I had mentioned in a previous blog post a bit about the troubles I had with my last attempt at making Chain Mail for my Twilight Princess Link costume. I just got my new rings today and wanted to give an update on the status.
Strike 1
The first thing I tried was to buy galvanized fencing wire and make the rings myself spinning the wire on a dowel rod connected to a power drill. I bought many of the supplies but a friend of mine with experience making maille talked me into buying my rings online instead.
Strike 2
I purchased 14 gauge 1/4inch diameter rings from TheRingLord.com in Brass. While I was pleased with the color, I had trouble working with the rings. It was quite difficult to put two 4-in-1s together and it was almost impossible to put two lengths together. I attempted to just do a 4 ring tall length around the trim of my tunic but the weight of the metal was too much and made the tunic sag.
Hit?
So then I decided to order rings at a higher gauge (thinner) with a larger diameter, again from TheRingLord.com. I went for the 16 gauge 3/8th inch brass rings. They arrived today and already I’ve created almost the same amount of maille that took me weeks to do with the 14 g 1/4inch rings. My only concern is that since the 16 G is so thin, its hard to meet the edges when closing the rings and there is opportunity for some of the rings to come undone. I’m also not sure how well it will all hold once I make a whole suit out of it. The suit will probably end up being super light. Which is good since I’ll be wearing the costume all day long at the con. If I run into problems with the new maille I will post it in my blog.
If I could go back in time and change my order, I’d probably go with the 14 G 3/8th rings instead.
At the rate I’m able to make the maille, I can probably have the shirt and the skirt done in time for AX.
Below is a picture showing the 14 g 1/4th inch rings against the 16 g 3/8ths at the bottom. I think the smaller rings look more like real maille since there isn’t as much gapping. But I think this is good enough for a costume. Again, note that the top half took me weeks to make where as the bottom half took me one night.
