shamelessly stolen from imgur
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After I posted my chainmail projects last night, ATimeTravellingRobotFromTheFuture asked how I made it from paperclips, and after my lengthy explanation, said it was worthy of a post of its own. So here it is.
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This is what your coil should look like after it's been snipped.
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YF by the end
After I posted my chainmail projects last night, ATimeTravellingRobotFromTheFuture asked how I made it from paperclips, and after my lengthy explanation, said it was worthy of a post of its own. So here it is.
What you'll need-
jumbo paperclips-a metric **** ton. I don't know what steel they are, but for lack of a better word, shiniest works best. The scores ones definitely won't work, though.
Something to use as a mandrel- I'm using a 3/16 inch round file
Vice grips
Two pairs of pliers-I prefer needle nose
Clippers
Something to hold the rings and tiny scraps- I use altoid tins
A lot of patience!
yes, I know there are more effective ways of making maille (drills, 600 foot fencing coils from Home Depot, being sane), (spools of wire are like way cheaper than paperclips. Unless you steal the paper clips from your office. If you really want to be industrial about it, buy locking washers in bulk and if you check out my other album, I've used all of those things in my other projects. This one is simply a (somewhat masochistic) self imposed challenge to see what I can make with paper clips, and I wanted to share it with you guys.
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Bend your paperclips out more or less straight- the last turn may be harder to get out because there's not a lot of leverage, so I usually use the pliers to get it straight.
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Repeat. A lot. Each paper clip only yields 8 or 9 rings, so just straighten out a bunch. Or don't. I'm not the boss of you.
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Grab your mandrel. Not to be confused with grab your mandrill. A mandrel is the tool you use to manipulate items around, so it's relatively safe to grab. Mandrills, however, are primates that will likely hurt you if you grabbed them, and you don't have you chainmail to protect you yet, so don't do that.
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Use your vice grip to firmly clamp a short length of the wire parallel to the mandrel.
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If you're a righty like me, make a 90 degree bend downwards as close to the end of the vice as possible. If you're a lefty, reverse what you see in the picture, I'll make things easier later.
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Wind the wire around the mandrel as tightly as possible. There will probably be some natural bumps from the paper clips, but if you guide them along, they don't really make for much of a problem
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Once you can't push the wire down with your hand anymore, the coil is done.
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Instead of cutting off that extra bit, you can push it down with your pliers to get a little more usable metal.
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First, snip off the end of the wire that the vice grip held at a pint along the coil. Then, snip off the tiny straight section that's left from the other side that you used the pliers on. Doing so will make every thing the same. If you leave on the straight bit, I've noticed they tend to slip more often, and when that's 1 in 9 of your rings, that's a lot of slipping.
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This is what your coil should look like after it's been snipped.
(clean your fingernails)
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Start cutting the rings by placing your clippers right at the edge of the coil and cut the next. Repeat until you're done
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And nine, nine rings were gifted to the race of Men. Each paper clip generally gives 9 rings, but if you put it too far in the vice you might get 8. Anyway, just don't turn into a Nazgûl, okay?
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Now that you have a bunch of rings- they should all look like the one in the middle- not entirely shut, but diagonally touching. What you'll want to do is close a bunch as completely as you can like on the right, and open a bunch a bit wider, like on the left.
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Take four closed rings, and slide the onto an open ring, like so. This creates the basic unit of the European 4-in-1 pattern
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After you've closed the center ring, repeat until you have four copies. (I call these things "units")
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Bit by bit, putting it together And I mean that very literally. Place two of your units like this, center rings facing up, with the bottom rings of the top unit overlapping the top rings of the bottom unit.
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This part is really too hard to capture on camera alone with the rings so I'm just using a paperclip. This is where the left/right handed was thing comes in. You want to pass the ring in the space between the overlapped rings, where the paper clip is pointed. The handed curve of the ring makes the next step easier.
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Pass the ring under the units, making sure that it only comes out through the mirror image of the gap where it went in. It should poke up in the area where the paper clip is. Close the ring on the top of the units. It's easiest that way
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All right now it's finally starting to look like something!
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Make another tower (or column, whatever you want to call it) and lay them next to one another facing the same way (middle rings facing away from you). Pass a ring in the gap in between the top two inside rings (where the paperclip is pointed)
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Keep passing that ring through the same gap in the next tower, as indicated by the paperclip. Close it on top, again, for sake of ease.
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Look at that! We made the twin towers of Frey. We're awful people. Anyway, all that's left to do is repeat steps 20 and 21 down the rest of the center and...
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Congratulations! You made enough chainmail to outfit a cricket! Go get yourself a cookie, you deserve it. If you'd like to armor slightly larger creatures, however, you'll need a few more rings and a little more time, but all you have to do is repeat the process. Sleeves and such aren't that hard once you get the hang of the basics, and I just improvise mine and they work out okay enough. But that's a story for a different day. Enjoy your sheet of chainmail if you stuck around this whole time, you cool person! My only real concern is the durability of the finish.. Paperclips are galvanized and all.. but th ey're **** metal. probably just for decoration. www.homedepot.com/p/OOK-16-Gauge-25-ft-Galvanized-Steel-Wire-50130/100242844
YF by the end
source maker: imgur.com/gallery/Gwvuv
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