European 4-in-1 maille (chainmail) speedweaving

Step 6: Make something

Once you can don this, you can make a lot of things. The only thing you will also need are contractions and exansions. But thats for an other time...

Or try making some really rocking Byzantine chain!

Here's a picture of the finnished coif and me... It took nearly 50 hours te make this one (making the rings and going to the hardware store to buy wire included)

Comments

[Professur]

The real grief is when you've gotten past the 4x4 inch squares and wind up with 8lbs of steel hanging off the end of your pliers while you're trying to join one more link. I started a mine as a time killer while working graveyard shift at a hotel front desk. After the third pair of mini-cutters, I started cutting the links with a cut off wheel on a Dremel. Much nicer butt ends.

[mando_jtt]

(removed by author or community request)

[bamajax]

Ahh, yet another fellow Night Audit.  Welcome to the group!

[repguy2020]

Yes, the sleep-deprived, waaayyyy-too-much-time-on-our-hands group. =)

[DehLeprechaun]

Good Gravy!! If it took you 50 HOURS to do that coif then my plan for full body coverage of mail will NEVER happen, that's out the window...

[sconner1]

There's great pleasure to be taken from the satisfaction that you invested the time it takes to finish a long project. One can take a bag of rings along for all those wasted time of our lives like waiting or riding public transit where some might bring a book or knitting. Just make strips to assemble later as opposed to the whole project.

[trlababalan3000]

50 hours of speedweaving sounds funny xD
I'mma give it a shot and include some of my friends in making it. It's very cheap for what you get out of it :)

[sokamiwohali]

that aint nothing!!! i spent 50 hours making a 2" bracelet out of 24GA stearling silver rings. the bracelet was made for my son before he was born, and when he was born, it fit PERFECTLY.

[DehLeprechaun]

yup, still not gonna happen!!!

[sokamiwohali]

a coif is a bit more complicated than a full ody maille suit tho. i made half a hauberk vest that went to my waist in about 3 or so hours...not counting the prep time (i made my own rings for that).

[funwithfire325]

is this a hobby are is it fun? yes im serios

[sokamiwohali]

Chain mail is one of those limitless types of hobbies. i specialize in making jewelry out of chainmaille...i can make womens lingere, bathing suits (prolly not the best thing to wear when swimming but hey if your good enough at swimming than why the heck not?...lol)

[the.rollie]

if you like chainmail then yes ,i can be fun. any hobby is as fun as you let it be

[InspectorD]

Man, You have too much time on your hands. It seems that it would take weeks to make anything of any size that would be useful.

[scalarcharge]

try months. and where do you think (aside from shark attacks) that chain mail would be useful? it's just cool

[Lord Jon Bigglesworth]

Actually, maille is much better suited to fending off bladed sweeping attacks (although a form of it is used for crazy people wishing to dive with sharks).

[HOMEPIE64]

as I said to someone else you are on a fricken website that is only diy where you spend fricken time doing projects and learning how are you saying that being a member of instructables(im not looking for confrentation im looking at a point of the matter)

[Austringer]

My trick during college was to keep a handful of rings and my pliers in my backpack. There are about 20 times a day when I found myself having just enough time to put a handful of rings together. When the piece got too big to haul around I thew it in my closet. When I had a pile of them, I put them together into a shirt.

[RFilyaw]

Duh, that's what Nintendo DS is for. Just kidding! But seriously, Instructables.com is for wasting time when time ought be wasted.

[SFHandyman]

Someone criticized my "How to Make Butter" video on YouTube as a waste of time. (I uploaded it to illustrate my How to Make Butter Instructable)

---

Commenter #1: "Ever heard of Land O lakes? Too much work for so little yield. Does it taste that much "fresher" than just getting butter from the store?"

---

Commenter #2 "that's what i was thinkin :). would be good if you're retired i guess and really bored "

---

My reply "I find it funny that you thought it was a waste of time when you just watched a ten minute video on how to make butter --- but you don't want to make butter. hahaha / jk"

---

Commenter 2: "you may have a point there :) ".

[shmyt]

Any ideas as to how long a mail shirt would take to make? Rhyme not imtentional... Both me and my bro can work on it but I don't know how long it'll take (need time estimates for scheduling)

[ducttapeunicyclist]

That depends on how long it takes you to coil and cut the needed wire, how large the shirt will be, how well tailored it will be to the person that will wear it and how quickly you can weave. Probably upwards of 100 hours each?

[Caleb93]

Thanks man. Made my life so much easier than one ring at time. Great instructable even though you thought it was not that great.

[1010tbone]

I have made a nice rectangular piece but how do I bring it in to make it fit like a hood?

[1010tbone]

Do people not get that "DIY" means just that?  Of course you can buy this stuff, but what happens when you can't?  Learning crafts such as these insures the survival of the knowlege.  I read a comment/question about butter and why would you spend so much time making it instead of buying it.  Well again "DIY" means just that and by learning how you become more independent. Give a man a fish...he eats for a day..but teach a man to fish and he eats for life....THAT IS WHY WE LEARN DIY!

[icy45]

I always heard, give a man fire and he will be warm for a day, lite a man on fire and he will be warm the rest of his life.  Anyway great instructable but, how do you do curves easily?

[Doc Holliday]

I like that, it's correct, albeit his life will be quite short and he'll suffer inflammation.

[kleinz]

 i think u mean, give a man fire and hell be warm for a day, but show him how to light a fire an he will be warm for the rest of his life. 

[repguy2020]

Works both ways, but in one the life is a lot shorter!

[wenpherd]

OR, give a man a fish and you'll feed him for a day, teach a man to fish and you'll feed him for a life time.

[fastfilmsinc]

I always thought it was "Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day, teach a man to fish and he'll sit in a boat drinking beer all day".

[wenpherd]

Heh.

[Gunnar120]

I think you ALL mean........ "...Give a man a fish... they say... and he'll stink up a whole town.... Give a man a fishin' rod... Ya see where I'm going here? Yeah, Give him a fishin' rod and he'll poke your eye out..." Overheard from a drunkard of Albion

[icy45]

If you're on fire, you'll be warm at least till you die.  I mean how do you get rid of people asking for free fish or fire, unless you use ninja fish against them...note we must research teaching fish to be ninjas.  Great idea teaching fish to be ninjas, I wish I thought of that.

[wenpherd]

Yeah, Ninja Fish.

[Eviil~~PikmiN__{7}]

its not kung fu, its kung fish

[1010tbone]

These comments get funnier and funnier! LOL

[petrino]

i found a way to hang the whole thing up...made it easy to keep track...

[cutting Matt]

50 hours is reasonable. i once went to a medieval fair aand the guy there said that his coif took the same amount of time.

[jorn]

I made some chainmail myself from steel nails by taking of the head and the end

[Speedmite]

would that be wrapping the wire around the nails?

[jorn]

here's a picture

[thalass]

Great instructable. I did a bit of 4-in-1 a few years ago, but I only got as far as a patch about 5cm by 5cm. Enough to wrap around one of my fingers. I used 32 thou lockwire I nicked from work *cough*. 40 thou was too chunky for my tools to cut. Do you have a problem with the rings slipping out. I used sidecutters to cut the rings, and ended up having rings sometimes line up so the pinched cuts lined up and one fell out of the other. I was thinking of soldering the joins but that would have been insanely difficult with small rings like I had. heh. I should get back into it, it was pretty nifty.

[cyc4015]

obviously, making Maille is knitting for the hardcore.

[thalass]

Its MANLY kniting! hahaha

[Speedmite]

My freinds called it "man knitting"

[eyebot117]

mitting

[skimmo]

50 hours man! your hard core! =D

[captaincoolness55]

awesome man! :D i'll deffinately have to try this now that i know how it's done right!

[St.Eligius]

I Have two questions, have you had a chance to test it against a real sword? If so, how did it hold up?

[dragonflyguy73]

(removed by author or community request)

[dragonflyguy73]

(removed by community request) Removed by community request? What could I possibly have said that was so horrible? I asked why one would spend such a long amount of time making this type of thing, when you could buy a nice maile shirt for cheap compared to the total hours of work that you'd have to put in. I guess something such as this warrants enough complaints for my comment to be taken down? What is the world coming to..

[Arcticpheonix]

You're on a DIY site, man. That's the whole point, to make something yourself, even though you probably COULD buy it. I don't think it was removed because it was horrible, but because it simply wasn't in the theme of the community.

[KEYBOARDISBROKEN]

theres nothing quite the same as having your own. a sort of personal satification.

[mazeka.14]

just a hobby people do it to kill time

[Dillis]

You know, they use chain mail (Or something similar) for divers who observer sharks, it is not perfect, but it does help a great deal. But the sharks can still brake the "Armor" And when that happens, They fix it.. BY HAND. Which is extremely slow, but if you do it yourself, at least you know the quality of the finished product.

[aydonis]

I've seen this done. They use small steel or titanium links in a similar fashion as this hobby chainmail. They use more tightly woven links to provide very rigid protection from the force of the bite. Each individual link must be welded. Even using stronger metals and tighter weaves, bites still cause damage to the mail. Much more time consuming than just using the "butted" end links with the softer, more pliable galvanized or copper wires... not to mention the cost. This still won't save you from a great white, or from the very real possibility of broken bones from the sheer force of even a smaller sharks bite.

[aydonis]

Here's how fine their mail is...

[Speedmite]

You are right. They do. But I wouldnt trust any chain mail you or I make against a shark. I used copper, and thats weak.

[Dillis]

Blarg, Spelling corrections. Observe* Break*

[scopevisions]

tx to people like you ... paul and many more (like me) may have a business opportunity ... time is relative ... 10 minutes of ice cream vs 10 minutes of dentist ... you can spend all your time off doing what gives you pleasure and it WILL not be a waist of time ... but be my guest go to work so you can buy things from paul and he gets paid for doing what he likes !!!

[112251919112]

its the thought that u made something thats cool to u.

[Greywyn]

Most of the time you'd be lucky to find someone selling a shirt+coif for that low, it usually ranges from 200-500, depending on quality, and materials.(At least from what I've seen)

[dudemonkeys]

the thing with instructables is that most of these projects could be bought. The fun isn't always in having the end result, it's in the process.

[112251919112]

(not to me.)

[112251919112]

what cann i do with a square inch of chainmail? any ideas?

[the.rollie]

fold it up and use in slingshot as ammo

[KEYBOARDISBROKEN]

lol (joke!) extreamly skimpy underwear for the missus?

[pindalanderz]

make 100 more square inches and get a belt buckle. I made a chainmail belt and it's really cool!

[TheCaptain]

Key chain, box-pattern lanyard, clothing decoration,

[davidcarr3]

Damn right monkeys!

[knoxarama]

imade chainmaille using low guage galvanized wire. My mandrel was a wooden pole so its a bit big and so i had to soiter the rings close.

[Meeethril_MailleNerd]

hey man this is a gnarly instructable i'm usin the same ring size as you and I am gonna make a full hauberk (knee length with sleeves) so yeah thanks for the instructable.

[knoxarama]

i'm making steel chainmaille with strength to hold up to 6000 pounds. It was made from chain you pull a boat with, so it is very strong, but very expensive at about 80 cents a foot, which is more expensive then it sounds.

[Foey]

That is amazing although I never heard the spelling "maille".

[knoxarama]

you heard text? odd.

[Flash19950]

i havent heard of it either...

[knoxarama]

how are you people hearing letters?

[Flash19950]

lol i get it cause you can't heat letters... ok lol. nah just kidding of course i get it...

[leelander]

Of course you can heat letters. You just print them out and light them on fire :)

[CaveMonkey]

magic obv.

[Redih]

I'm currently making a gauntlet but i cant quite get the fingers right do u have any tips or can u make an indestructable on it?

[Couso]

Great instructable, Fav'd. Oh and therion effin rocks

[yokozuna]

It is SOOOO much faster to make chains and connect them than it is to connect each row one by one. You can let the chain dangle and just keep adding rings without ever letting go of the chain with your pliers. I made a "vest" in probably about 9-10 hours on a Saturday once. I just never took the time to go back and add the sleeves on.

[Meeethril_MailleNerd]

so yeah i've gone insane with chainmail, i make armor out of rings that i wrap aroung bamboo skewers, and i made a foot x foot piece of 10 in 1 chainmail (sooooo hard and really heavy) so yeah, if you've got any other crrazy projects try and top that!

[Meeethril_MailleNerd]

I do that @ school, i have a bunch o' rings in my backpack and work on it when im doin nothing or when i just have nothing to do during lunch. so yeah anyways, thanks for the idea, i needed to find a faster way of making chainmail.

[Automobilie]

Woot. this is awesome. I'm getting some good wire. I was trying to use some solder to figure it out. It's awesome. Hah, not more being shanked for me.

[drake]

i started and i love it thanks