Metal Types:

The following is a list of a few of the different metals that can be used in chainmail:

Galvanized steel is probably the most popular type of wire used in chainmail today. It is fairly inexpensive, easy to work with, and very easy to find. It is commercially used for electric fences, which makes large quantities of it findable at farm supply stores. When bought new, galvanized steel has a very shiny, bright silver colour. If it is exposed to damp conditions and/or oxygen for extended periods of time, it becomes a dull grey colour via oxidization. The colour change is actually in the zinc coating on the metal (which is used to make steel rust proof, via galvanization). This appearance change can occur anywhere from immediately to slowly over a number of years after the wire is manufactured, varying according to the environment and conditions in which it is exposed. It will also start to smell a little bit after awhile, and leave the smell on your skin if you touch it. Care must be taken to prolong the healthy life of this metal. I rarely still work with this metal, except in the case of custom work.

Stainless steel is a very popular material for chainmail. It costs more than galvanized steel (about 4-8 times the price, depending on the source) but it doesn't oxidize or rust at all (except under extreme conditions). Stainless steel is also harder to work with and harder to cut than most other materials. Stainless steel is good for making chainmail items that will be low maintenance. I have found the 304 alloy of stainless steel to be nice to work with for most applications. I've also worked with the 308, and 316 alloys, the latter of which is also sometimes referred to as surgical steel, and is hypo-allergenic.

Aluminum is not terribly strong, but it is very light. Its weigh is about one third of steel There are a vast number of alloys, which vary in colour from dull grey to bright silver, and also vary in how prone they are to oxidization. Certain alloys of aluminum leave a blackish silver rub off on your skin if handled a lot (like if you make chainmail out of it, for example), but the black (oxide) is easy to wash off. To clean aluminum, you can use soap and water or some industrial cleaners like simple green. I have found the 5356 alloy of aluminum (also called 'brite aluminum') to not leave very much black rub off, albeit still a little bit. Even this alloy will still oxidize slightly over time.

Anodized Aluminum Anodization is a process which can be applied to reactive metals. Aluminum is one such metal (two others being titanium, and niobium) The process of anodization is used to change the colour of metal. The fact that this can be done is good news for chainmaillers who want to add a little colour (other than natural metal colours) to their projects. Anodizing aluminum wire or rings is beyond the scope of this article for obvious purposes, but there is much information available on the Internet. It is apparently a messy process (not as much with titanium or niobium, however). Anodized aluminum rings and wire can be purchased from a few online chainmail suppliers.

Copper is very easy to work with and generally very weak. It also gets easily marked up from pliers too. Copper tarnishes easily; turns a dark brown - black colour, and can leave a person's skin green if they handle it or wear it for extended periods of time. Copper can be cleaned in lemon juice, or commercially available cleaners which restores its beautiful apperance.

Bronze is a golden brown/yellow colour. It is fairly strong and kind of expensive. There are many different alloys of bronze, which define the characteristics thereof, such as its colour, strength, and resistance to tarnishing/oxidization. Bronze is an alloy of copper and tin.

Brass is a golden yellow colour. It is a bit weaker than bronze, but with similar workability properties. Brass is an alloy of copper and zinc.

Nickel Silver is a silvery coloured metal with a slight yellow tinge. It is called nickel silver or "German silver", even though there is no silver in it. It is actually an alloy of copper, zinc, and nickel, and has great resistance to oxidization. Some people have been known to be allergic to this metal.

Silver is a great material for high end chainmail jewelry. There are different grades of silver according the purity, which are measured by percent. Fine silver is 99.9% pure, and sterling silver is 92.5% pure, for example. Silver is a soft metal, and if the rings are found to not be strong enough for the application, they can be soldered closed.

Dark Annealed Steel, a.k.a. tie rebar wire, mechanics wire, or stove pipe wire, is annealed (softened) steel with a black carbon coating on it. It is generally a low carbon steel in is softest form. It is a little bit weaker than galvanized steel. The black coating does rub off eventually leaving a dark grey colour. Annealed steel is very prone to rusting, but the rust can be kept off it if you regularly maintain it. It is a farily inexpensive material, sometimes cheaper than galvanized steel. It is good material for the manufacture of riveted chainmail.

Titanium is stronger than most metals and fairly light (about half the weight of steel), but is also much more expensive and not as easy to find as other metals. Titanium is grey in colour but can be coloured through a process called anodization. There are many different alloys of titanium, some ideal for chainmail, others not.

Artistic Wire is enamel coated copper wire that is available in several different colours. Usually it is found in 18 and 20 gauge sizes. It is pretty good for jewelry but it is very weak.

Copper coated steel (CCS) is what the name implies, it is steel with a copper coating to prevent it from rusting. Copper coated steel will rust, but not as easily as bare steel, that is, until the copper wears off. This wire's appearance is a bit darker than copper.

There are also other types of wire that can be used in chainmail like gold, gold fill, platinum, niobium, etc. The best thing to do is try using a few different types of metal until you find one (or more) that best suits your mailling needs. It is generally best to start out with galvanized steel if you are a beginner because it is inexpensive, and easy to find. Afterwards, you should seek out some of the more exotic metal types.

Wire Size:

The thickness of the wire is usually measured by a wire gauge system. To make things even more complicated, there are different wire gauge systems. Different kinds of metals use different wire gauge systems. For example, copper-based metals are generally measured using the Brown & Sharpe (AWG) wire gauge system, while steel is generally measured using the standard wire gauge system (SWG). Some places that sell wire state the number of thousandths of an inch thick that the wire is, for example 16 gauge wire is ".063" or 63 thousandths of an inch using the standard wire gauge system. When shopping for, or ordering wire, make sure you know what size you are getting.

Listed are a few of the wire sizes in thousandths of an inch for the standard wire gauge system (SWG). The lower the gauge number, the larger the wire...

22 gauge wire is .028"
21 gauge wire is .032"
20 gauge wire is .036"
19 gauge wire is .040"
18 gauge wire is .048"
17 gauge wire is .055"
16 gauge wire is .064"
15 gauge wire is .072"
14 gauge wire is .080"
13 gauge wire is .092"
12 gauge wire is .104"

The wire sizes listed above (.028 - .104) is the average range of wire sizes used in chainmail; smaller wire sizes are generally used for jewelry, while the larger sizes are usually used for armour. Any of the wire sizes can be used for artistic purposes. This is not to say that wire sizes falling outside of this range cannot be used; as long as the wire can be formed into usable rings, it can be used for chainmail.

Where to Get Wire:

If you decide to make your own rings as opposed to buying, you will need to buy wire. Wire can be found at hardware stores, department stores, welding supply stores, army surplus stores, farm supply stores, elecrical supply stores, scrap yards, as well as online wire suppliers.

It is generally better to get the wire on a spool if possible because you can easily build a wire dispensing unit like this one:

You can build a wire dispensing unit for a coil of wire that is not on a spool, but it will be more difficult.

Ring Sizes:

Rings have two different measurements. The first is their inner diameter (ID). This is the size of the mandrel on which the rings were made. If you live in Canada or the United States, the ID of rings will usually be measured in inches. Sometimes ID is measured in millimeters for countries that use the metric system. Because of a thing called springback, the inner diameter of rings will always be slightly larger than their listed value, but usually no more than 8% or so in most cases. So a 1/4" ID ring is actually slightly larger than 1/4".

Ring sizes I use: The ones in green are common ring sizes.

• 3/32"
• 7/64"
• 1/8"
• 9/64"
• 5/32"
• 11/64"
• 3/16"
• 7/32"
• 1/4"
• 9/32"
• 5/16"
• 11/32"
• 3/8"
• 7/16"
• 1/2"
• 3/4"
• 1"

The second measurement to consider is the wire size of the ring, which was discussed above. The wire sizes I use range from about .032" to .104". So generally if someone says a ring is 5/16", 16 gauge. This interprets to 5/16", .064"

Common ring sizes: Some very common ring sizes for people just starting out include:

• 1/8", .035"
• 5/32", .035"
• 3/16", .048"
• 1/4", .048"
• 1/4", .064"
• 5/16", .064"
• 3/8", .064"
• 5/16", .080"
• 3/8", .080"

Smaller rings are usually used for jewelry, larger rings for armour. More advanced stuff like basketry and sculpture use any ring sizes.

Where to Get Rings:

Mandrel setup:

The mandrel setup is a tool which accommodates a mandrel. It can be easily constructed with one piece of 2x8 wood about 16" - 24" long, and two pieces of 1x8 wood about 8" long. Screw the 1x8 boards to the 2x8 board, one on each end. Holes must be drilled in each of the 1x8 pieces of wood. The holes must be big enough to fit the mandrel, and also must line up properly with each other. Please observe the below diagram:

It is a good idea to clamp or bolt the mandrel setup down to a workbench, or a desk or table so that it doesn't move around when you are coling wire.

Mandrels:

A mandrel (or wrapping rod) is simply a metal dowel. The dowel must have the ability to be spun around. Two common options include: making two bends in the dowel to make a handle for hand winding, or using a variable speed drill for power winding, leaving the rod without any bends in it. I opted for the former, and have been hand winding all my coils for seven years now. Some people find that this takes too long and prefer the power winding method. The picture below shows a picture of my collection of mandrels. Only the largest size (1/2") does not have a bend in the handle because I find it would be too difficult to bend this thick of a steel dowel in this manner, thus I use a pair of vice grips as the handle. Each of the dowels (with the exception of the smallest few), have a small hole drilled in the end opposite the handle. This hole is where you insert the first 1/2 inch or so of wire to hold it in place while winding. When using a drill, you can usually put a small length of wire in the chuck to hold it in place, so you don't need to bother drilling a hole in the mandrel. Power winding is much more dangerous than hand winding.

The mandrels pictured above are of the following sizes (from largest to smallest): 1/2", 3/8", 11/32", 5/16", 9/32", 1/4", 7/32", 3/16", 11/64", 5/32", 9/64", 1/8", 7/64", 3/32".

The size of mandrel to use depends on the size of rings you are planning to use in your chainmail. You can usually purchase metal dowels in 3 foot lengths at hardware stores. I find that the best thing to use for a mandrel is a galvanized steel rod, or a drill rod. It is not advisable to use a wooden dowel as a mandrel, because over time the wood compresses; the resulting rings become smaller and smaller, the more coils you wrap.

All you do to make coils with this setup is stick a short bit of wire into the hole you drilled in the mandrel (or into the drill chuck if you decide to use a drill for winding) and turn the mandrel until you have a coil which will look something like this:

Cutting Rings:

After you wind a coil, it will have to be cut into rings. There are basically three types of cuts qualities that can be achieved:

Flush cut: Flush cut rings provide the best quality chainmail, but flush cut rings come at a premium. They either take a lot of time to make, or cost more to make than rings of a slightly lower quality. Tools that can make flush cut rings include, but not limited to: rotary cutters (such as a dremel with a cutting wheel), hack saws, and jewellers saws.

Shear cut: Shear cut rings provide high quality chainmail, and are easy to make. An example of a tool that makes shear cut rings is aviation snips.

Pinch cut: Pinch cut rings are easy to make and can make high quality chainmail, but more care must be taken in closing each ring. The quality of pinch cut chainmail rings can vary quite a lot. Some examples of tools which leave pinch cuts on rings include: bolt cutters, end nippers, and side cutters.

Cutting tools:

The following is a list of a few tools that can be used to cut chainmail rings, and my personal views, and observations on the use of each of them:

Mini Bolt cutters (shown above): Mini bolt cutters are usually about eight inches long. They can be used to pinch cut rings by stressing the metal until it breaks. Alternatively, they can be used in a process called 'score and break', where small indents are made on the top and bottom of the next ring on a coil and then the ring is grasped and broken off the coil to produce a somewhat flat cut. Either way, it is important to get a pair with one characteristic: The blades should be as close to perfectly lined up as possible, and the blades on the end should look like this: . Mini bolt cutters are machine made (like most all other tools), and the tolerance is sometimes poor with low quality brands. If you purchase high end bolt cutters, this is not an issue. One brand of exceptionally good mini bolt cutters is Knipex. 'Knipex cobolt cutters' (pictured above) are German engineered, and are, in my opinion, the best tool to use for cutting almost any chainmail rings above 7/64" ID, .035. They are also available in a version with a spring on the handle.

Aviation snips (shown above): Aviation snips are great tools for cutting many types of maille rings. They produce a shear cut, which is quite nice. They are very easy to use also, and they can be used to cut rings very quickly. One downfall to the use of aviation snips for cutting rings, is that the rings open sideways a little bit, and take on a 'C' shape, which is not the typical way rings are opened for maille construction. This adds another obstacle to closing the rings, in that the ring ends must be pushed together two ways when they are being closed. One of the most common types of aviation snips is Wiss. If you live in Canada, you can get the Mastercraft brand (pictured above) at your local Canadian Tire, which I have found to be better than Wiss. There are also many other types, but again, stay away from cheap ones. Aviation snips come in three configurations: right cut, left cut, and straight cut. I personally have no use for the right cut ones (green handles), but the left and straight cut types (red and yellow handles) both shear the way I prefer. Aviation snips are ideal for cutting copper, brass, bronze, nickel silver, and galvanized steel rings, as well as others. They are not good for cutting stainless steel rings, and other harder metals, except in very small wire sizes. Until I got my pair of knipex cobolt cutters, I used aviation snips to cut the majority of my rings. Now I only use them to cut rings smaller than those which the Knipex cobolts don't work well on: 7/64" and below.

Bolt cutters: Bolt cutters are like mini bolt cutters, but larger. They are good for cutting rings made with thick wire. They come in sizes from 10" to 36" and larger. But for chainmail rings, it is unlikely that using bolt cutters larger than 12" would be technically feasible.

Side cutters/end nippers: Side cutters and end nippers both make a pinch cut. They cut in the same manner as mini bolt cutters, but there is less leverage so they are more difficult to use. Also, the blades are thinner, and these two factors usually contribute to getting a slightly worse quality cut than is obtained with mini bolt cutters. Side cutters or end nippers are ideal for the score and break method of 'cutting' rings.

Rotary tool with cut off wheel: A dremel, for example, is a rotary tool that, when used with cut off wheels, can be used to cut coils into rings with flush cuts. There are special metal cutting blades you can get, ideal for metal rings. It is a bit dangerous using equipment like this though.

Jewellers saw: A jewellers saw is a frame onto which a blade is mounted. It is somewhat similar to a hacksaw, albeit a bit smaller, with thinner blades, and the frame is a different shape. It is a popular choice for cutting small rings of softer metals for jewelry, and leaves flush cuts on the rings. It is a little bit time consuming though, and the blades must be replaced occasionally when they get dull. The blades dull faster when cutting harder metals.

Hacksaw: A hacksaw works in the same fashion as a jewellers saw except it is generally used to cut larger rings. Plus the kerf is larger because a hacksaw blade is kind of thick. It is quite time consuming to use a hacksaw to cut chainmail rings.

The bottom line is, you have to find something that you like and that suits your needs. Some of the factors to consider include: cut quality, ease of use, speed of ring cutting, and cost. As I mentioned before, I have found Knipex Cobolt cutters to be the finest choice for almost all my chainmail ring cutting needs.

Stretching Coils:

Some people like to stretch out the coil before cutting it. This can be good or bad. If you are stretching the coil for the sole purpose of ending up with pre-opened rings then you will have to stretch it a lot leaving a gap of at least the wire diameter between rings on the coil. This will cause the rings that you end up with to be a bit warped. The amount of warpage on the rings is based on the ring size to wire thickness ratio (aspect ratio, as it is called); the smaller the aspect ratio, the more warped the resulting rings cut from a stretched coil will be. The end result is usually not as noticeable after the rings have been used to make chainmail, but for most purposes, it is undesirable to have warped rings.

Speed weaving:

There is a technique called 'speed weaving' that should be considered. Speed weaving refers to the utilization of the closed rings to open rings ratio in constructing chainmail, the purpose of which is to decrease overall weaving time. The ratio of closed and open rings will vary, depending on the weave being made. The reasoning behind this is that it can be easier to close a bunch of rings and use them with opened rings while weaving to make it seem like you are weaving faster, even though you did spend the time closing those rings already. It works for some people, while others don't fancy the idea. I generally speed weave whenever it seems beneficial to do so.