Now this.. this is one of those hobbies that just always seemed so inaccessible. Chain mail isn’t something you just.. make.. in your free time.. for fun. Boy was I wrong. I knew that you could buy pre-made rings online, but I didn’t want to go that route. It seemed like cheating to me, and for some reason I thought the only other option was to go down into some volcanic forge Lord of the Rings style and hammer out thousands of tiny rings from iron that was practically lava 30 seconds prior. Well, as much as I would like to get a piece of THAT action, I didn’t see it as a potential relaxing after-work hobby.

All it took for me to pursue this longstanding dream of mine was a single post on the internet outlining someone’s process. This post (I’ll include a link if I ever dig it up) explained that you can create your own rings from.. drum roll.. electric fence wire! 1. how badass does that sound? 2. they even included a link to the amazon listing of the exact kind they used. Brilliant. This was becoming more of a reality every moment and I was loving it. Here is the wire I used. Ok, so step 1 was complete. Source materials were a go. The next question was, how do you take this giant coil of steel (2/3 of a football field’s worth) and turn it into lots of tiny rings of steel? Here’s where I had a few options.

Naturally, I wanted to get moving with my new hobby as quickly as possible, as is most often the case. This caused me to make some not-so-intelligent choices with regards to process. I was researching different methods of creating rings, and saw that all of these methods had one thing in common – you basically just wrap the metal around a dowel rod into a long coil, then cut the coil into rings. I figured I could work out the logistics later, and attempted wrapping it by hand. This was… fine. Working the steel was fairly difficult, which can be good, since it means more durable rings. This certainly would not be a long-term solution. There were basically two options for more efficient wire coiling – a modest turn-crank method, and SUPER AUTOMATIC POWER DRILL. We have a winner.

Now, granted, this is in no way an authentic, Middle Ages approach to the wondrous art of chain mail, but I think the smiths of the time would have appreciated the ingenuity.. or would have called me a witch and burned me alive. Either way, I was willing to cut some corners here. I was already technically cheating by using wire instead of extruding the molten metal myself. At least I didn’t buy the damn pre-made rings.

ANYWAY. Here’s how this works. You take your dowel rod (make sure the diameter will fit into the chuck of your power drill), and poke a hole into it. I used a metal pointy tool. Eventually when I switched over to a metal rod, more serious hole-drilling tools were required. Then you put your spool onto another rod, and prop it up. Here I used a wooden crate and my fireplace.. very classy and professional I know. With the dowel firmly in place in your drill, take the end of the wire, stick it in the dowel hole, and drill away (counter-clockwise in this case). You’ll need to guide the wire with your fingers to make sure the coil doesn’t have any overlap. Here I recommend using gloves.

and voilà! Coils!

Now, the dreaded bottleneck. Every repetitive process has one – cutting rings from the coil! I thought this would be fine. I really did. I should have known better when I read that these beasts were required. They’re called aviation snips:

I’m starting to think these monsters earned their name because they’re used to CUT AIRPLANES INTO PIECES. Seriously, these things can cut through anything. The only problem is, the diameter I chose for my rings only allows me to squeeze maybe 4 or 5 onto the blades for a single cut. Therein lies the bottleneck. Not to mention the fact that you have to apply quite a bit of pressure to bite through 14-gauge electric fence wire. So, with a lot of grunt work – rings!

You may think that at this point, the hard work is done. But then you realize that now you’re where you would have been if you just bought the rings in the first place. In other words, right around Square One. Now the hours and hours of fun REALLY begin. For the weaving, your life will be easiest if you have two pairs of needle-nose pliers, and I recommend gloves if you intend to do this for long periods a time.

The most important and least obvious thing to know about the weaving process is the basic unit of chainmail. It consists of 5 rings, where four closed rings are looped onto a single open ring, which is then closed.

Next step. Make a boatload more of these guys, and use open rings to connect them in any direction. Do this forever. Eventually you’ll feel like Edward NeedlenosePlierHands and you’ll be happy about it and it’s at that moment that you’ll know that you need a break. totally normal (I hope).

Here’s my finished piece:

From start to finish this took a little over a month. I also underestimated the amount of wire needed to make an entire shirt, and I’m on the small side. The amount of wire in this could stretch across 3 football fields, and it weighs about 17 pounds. I wore it for an entire day at Renn Fest, and by the end of the day it hurt to breathe. I would say it was absolutely worth it though. I decided to lengthen the sleeves more recently. In the photo above you can see the difference between the sleeves and the rest of the shirt. It’s a bummer that the galvanized steel dulls over time.

This has been one of my absolute favorite hobbies. I hope to make more pieces in the future. Although, I would never use galvanized steel again. Like I said, it grays over time, and has that stinky metallic smell from the zinc coating. It’s good for a beginner that isn’t sure if they want to continue with the hobby, but next time I would probably use something like aluminum or stainless steel. Let the swordplay begin..