As far as i can understand, my best option would be to construct my top the same way you would make a mans top, just with adding the reductions around the chest to fit a woman. Is this the right direction to be heading?? Is there anything anyone could mention before i go ahead with this?? Like i said, ive had a hard time finding a lot of information regarding fitting a womans body..... so any advice would be awesomely helpful

I am about 90% finished with my latest shirt, and need a little help with pricing. I used 16 gage galvanized steel with a 5/16 ID. It hangs to the crotch area, has sleeves about 2/3 of the way to the elbow, and fits me. I am 5'6, 230 with a substantial pot belly lolol:) It will be trimmed in Brass, 3-4 rows, around the hem, sleeves and neck opening.

Any thoughts would be helpful:)

Also making a coif in 18g 1/4 ID bright aluminum. Don't plan on a mantle at this point but maybe a price with and without?

Thanks all, 'preciate any advice:)

Barron

Please give me an idea or two because I am currently using sterling silver saw cut 18 gauge and I am just getting more and more frustrated.

I appreciate any help I can get.  Thanks.

I looked through my storage to throw away some stuff and found the first rings i made myself.

So i built a CSG using silver, copper and brass. I realized that springback is your friend. Used same mandrel for all metals but they ended up with smal variations in AR. That gave a nice curvature on the necklace.

Data:

2mm wire all metals.

13.2 mm mandrel.

Clasp took me 1 hour to build.

BR

C

I`ve started as an armour maker for reenactment purposes, and I`ve made doznes of chainmail pieces before I`ve discovered other weaves and the how addictive mail making can be.

For about a decade it has been just a hobby, I was making average one piece a month, usually as a gift for a friend or family.

I`ve been working with every aviable material - aluminium, brass, copper, bronze, various steel, always making my own rings and clasps.

I got so used to this, so when I finally made my first order at TRL about 8 months ago, I still have no idea what to do with the rings I bought

Or rather I have too many ideas, not knowing what to do first ;>

Recently I`ve decided to make some profit of my hobby and I made my portfolio collection, soon to be published on the web.

(I hope that soon wil be sometime within 6 months from now )

Anyway, here are a few works of mine, each made from bright aluminium alloy, made from wire, saw cut (apart from mobius) and tumbled.

A hexmaillie arm, inspired by retriarii gladiator arm cover.

A japaneese weave adjustable belt and bracelet.

A simple Moebius necklace, also adjustable.

Please tell me what you think, thank you for any constructive criticque or opinions. =)

First up-- a 18g 5/32" pink AA/BA byzantine, 19g 3/16" BA GSG, 18g 5/32" &1/4" BA/SS Celtic Visions, 18g 5/32" & 18g 3/16" BA/black EPDM Byzantine, 19g 3/16" BA HP4-1, and 19g 3/16" BA Crotalus bracelets. As you can see some have clasps, some don't. Looking for $5 a piece/ $30 for all.

19g 9/64" brass Byzantine (no clasp), 18g 1/4" brass & SS GSG, 18g 1/4" brass & SS HP4-1, 18g 5/32" bronze & SS Vipera Berus, 19g 9/64" flattened bronze E4-1, and 18g 5/32" bronze & SS and 18g 1/4" bronze Byzantine. $7.50 each / $45 for all 6

Necklaces! They're all either choker or short necklace length, none are particularly long. 18g 1/4" bronze HP4-1, 19g9/64" bronze Byzantine, 18g & 19g 7/32" E6-1 with a heart finding, and 18g 1/4" & 5/32" brass J12-2. $15 each, $60 for them all.

19g 3/16" BA HP4-1, 19g 9/64" BA & brass (though the brass got somewhat bronze-y when I tumbled it for some reason), and a 19g 3/16" & 9/64" Byzantine web. $10 for the first, $15 for the other two, so $40 for the three.

Last up: 18g 5/16" bronze & SS with 18g 3/16" black AA and a few EPDM (all machine cut) Dragonscale, 20g 3/16" purple Ti Viperscale, 18g 1/4" pink AA Mobius earrings (SS hooks), 18g 5/32" AA leaf-themed E4-1 (SS hooks), 18g 1/4" pink & lavender AA and 19g 9/64" BA Stepping Stones (SS hooks), 18g 5/32" BA and black, black ice, & white AA Barrels (Ti hooks), 19g 9/64" brass Byzantine segments with aventurine beads on silver pins (SS hooks), Celtic Stars/ Snowflakes in 18g 5/32" and 1/4" (left to right, top to bottom): white & black AA; purple, pink, blue AA & SS; blue AA & SS; black ice and black AA; SS & yellow AA: and yellow, orange, & red AA. Then there are those little 18g 1/4" AA FP lengths, which I sell on rings as keychain fobs... $15 for the Dragonscale and Ti bracelets, $2/ pair earrings and per star/snowflake, and the key fobs I'll just throw in because they take like 5 minutes and hardly use materials. So $52 for them all.

It should also be noted that my tumbler crapped out a little while back, so some of the pieces are tumbled, some aren't. But I'll be sure to use an improvised tumbler to at least clean them before I send them out, and if you prefer I can clean the tarnish off of the bronze and brass (I haven't yet just because I prefer how it looks with a light patina). I've also got a few (half a dozen or so each) of 6mm hematite, aventurine, obsidian, and rose quartz beads, a few assorted brass-plated clasps, a pair of Ti earwires, and some silver head pins: if you want any of those thrown in with your order just let me know, I'm not planning on using them so I'd rather they go to someone who will!

Now, I'd really prefer to sell the whole lot together, so instead of the full $227, if you buy it all I'll sell it for $200, and I'll cover shipping. Otherwise, if you buy portions it'll be regular price, plus $6 for shipping within the US (I'll do Priority flat rate), or $15 for international First Class (if it's to Canada, if you're somewhere else international I can check the shipping price). Paypal would be the preferred method of payment: as much as I'd like to say TRL gift certificate, I have plenty of other projects I'm working on already, and getting more maille supplies would be kind of counterproductive to my plan of scaling back my time spent mailling!

Any questions or comments feel free to post, and thanks!

She also has requested sleeves bell style

http://home.earthlink.net/~bloomerj/images/sleves_small.jpg

That is what she found and would like something simliar but gave me freedom of creation...

my question is would it be better to start with a barrel and add expansions or should i just create the pattern then stitch it together after i have made the 2 halves of each sleeve? im worried this will create a unsightly seem been banging my head on the desk for a hour now with the best way to approch this sucker

This was my first time using these rings.  As you can see, I used mostly large rings, but I did use some small rings as well (in the armpit and at the back neckline).  The weight of the metal part of the dress is roughly 8lbs, and it's pretty evenly distributed amongst the plastic rings.  The dress isn't belted or synched at the waist at all though, so all of the weight is on the shoulders.

The problem I had with the plastic rings was durability.  They started to break after a few short test wears, and only leaving the dress on the dress form for a few hours (with stress on the shoulders).  If the opening on the ring is at 12 o'clock on a clock face, the rings always broke between about 5:30 and 6:30, right at the opposite end of the closure.  Before breaking, the rings would show little white lines of stress running through them from about 5 o'clock to 7 o'clock.  I probably had to replace about 10 rings before and during the photoshoot.  I've since reordered rings and replaced the entire plastic part for the runway show coming up, so as to avoid anything breaking on the runway.

I believe the thing that makes these rings break is the way that they are not round when they're closed, they're oval.  Just being closed puts stress on that 6 o'clock part of the ring.  I never had a ring break at the closure (I did have a few pop open a couple of times, but the closure mechanism never broke).  The bubbles in the rings were also of no concern, as far as I could tell.  I didn't leave the plastic in the sun - the rings saw very little sunlight.  I did open and close many of the rings multiple times during the design process, so that might have added to the stress.

I imagine that if the entire dress was made out of the lightweight plastic, I wouldn't've had any breakage issues in this short time.  I think it was the stress of the oval ring combined with the stress of the 8lbs.  However, I think if I made a sheet of this stuff and hung it on my wall for 5 years, the oval stress would get to it eventually and rings would start snapping in half.  I'm assuming the effect would be worse if the plastic were exposed to sunlight.

Let me know if y'all want pictures for anything in particular.  Or if you have any questions.. fire away!

Thanks much!

-Deborah

My educated guess is it's mostly copper - she can't wear sterling silver at all, but she can wear white gold earrings, so it's not nickel. She says she also reacts to plastics and to pewter.

My thought is to make a quick AA bracelet and a stainless steel bracelet to see if she reacts to either of those. The problem is I don't know whether I have hypoallergenic clasps on hand.  I've got a few different things, but I don't know if they're good options, so I thought I'd ask you guys.

I have the magnetic clasps that TRL sells - the "19x6mm Plated - Platinum Color" (fifth down from the top of the clasps page). It says it's magnetic hematite - is that hypoallergenic?

I also have enameled copper wire that I can bend into clasps, but if she was allergic to copper, would she react to that? Or is the coating thick enough?

Does anyone have any other ideas as to how I can see if she'd react to stainless or aluminum?

My name is Deborah Wilson Taylor, my business name is Femailler ( http://www.femailler.com , http://femailler.etsy.com ), and I'm the designer/maker of this chainmaille dress:

This dress has been entered into Austin Fashion Week's Mash-Up Teams, and will walk down the AFW Awards Show runway on May 11th.

I used TRL's new large and small clear plastic rings for the top part of the dress, and bright aluminum rings for the rest.  Also bright aluminum on the shoes.  I will open another thread on here, when I have time, to talk about my experience working with those new rings.  They photographed beautifully, that's for sure.

Anyway, there's a public voting process taking place between now and May 1st, for people to vote for their favorite AFW Mash-Up Team.  You can see all teams here: http://fashionweekaustin.com/mash-up-teams/

My team, which includes hair, makeup, model, photographer, and designer (myself) can be found here: http://fashionweekaustin.com/mash-up/team-chill/

If you'd like to support myself, my team, or chainmaille in fashion in general, I'd encourage you to vote at the link above.  There's no email sign up (ie, no spam), or any nonsense like that.  You can also vote for multiple teams, but you can only vote once for each team.  I know we've got some smart techies on here, but please don't try to cheat that system, any type of tampering with the system could potentially get our team in some deep crap.

I'm open to any questions y'all might have about the dress or anything, I know I don't keep up with these forums like I probably should, but I'm going to keep this thread open and try to reply as frequently as I can.  Also feel free to contact me through facebook ( http://www.facebook.com/deborahwilsontaylor , http://www.facebook.com/femailler ), I'm pretty active on there.

Thanks so much!  I look forward to hearing the response to this dress from the chainmaille community.

-Deborah

TLDR:  Vote for me, I <3 you long time.  http://fashionweekaustin.com/mash-up/team-chill/

Just looking for validation or other tips/suggestions from your own experience. Thanks!

how do you folks fund your large pieces?  do you dip into your own accounts?  or do you just set apart a portion of sales?  

i ask because i want to do a dress,  inspired by the flame dress posted on here somewhere, 

I also want to do a corset.

there's always something huge i wanna do, but i just can't seem to manage the spare funds to make these bigtime pieces.

i've considered doing something like kickstarter...but they don't allow canadians to sign up.  does anyone know of other places where you can get funded for art projects and the like???

oh i'll get to do them one day.  i'm just getting impatient waiting lol.  i've been talking about the corset for a couple years now.  the dress even longer.

original link http://velizariy.kiev.ua/avallon/museum/husariya%20polska/husariya%20polska.html

How many plates (and what overall shape) do you think they used here?

It's interesting, though might cause motion-sickness to the opponent

First of all can people with direct first hand knowledge that know about nickel silver please be the only ones that give feed back on the darkening of it in the long them. I don't mean to be a b!tch about this, but I know a lot of people like to talk about how a "friend" or they "heard" on topics, I honestly need to know exactly now it's going to act not how it's been perceived to act through something you heard. 

I have several personal items that I want to make, they are all big projects taking thousands of rings. I want to do them with sterling silver as they would look unbelievably fantastic, but at $50'ish per oz each project would be $1,000 or more. With nickel silver being 1/10th the cost of sterling silver it makes the projects a lot more realistic for me budget wise. 

However I read on the nickel silver page that "This metal is fairly corrosion resistant and does not easily tarnish although it will darken with age" that part at the end, "will darken with age" is the part that concerns me. One of the main projects I want to do will use approx. 30,000 rings (my estimated calculation) and will take months to finish.

I need the sparkle and shine of silver, and nickel silver is an ok'ish substitute at a vast cost savings. But I don't really want to spend months and months working on a piece that will "darken" in a couple years and not longer sparkle to an acceptable level. 

I live in Vancouver right on the pacific ocean, so it's really humid here, not sure if that will affect how fast nickel silver will darken or how dark it will get. 

I know sterling silver I can polish back to life and get it sparkling again, can I polish nickel silver back up to a high sparkle again? is it difficult?

I have some sterling silver and nickel sliver here at home that I ordered from TRL so I could see what it's like in person. But I just don't know how much the nickel silver is going to "darken with age" or how fast it will darken or if it can be brought back to a high shine. 

I can't use aluminum because it's too soft, I need something harder like sterling silver or nickel sliver. I thought about using stainless steel, but looking at it here it's just not shining enough for my liking.

Thanks for the help.

I already know about RioGrande: http://www.riogrande.com/Search/oval-jump-rings

any other suggestions on what exactly I should do.

Thank you.

Announcing Reduced Silver Prices! ~11% Lower!

We just bought low and we're passing the savings on to you! The price of our silver products (rings, wire and scales) just dropped by an average of 11%.

The price decrease ranges from about 10% to 13% based on the exact item. This is NOT retroactive - It wasn't retroactive for us either

Enjoy!

See I told you it was exciting...

Happy Friday and Enjoy!

How often does this happen to you? I really was only going to buy the stuff I needed to make something for a customer...

It's like going to Target for 1 pair of socks and coming out with 16.

And I know I should feel badly about getting more than I intended, but I just...don't.

So I was wondering if anyone had advice?  Thanks!

I'm using rings with 8mm diameter and 0.9mm thickness, I guess this could be the problem?

Has anyone done this before and can help?

T'anks

My question is, Is there any tips I should know about making a larger sized top? Tips such as adding additional ring between the cups. I would love for it to fit perfectly when she tries it on for the first time. She is not large herself. Just her breast.

Thanks in advance.

-Krig

I wear barefoot shoes, but I don't think maille shoes would be very comfy. These look to be made from maille sheets, like this http://mailletec.com/products/fabric/small-mesh-maille

. Anyone know who makes them?

I poked around a bit before with chainmail but now I found something I really want to do. Seeing how it'll take quite some time, I just wanted to see if my choice made sense.

I'm looking to make a 4 in 1 European hauberk for a costume but it's very important to me that the weave doesn't appear see through too much. Right now I had my eyes on mild steel since it has the color and medieval look I was looking for. As for the size, I was thinking 16ga 1/4".

Would that ring size be appropriate? Or, rather, would you use another ring size given the same project and why?

Thanks in advance!

Does it have to do with it being Hard Tempered? I did not realize when I ordered three rolls of it, that it would break simply from twisting it at all.

Please advise, do I have the wrong kind of wire? And if so, what can be made with this hard temper wire that I now have tons of?

Thanks for your time.

the reason for this is i was just contracted to make a few (5) scale shirts for a local beer league team as there 50th year they viewed and like a model shirt i have at home here made with small scales and split rings .... they wanted the " little key ring thingys"( split rings) replaced with standard jump rings ( now im not argueing that it can't be done or should not be done .. but its not how i make my Large shirts just because i feel the split rings will hold p to more  punishment  more wear and tear so to speak ....  now don't get me wrong im going to do it but at what point do i say fine but this is going to happen and that is going to happen and i warned you about it so if or when you have a follow up issue im chargeing you again for the full labour ... i guess this is return business  but something that could be avoided

The “anodizing line” is a line of 36 sequential tanks that are each roughly 12 ft long x 5 ft deep x 2.5 ft wide containing cleaning solutions, caustic or acid solutions, dye colors, deionized water, tap water, and seals).  

Anodizing is a combination of the line operators skill and chemistry. The process involves multiple individuals working different sections of the line with each of them having to coordinate with the others to create a color by moving a rack (a frame holding aluminum parts for anodizing) sequentially in and out of the tanks. 

What makes it tricky is that ph values of acids, bases, rinses, and seals, as well as dye concentrations are constantly changing due to a factor called “drag” (as a rack goes down the line from one tank to the next it retains some of the fluid from the previous tank as it goes into the next tank) which alters the ph value/dye concentrations of the various tanks, thus the amount of time a line operator immerses a rack in a tank constantly varies affecting the final color. In addition there is an anodizing time for each color that changes with the color required and ph/concentration values of each tank.

Furthermore, the dyes used are organic and over days or weeks the dye absorption properties change to a point where it becomes contaminated (mold forms) and we have to make a new tank of dye. Home anodizing kits avoid these problems as the quantity of aluminum being anodized negates drag. 

To match a particular color we have two anodized color coils as samples that are a shade apart, one lighter/one darker, than the target color which are our guide lines.  When we are doing, for example, purple and lavender the lightest shade of the purple should be distinctly different from the darkest shade of the lavender.  We try to produce rings so that any batch mixed with another becomes indistinguishable.

Please see two links below for more information. 
The first is an anodizing line similar to the one we use (). 
The second has more information on the a the anodizing process ( http://www.aacoa.com/anodizing/process.htm ).

  
Some notes on what Grant does not say.
The process also involves some serious electricity – like 4000A at 12V.
They actually have a spectrometer to help them sort out our ring colors when needed. 
The plant that does our rings also does parts for BMW and its ISO 9001 registered. 
Lastly the process is a bunch of chemicals in heated tanks - these people do not have the most fun job in the world.

We are fortunate to work with these skilled people - Grant included!
I hope Grant shares this post with some of them so they know how much maillers appreciate their work and good anodized aluminum rings.

1. How much do colored smaller rings shine through?

2. Does the "staggered" width expansion look cheesy?

We just added 2 sizes of polycarbonate rings that are Solid ~wow~ these make for fast weaving with the Snap Engineered Plastic rings!

We have 10g 1/2" that match our medium snap Engineered Plastic rings in Black, Clear and White.

We also have 12g 5/16" in Black and Clear.

I also added vest kits to the site today that use 1/2 closed and 1/2 openable rings! 

You can weave an entire vest super fast without needing tools.... like on a really long flight!

I updated the Engineered Plastic Ring page on our site with links at the top about dying, painting and tempering these rings. These are very new to the maille community and we are learning together!

Enjoy!

I've made Interwoven 4-1 and Dragonback so far. Stellar rings for both weaves.

What other weaves have you used them for? I ordered a bunch of them last week and I can't wait to get them!

http://www.theringlord.org/forum/index.php?/topic/11529-contest-what-can-you-make-with-trls-glass-andor-stone-donut-rings/

We didn't get a huge number of responses and let the contest stay open longer. 

Up for grabs were $10 gift certificates if Jon liked your idea! Since we left this open longer Jon has decided to increase that to $15. 

We got inspired during this time and Jon and I came up with a couple ourselves!

Check this gallery post for stats on these. http://www.theringlord.org/forum/index.php?/gallery/image/5718-celtic-and-helm-with-donuts/

Jon liked 2 ideas that were posted!

PtarmiganDesignz you will be getting a gift certificate in your email for your Byzantine variants!

Ring sizes were note posted of all of these - the rainbow hematite one used 18g 7/16"  bright aluminum and 19g 5/32" colored rings. 

The others looks to be 18g 3/16"  with perhaps a larger 18g 7/32" connector to attach the donuts.

Odilo you will be getting a gift certificate in your email for your Japanese variants!

This one is made with Rainbow Hematite donuts and 16g 1/4" Square Anodized aluminum rings. 

Thanks to everyone who contributed!

All of the donuts used can be found here

http://theringlord.com/cart/shopdisplayproducts.asp?id=194&cat=Beads+and+Elements

aproximatly 1k rings or 10oz of wire.

I ask due to a personal concern--the specific style of chainmaille dragons that I make were first made by myself (The style using the scale ears, doubled row of scales on the back, whiskers, tail-tuft, and now the head-frill, skimmer wings, and high wings in my later designs), and I have had an individual asking me some rather in-depth questions about the design that have been so specific that they have been making me uncomfortable.  I know that other people have variations on the design that have made them their own, just as I have made my version my own, and that's fine.  I am also aware that I wasn't the first person to post the images on this particular forum (I am not particularly active on this forum), but I do have the first recorded image of my style of dragons dated from May 2011 on deviantART.  I'm not the first person to have made a chainmaille dragon by far, but my style of them is unique to me.

It has never bothered me if people work out the design and want to make one to have for themselves.  It would, however, bother me quite a bit, if someone took the design, and either sold it as a tutorial in my stead, or didn't bother to change the design enough to make it their own for selling purposes. 

Explanation aside, back to the original question - does anyone know how TRL handles tutorial creation?

(Please try not to see me coming off as incredibly defensive; the only reason I'm asking is because I have had someone asking me such in-depth questions that it makes me wonder why.  I have tossed around the idea of making a tutorial for my dragon style in the future, but I have not decided yet, and it would be very upsetting to me if someone yanked the design and made a tutorial and called it their own, and sold it, as it would be very harmful to business.)

DONE - LIVE ON SITE HERE

2. More Dog-tags - they are running now - we'll be adding new colors

DONE - LIVE ON SITE HERE

3. New tags - we just finished making 1.5" anodized tags and a small amount of 0.5" tags - also will be announced soon

DONE - LIVE ON SITE HERE
3b. New scale... we have everything but the machine time to run them!! Hopefully within a month or 2.

DONE - LIVE ON SITE HERE

4. More findings - we're slowing down but we have 10 new findings in stock that will be online soon. A few cool new stainless clasps in there!

DONE - LIVE ON SITE HERE

We're always adding more of these though so this is likely not the last of the new ones this year!

5. Custom anodizing. We're working on a test batch now. Within a month we'll have a formalized system in place to order "smaller" batches of custom ring sizes in both cuuent colors and perhaps custom colors as well. All done in our current saw cut colors.

IN PROGRESS - Several test smaller batches have been done.

6. Bright anodized scales to match our saw cut rings. They will cost more than scales punched from anodized sheet but they will be worth it.

IN PROGESS

7. New welder coming. We're working with a different welder company to bring you a more affordable jewelry welder. Welder is meant for 20G and smaller in most metals (no aluminums or enam. copper). You can use on a bit larger wire but you will need to settle for a weld that does not go all the way through. Our testing of 3 units has shown that overall its more reliable than the welder we used to sell for $1785 and it will be selling for $500. ETA - 2 months

DONE - LIVE ON SITE HERE

8. Polycarb solid rings to go with the 1/2" snap rings. Cheaper than the snap rings and very light and strong. Here within 2 months than we'll start looking at polycarb scales.

DONE - LIVE ON SITE HERE

9. More shaped rings - we have some larger square rings and hexagonal rings on order - here in 2 months

UPDATE large square rings are LIVE ON SITE HERE

10. Square wire in 20, 18 and 16G in copper, brass, and bronze. 2-3 months away but its coming.

UPDATE: our test sample just arrived from the mill - looks awesome. Wire is expected in house in June.

UPDATE - square 16g bright AA wire is on  LIVE ON SITE HERE

11. Twisted wire rings... still in R&D. the machine to make twisted wire is designed and all parts are here... we just need a free week to get it going. It will take months to find this free week - maybe 1-2, maybe 6-12.

12. Hmm - need to make it an even dozen... Maybe a custom laser engraving service for engraving anodized tags and scales... we'll see.

IN PROGESS - several people have ordered these. 

NOTE ADDED BY Bernice: I forgot to mention I will be doing a total revamp of the kits area of our site and offering WAY more kits. If you have any suggestions please send them my way.

Has anyone else had this problem? Will the holes continue to be lower?

I also just looked at a new bag of red scales and the hole looks to be lower as well.

First I looked at the finish. The scales in bag 1 were grey and had a film of oil, bag 2 were slightly rusty and brownish. I took that as a sign that bag 2 was hardened: the heat treating process would have polymerized the oil left on the scales from the manufacturing process.

Then I tried scraching a scale from one bag with the other. A scale from bag 1 just slid across the surface of the scale from bag 2. The other way around, the scale from bag 2 left a clear scratch on the scale from bag 1. Harder materials can scratch softer materials, but not the other way around.

It seemed pretty clear at this point, but just to be certain I had one more test. Trying to bend them with pliers. The scale from bag 1 bent with some effort. I was not able to bend the scale from bag 2.

3 out of 3: bag 2 clearly held the hardened scales. Very interesting to observe how much difference the hardening treatment makes.

You can see a video of it being used here

Enjoy!

My step father would like me to make a set of wedding bands for him and my mom. They want them to be made of solid gold. I would be using the standard Euro 4in1 pattern with 10K Gold 22 ga 5/64 (10K22564). My question is would it be strong enough to be worn every day? I asked a local jeweler how much it would cost to weld the jump rings closed and he told me at least $200 for each band. Which we feel is too much for a $100 ring.

The picture I'm posting is a ring I made out of titaium. But the wedding bands will be the same.

Normally I order TRL rings for armour and jewelry, but I've never had anyone ask for something like this and really don't know anything about it.

I'm guessing the only thing that can be used for this is stainless, as it can withstand heat without deforming (or without deforming a lot, at least). It also has to be able to catch sparks.

You sell many different sorts of welded SS fabric:

http://theringlord.com/cart/shopdisplayproducts.asp?id=95&cat=Sheets+of+Chainmail

Is the one on the top of the page the only one that can be used for this? What qualities should I look for in a piece of fabric to make it okay for this type of use?

I am using the anodized aluminum colors so I don't know if it's just more obvious with colors due to the cut ends are not dyed.

So, what I am asking is how can I get these rings to have zero gap, is there a trick, is there a special tool? I'm using two pair of pliers to open and close the rings.

Thanks for any tips from the experts here, I truly appreciate it!

For a textual preview, I tested the following projectiles vs both small and large scale hardened armor:

Cold Steel big bore .625 caliber blowgun

35lb fiberglass longbow

Throwing knives

Machete

BB gun

Videos to follow....

• 2 pliers: you need 1 for each hand. The best starter pliers will look like TheRingLord brand wide nose pliers. For tighter weaves or smaller rings (20g or smaller) you might want to get 2 chain nose as well.

You can see the pliers here http://theringlord.c...ducts.asp?id=69

You don't need the pricier pliers until you commit to the hobby or are using harder materials like titanium or stainless.

• rings: I recommend you start with rings (not wire and tools to make rings). For details on why see this post http://www.theringlo...s-buying-rings/

A great beginner material is bright aluminum. Most beginners want to start by making European 4-1 or byzantine weave. (instructions here) For these weaves I recommend getting 18g 3/16" rings to play with - they will work for both weaves. It will make a slightly loose byzantine - but that's easier to learn! Alternatively you could get 18g 5/32" rings - they will also work for both weaves. Machine cut rings are fine for a beginner and are easier to close. For a perfectionist - choose saw cut as the rings close more seamless when closed well. (details on machine cut vs saw cut here)

For these rings go here http://theringlord.c...inum+Jump+Rings

For future projects, I recommend determining the weave you want to make and buying your rings for that specific weave. For now it may be best to get rings just to play with.

With this in mind we have lost of kits to choose from here http://theringlord.c...?id=10&cat=Kits

I recommend the basic beginner kit or the basic jewelers kit as a good starting place. Again bright aluminum is easier to work with for a beginner - if you have stronger hands feel free to try any material.

• instructions: We have many books, dvds, free online tutorials and PDFs here http://theringlord.c...at=Instructions

A lot of the resources focus on just a few weaves and many types of projects. A great resource for a lot of weaves in 1 book is Chains By Becky.

For specifc projects I recommend the PDF instruction sets located here http://theringlord.c...2B+Instructions

• Special notes for children: The main thing to consider is hand strength. For weaker hands, say age 10 and younger, I recommend getting rings that are larger inside diameter out of thinner wire. A great starter ring is 18g 1/4". If you don't want to use pliers you can go as large as 18g 3/8" in bright aluminum. 16g and fatter may be too strong and therefore too hard to close. 20g and thinner are too tiny and harder to learn with.

Patience is the key!

Best of luck and enjoy!

Also, do you reckon BA is going to adequately stand up to (non-armour) scalemaille wear? 16g 5/16"? 18g 3/16"? Or is stainless better? Obviously the cheapest route would be machine cut BA to link the scales but I want to double check if this is a good idea or not. Thanks!

Also I know that quite a few of her bras are add two cup sizes so if I could find these as corsets that would be nice

making a scale shirt and need to know if these things will hold up before i buy a crap load of them.

any suggestions or help is as always appreciated  thanks guys and gals.