Eric

My first shirt was galvanized steel. My advice for you: start over in stainless. Cutting and tumbling your own rings, you're probably going to sink over a hundred hours into this project. You should be happy with the end result. You care about the appearance, and galvanized steel isn't going to get you to your goal. This site has hundreds of products in stainless steel and only a handful of options in galvanized, presumably because that's what their customers want to buy. Don't look at the work you've done so far as a waste though. You've gotten experience; your cuts are cleaner; your rings are flatter; your closures are tighter. Your technique is better and you're leaving fewer tool marks. And, even better--you got that practice in on cheap steel.

If you're worrying about your own closures, you would not be happy with the quality of the pre-made shirts at those prices. 14g 5/16" stainless is 3.7 lbs/sqft. Stop at your belt, or keep weaving until mid-thigh. Or wear a cup when you walk. Tips for weaving: if it hurts, stop for the day. You started a marathon of a project. It'll be done when it's done. Try Vetwrap on your pliers' handles (https://www.amazon.com/3M-Vetrap-Bandaging-Yards-Black/dp/B000FA201C)

Aluminum rings will be fine, and the saved weight will be more comfortable. Get a small bag of steel rings for maintenance, and if a ring pops open, replace it with a steel one. Are you making a harness or strapping to hold them up, or are you attaching them to a vest?

If you use Twitch, mckrakenworkshop just completed a pair of scale sleeves. If you catch one of her live streams, she can answer your questions while showing you the finished sleeves. Might be more fruitful than text answers. https://www.twitch.tv/mckrakenworkshop

(Bicep circumference in inches) * (Sleeve length in inches) * 2 * 1000 / 144 The numbers represent 2 sleeves, 1000 small scales/sqft, and 144 sqin/sqft. If you do large scales, use 300 instead of 1000 This is the maximum number of scales you'd need. Tapering the sleeves will cut that number down. If you are buying colored anodized aluminum scales, you may want to buy all the materials for the project at once. Future batches may not be manufactured exactly the same shade. What do you plan to do with these sleeves? Are you replicating a particular look or character? How much range of motion do you need (low: standing, posing; medium: eating, drinking, shopping; or high: fighting; stunts)

Looks like about 10500 rings currently. Maybe 1500 more to go?

Which direction does the weave hang on your sleeves? Open or closed when your arm hangs at your side?

If you want to add a contraction/expansion in the middle of a finished sheet, you will need to add or remove many scales. If your contraction takes a row from, say, 20 scales wide to 19 scales wide, then every row below that point will also be 19 scales wide. Doing that in the middle of a sheet requires removing one scale from every row below that point. For your first shirt, it's hard to know where to place contractions before you've built the shirt and tried it on to see where it puckers. Chicken and egg problem. Go through the gallery and inspect the scale shirts and look closely for the contractions. I remember using Lorenzo's and Paladin's images for references when I started doing scale work. See the attached photos. They may help show the behavior of expansions and contractions in different places. They will add a little definition, but I think something like this link combined with tailoring will be much more effective: https://www.therpf.com/showthread.php?t=130769 Scales are a little body conformal, but not nearly as much as maille. Tailoring really helps.

What size blanket do you want? What weight? With those two numbers we can give you ring sizes, material options, price, and estimated construction time.

I build up from the bottom. It's significantly faster for me to add scales to the top of a sheet. The drawback is not being able to easily test fit the work. I also make panels of ~300 scales and connect them later. Is this your first shirt or your first scale shirt?

I've seen many people using yarn, e.g.:https://www.etsy.com/shop/Crystalsidyll (I don't know this vendor; that link was the first google result) EDIT: Some more from other vendors https://www.etsy.com/listing/465264257/mermaid-themed-sea-green-blue-and-silver https://www.etsy.com/listing/554746509/dice-bag-mirrored-yellow-scales-scale https://www.etsy.com/listing/549323615/custom-small-knitted-scalemail-gauntlets https://www.etsy.com/listing/495074166/knit-scale-mail-fingerless-gloves https://www.etsy.com/listing/151397543/pdf-instant-download-pattern-crochet (Crochet) https://www.etsy.com/listing/549190569/diamond-patterned-scale-dice-bags

If you are always going to wear the cape and will have someone to help you dress, a zipper could work. This is a piece I've been working on.

An individual contraction/expansion will create a 5-1 ring and a 3-1 ring. A vertical line of consecutive contractions/expansions in every row will create a 5-1 on one end of the line and a 3-1 on the other end. It sounds like you're doing it right. If you want to get fancy, you can use a ~10% larger diameter ring for the 5-1 and a ~10% smaller ring for the 3-1. It makes them slightly less noticeable.

Galvanized steel has a lot of problems. The low price is the only upside.

Yeah, 3/8 12g will be a tighter weave than 7/16 12g. The term is "Aspect Ratio" or AR. It's the ratio between the ring diameter and the wire diameter, and it tells you how tight or loose a particular weave will appear, regardless of ring size. On the TRL shopping site, you'll see the AR value listed with the other ring specs. The rings in your source image look to have an AR somewhere between 4 and 5. If the lowermost belt is 1.25" to 1.5" wide, then the rings are about 3/8" to 7/16", and an AR of 4-5 puts you in the 14g - 12g range. This is just guessing based on personal experience. I'd recommend ordering a couple different sizes first and make a few test patches before putting in a large bulk order. If you want to skip that step, I'd vote for 12g 7/16". How much coverage are you looking for? Are you going to overlap the maille in the front like the picture implies, or skip rings that would be covered? Are you continuing the rings up underneath the leather harness up top? Skipping the hidden rings will shave a few thousand off the count. Getting the maille to hang like that is going to be a challenge. You'll need a trapezoidal panel to get the 12"-14" overlap up top and the 6"-8" gap at the bottom, and you're going to need to hide in a bunch of expansion to match the artists lines (the artist cheated :-) ). Also, if you use steel, the weight is going to make the skirt portion hug your legs. Aluminum or plastic rings have a better chance of flaring out with the jupon. How are you making the jupon?