The Renaissance Pleasure Faire in Irwindale California is the oldest renaissance fair in the US and since moving down to SoCal, we have made a point of attending at least one weekend a year. This year, we decided to attend on April 19th, which ended up not being the best decision as there was apparently an EDM artist playing a set later in the day which created absolutely insane crowds. That being said, due to the crowds at the shows and events, we ended up at the crafts area which we had not previously visited. Looking over the options, I saw the option for Chain Maille so I signed up and sat down at the table. There were only a couple of other folks sitting with plenty of room to spare and 2 instructors. My instructor showed me a few different weaves I could try and after a relatively small learning curve, I started to get a feel for how the rings go together to create different styles and how multiple styles can be put together to create intricate and beautiful patterns. I spent over an hour at the booth learning some tricks for aligning the work and created a short piece of Dragonback. Of course we had to catch MooNiE and BrooN so I had to leave, but the “new hobby” bug had already bit me.

There are some great resources out there for chain maille but all of the ones I came across assumed you had some basic knowledge about jump rings, wire gauges and tools. Hopefully this can be a quick primer for someone looking to try it themselves.

Materials

While it may seem obvious, chain maille is made of small metal rings. However, there are two primary types of rings, those for actual armor that can be used in reenactments and those that are for decorative use only. For the purposes of this intro, I’m going to be focusing on the decorative kind, which are generally available in alloys of aluminum, copper or stainless steel. As they’re decorative in nature, they are also sold enameled, anodized and otherwise treated for color.

Sizes

The rings that are generally used for decorative chain maille are called “jump rings” and are created by winding wire around a mandrel and either cutting a slot in them with a saw or with a machine to sheer the coil into rings. Since they start out as wire, the diameter of the material is generally measured in gauge. That being said, the industry as it were, uses both SWG and AWG. This might not seem like a big deal (it didn’t to me) until you realize that all of the weaves online use AR (aspect ratio) to identify what rings can be used. Aspect ratio is simply the inner diameter divided by the diameter of the wire used to make the ring. Lower numbers form tighter weaves that have less room for rings and larger numbers form looser weaves that have more room for rings. Every weave posted online will either have upper and lower bounds on the AR or a specified ideal AR. For example, the dragon back I linked earlier has an ideal AR of 5.0. Some weaves such as Dragonscale require rings of differing sizes and the relationship between the aspect ratios and IDs is important for ensuring the weave is flexible and looks correct

Tools

The most important thing here is to get pliers that are comfortable in your hands and have flat jaws. The size of the rings you’re using will determine how much of a needle point you need on your pliers. After trying several different types of pliers over a few weeks, I am currently using this set however at $280 they are on the expensive side. I found them to be totally worth it in making things much more comfortable on my hands and reducing the frustration of trying to properly bend the rings to get them to come back to round.

Go forth and make!