Chain Mail

3/11/2021

The new chain mail arrived last week....

"This is really nice stuff..."

"Yes, now I can finally make my chain mail tunic...."

And, since I know someone is going to ask, I ordered the chain mail from Zhong He Ring Mesh Safety Products in China on Alibaba. One foot square samples cost $16. US, which seemed like a bargain, but shipping was expensive due to the weight, so I ordered two samples - two square feet - which they sent as one piece.

Shipping to Canada was way more expensive than shipping to the US, and then for even more added expense, it was shipped by DHL, who are really fast, but charge a lot on taxes and handling fees. So, ended up paying almost $100 Cdn altogether. But it would have been WAY more expensive from a US source, and now I have enough for anything I should ever want to make....

Dorothy

3/11/2021 03:58:46 pm

Oh my goodness, that is expensive! I know that you will use every inch and make a beautiful outfit(s).

I see that two people are definitely happy that you made that investment. They are certainly admiring the chain mail.

Martha

3/11/2021 05:02:50 pm

The chainmail itself isn't expensive at all - it's the shipping and DHL charges.

But it's still better than trying to make it myself. I tried once, and it took an entire week to make one square inch. It ended up on a special OOAK character, and I never did it again.

Jay

3/12/2021 11:52:20 am

I agree that's a great price. The high shipping is understandable due to the weight. How do you actually work with it? Do you use special scissors or something? And do you have to "sew" it together by fastening and taking apart each link? Seems like it would be very difficult.

Martha

3/12/2021 12:19:26 pm

I use a small wire cutter to cut one tiny ring at a time. The cut rings can't be reused, because the cutting process squeezes the area that's cut and makes the ends 'pointed', so they'll just undo again. I use 3.8 mm jump rings to fasten parts together again. Jump rings are wrapped around a tube, and sawed, so they have flat ends. I tried doing the proper chainmail pattern, but couldn't, so just linked and tubular items, like the sleeves, together with jump rings.

It is very time consuming work, and didn't help that I had a panic attack reaction to the acid residue left on the mail after my son gave it an acid wash to remove the industrial 'filth'. At least that's what I think it was. But after washing the mail with dish soap to remove any acid residue, that problem was gone. However, by that point I had developed a 'phobia' of the chain mail, so had to do just a tiny bit at a time, until I got over it.

I added chainmail to all the outfits that I'd wanted to, and will post photos in the upcoming days.

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Chain Mail

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