maile doesn't require a lot of space, but you will need sufficient space to leave a number of different piles here and there without letting them get mixed up with one another. You're going to have a pile for the closed rings, a pile for the open rings, a pile for the individual "sets" and "chains" (terms discussed later on), not to mention a small pile for the actual piece in progress. Personally, I use a piece of shelving wood (three feet by ten inches) settled across the arms of a certain chair in my living room. I've known a few who prefer not to use a hard surface but a softer one, like a couch cushion or a quilt, for ease in manipulating the "fabric" as it's tooled. I myself like a hard smooth workspace. Light will be essential as well - when working with thousands of rings that are less than half an inch in diameter, working them into an intricate mesh, you have to be able to see what you're doing. Too little light will not only result in more mistakes than necessary, but it'll give you a headache after awhile.

Finally, you might want to use a pair of gloves when working your maile, for a variety of reasons. Your hands are going to become a bit sweaty while working, making the tools prone to slipping within your grip. Using gloves will avoid a mass of calluses, as well as injuries to your knuckles on those occasions when a tool slips and skates across the knuckles of your opposite hand (and trust me, that's a real pain in the ass, leaves unsightly scars too). Gloves also provide a bit of cushioning against the metal of the pliers handles, making it more comfortable to work with the metal. After you've been working on the same piece several hours a day every day, your hands get used to the work, but in the first stages they are going to get quite sore. Any gloves used should be fingerless, the gloves I work with are an old beaten pair of leather mid-eighties headbanger fashion gloves; $10 in any suburban shopping mall and the leather is soft and thin (read; cheap and crappy) enough that I have full unadulterated range of motion, and I usually use them when working with harder metals or a thicker gauge.

A lot of near-useless information, I know, if you're still awake, on to the next chapter.

Tools of the Trade

Before you start work on a piece of maile, you're going to need a number of tools. The most important tool is pliers, and a small assortment of them works best. A pair or two of needle-nosed pliers are needed, and preferably with a somewhat stouter "nose", as thin noses will bend out of shape and become useless with some heavier rings. Make sure the pliers have a rough texture on the gripping surfaces, and not a smooth one. This aids in better holding the rings, and they are used in smoothing the ring's edges (detailed later). A good suggestion is to find a pair or two (preferably two) with a 45° curved biting end, these work great with maile. A couple pairs of your common pliers are good to have on hand, these are good to use when "butting" (the process of bending the cut rings to bring the two severed ends tightly and smoothly together to form a closed ring) heavier gauge rings. Don't use cheap pliers either, more hassle than they're worth. A good pair of pliers can cost as little as $10. The ideal pliers will have a more cushioned grip, and a spring mechanism that pops them back open, these go for between 15 and $20 (check Sears, they have some great stuff).

You're also going to need something to cut rings with. I began working with a pair of cable cutters (they resemble a pair of tin shears, but with a heavier cutting and straight handles), but eventually found it physically easier to use bolt cutters, although the cable cutters leave smoother ends when the ring is cut, allowing the rings to be "butted" more snugly. Some people use saws, but for simple, getting-into-it work I'll suggest bolt cutters. A pair of 12 or 14 inch bolt cutters can be bought for a little more than $20.00, a pair of cable cutters can be found for $30. As for saws, you can use a simple hand hacksaw, or a dremmel tool with a saw blade, or any other type of small easily-maneuverable saw. The saw will assure you the cleanest cut in the rings... but only once you've gotten the hang of using it.

The mandrel (the rod that you coil the wire around) will be made from a variety of wooden dowels (or steel rods, if you have access to a drill press for making the spindle hole) and a variable-speed power drill. The best diameters of dowel are ¼-inch (for your smaller rings), 5/16-inch (one of the more common inner diameters for maile), and 3/8-inch (for larger rings). Wooden dowels are sold for under a dollar each, and a drill can be bought for as little as $25 (or even cheaper at a garage sale). Don't bother with a more expensive drill, not only is it unnecessary, but imagine spending a good $120 on some fabulous name-brand heavy-duty cordless supertorque drill, only to have it burn out after a year or two of coiling rings - you'll be downright livid. I've been using a $30 Black and Decker for the past nine years and it hasn't coughed out on me yet, doesn't even show signs of being tired, so don't worry too much about the drill.

Materials Used

Now comes the part where you select your wire. I find that the best overall gauge (thickness of the wire) to work with for average pieces is 16 g. Most armors I've seen are built using 16g. steel rings with an inner diameter of 5/16". Different projects will work best with different gauges, however, and in time you may wish to utilize some of these gauges. If you want a thicker, heavier piece, or are working with a larger diameter and wish to retain the strength of the rings (suffice it to say, the larger the diameter, the easier it is for the rings to pull apart), you may wish to use a 14g. wire, or a 12g. The thickest ring I have ever worked with was 9g. Likewise, if you wish to build something with a finer mesh and smaller rings, an 18g., 19g. or even a 21g. might be handy. I'd suggest not making the rings too large (5/16" is a good diameter for most work), otherwise you'll have a very unstable knit. Some metals used can dictate the gauge as well, such as when using a softer metal that would require a thicker wire in order to keep it stable.

The metals used is another factor. There is a healthy variety of metals that can be used, and different jobs may look really nice with different metals, or combinations of metals. As long as the metal is strong enough to stay together, anything goes.

Galvanized Steel: The metal I work with most often. It's strong enough to hold together quite nicely, and the galvanizing keeps it from rusting (however, the cut edges are not galvanized, and can indeed rust if you're not cautious). Best of all, galvanized steel is cheap (16g. is about $3.00 for 100 feet), plentiful (you can find it in any well-stocked hardware store, home supply store, or fencing supply store), and comes in a wide variety of available gauges.

Stainless Steel: Also less prone to rust, it's a very strong metal, and it stays nice and shiny. It is, however, a harder metal, and can be a little more difficult to bend and cut, and it is nearly twice as expensive as galvanized.

Titanium: A superb metal, very light and very strong, it won't rust or corrode, BUT, it is pricey as hell. I've never made more than a bracelet with the stuff.

Aluminum: Very light, but as you guessed, is not strong in the least. Besides the benefit of it's lack of weight, aluminum can be purchased in a variety of colors. Not good for a full suit of anything (maybe for costume or jewelry purposes), but a bit of colored aluminum makes for some nice trim on a piece of maile made from steel.

Brass: A nice metal when you can get hold of some, works especially well when combined with steel. I've seen pieces made solely from brass, and though they were quite pretty I still have a fondness for those pieces that are made with both steel and brass. A soft metal, so use thicker gauges.

Copper: A metal that I am quite fond of, and one that I see very few others working with. Copper is quite soft, and I'd suggest working with gauges no thinner than 14, and using it for building smaller pieces (like jewelry or a variety of headpieces). Copper has a beautiful brownish red color (looks great when light shines on it), and unlike most other metals used for maile, copper wire is a pure element used for centuries (not only is it the best metal for conducting electricity but it was one of the chief metals used by alchemists back in the Middle Ages - all in all is quite a mystical metal). Though copper wire can be a bit expensive when buying large amounts, it is indeed used for a variety of industrial purposes - what this means is that you don't always have to buy it, but can often find good amounts of it randomly discarded at scrapyards and industrial sites. It's soft enough that any bent-up bits can be easily straightened with a minimum of kinks in the metal, and it's most often used with a plastic covering, keeping the "trash" wire smooth and clean underneath. Strip off the covering and you have brand new free wire.

Gold and Silver: Expensive, but if you're going to make any nice jewelry, I'd suggest using gold or silver. Very soft metal, so don't over-work it when tooling the rings. Also best to use a saw to cut it with (carefully).

Traditionally, most maile was made from iron, and eventually steel. Seeing that iron is more difficult to acquire in a form usable for maile, steel is your best bet if you're seeking total authenticity.

Assembling your Workbench

Knitting maile doesn't require a lot of space at all. Like I'd stated, my own workspace has a surface of 3 feet x 10 inches (plus a good five or six coffee cans filled with various rings scattered on the floor). The only thing you really need to build is the frame that you will be using to steady your mandrel (the rod and drill setup that you will use to coil the wire). Personally, I no longer use such a frame, I simply poke the end of the rod through a milk crate or something, and hold the rest steady as I coil, but you might wish to use a wooden frame for greater ease. As you can see by the drawing, it's a very simple frame. All that's needed is a pine board or two (about one inch thick), cut two pieces identically (about six inches x eight inches should be plenty), uniformly drill large holes through the centers, and attached them to either end of a longer board (two feet x eight inches) with metal "L" braces on the sides. Then you clamp it to a tabletop, run the dowel and drill through the two holes a shown in the drawing, and coil the wire. Preparing the dowel itself is as simple as cutting it to the desired length, and drilling a small hole through it, about two inches from one end. This dowel should then be secured into your drill's chuck, drilled side first.

Fashioning the Rings

There are three steps in fashioning the rings: coiling the wire, cutting the coil, and butting the rings. When coiling, it's best to wear a thick glove on the hand that feeds the wire onto the mandrel, to avoid injury (especially when the end of the wire is reached and your dowel is briefly transformed into a form of steel weed-whacker).

With the rod in place in your frame, stick the end of your wire through the hole you drilled and start the drill on a low speed, feeding it onto the rod with the gloved hand. The trick is to have a nice tight coil (if the ends feed onto the rod too far apart, the result will be a number of rings with mismatching sizes), and to avoid having the wire feed back over onto the wire you've already coiled (once you start coiling, you'll see exactly what I mean). It's best to exercise patience and keep the speed of the drill low, or you'll have more mistakes than originally intended. Once the dowel is covered in wire, clip the end that is poked through the hole, and slide the coil of the dowel (it might be necessary to twist the coil as you slide it off, or to turn the two ends in opposite directions to loosen it's grip on the dowel). Repeat this procedure until you have a good number of coils (which will resemble screen door springs).

Next you have to cut the coil. As I'd stated, some use a saw for this purpose, and unless you're good with cutting a straight line over a relatively small surface area (without slipping), I'd suggest bolt cutters. Starting on one end of the coil, the cutter blades as close to the wire end as possible (see drawing), cut the coil into individual rings. You should be able to clip off three rings at a time (don't try to force too many rings into the cutting jaws, or you'll likely end up mangling a number of rings).

Finally, before you begin the knitting process, you have to shape and butt the rings you've just cut. How do we do this? With your two pairs of pliers, grasp the sides of the ring (the severed ends on top), and twist the ring back and forth gently, until a near clean butt is attained. Two or three twists is usually enough.

The ends should be close enough to one another so that not even a playing card can pass through the opening. Before you start on the next ring, make sure that the ends are even. If one end is higher than the other, squeeze them together with the needle-nosed pliers (see drawing). If there's any roughness in the metal, simply grip the butted portion of the ring with the pliers, and turn the ring back and forth... the textured grip of the pliers will act as a file, smoothing the ends of the ring. After you get used to this procedure, it shouldn't take you more than a few seconds to complete each ring (we'll hope anyway). Repeat these steps a few hundred times. Once you've built up a sizable pile of butted rings, you're ready to move on to the fun part.

Beginning the Knitting

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