r/chainmailartisans

Lol, I’ve been out of practice a bit, have a job now that leaves me too tired to chainmaille as often as I used to. My old calluses of yore are long gone, and I’m stuck with these soft, squishy hands again. I polished off half a dragon today, but them spots under my knuckles are starting to shout about blistering doing so I guess it’s time to call it for the day.

A few hours here and there when I can tho, keep them dragons a-coming 😊🐲

Working on a coif for photo purposes. Will be connecting to a collar to give a bit more structure and flavor, but it feels good to have the basic construction done

As simple as these creations look, they are intricate to piece together! Especially as the weave tightens it gets harder and harder to make all the connections happen. This is a pendant I made for myself that I am wearing as a keychain for right now on my bag. All durable stainless steel with such good texture and weight. I’m very happy with it.

My hands hurt just looking at it lolol

I can not figure out how to get these rings to close. If anyone could make any suggestions I would appreciate it or links to beginner friendly tutorials would be even more awesome. I wanted to make a coif to try to get a feel for this hobby, get used to pliers, and keep it 'simple'. This is important because without a finished product (ex the sleeve of a jacket, not necessarily a finished jacket) to look at/ wear/ use in a reasonable amount of time, I tend to ditch the project. I don't want to ditch this but I think I need a little feedback because I'm already over budget and currently trying not to cry because the pitiful image attached took about 4 hours to craft. My method might be wrong but I took an hour and a half just making the first of those clusters (I don't know what to call it, yet, that's how new I am) that I figured I would make a bunch so that I wouldn't struggle so much. I now have 13 of those clusters and am currently opening up rings to work at making several five inch chains that will eventually be used as pizza slices for me and my brother's gargantuan heads. The plan is: coif, full shirt (shoulder to mid thigh), full sleeve, gauntlet, convince myself that I could hack it as a blacksmith's apprentice, win the Halloween contest this year, watch Monty Python, report to the king that due to budgeting constraints we may have to forestall the search for the holy grail. I'm not committed to this order Some more questions: Is it even possible to make a coif using this pattern? Should I try starting something else? How can I get the rings to close? Is my technique wrong? Are these pliers okay? I can't afford any new ones for a while but would like to know if I just have the right equipment. Thank you for reading this.

Apologies if you encounter two posts, I deleted the original because I didn't have images to reference for better feedback.

The goal is to make something nice to go with my black prom dress. I’ve got a lot of practice in with bigger rings and I know a lot of different patterns.

I wanted to try something like what’s in the image since it combines stuff I already know how to do, just on a smaller scale.

So, what size rings should I get? Aluminum, stainless steel, or silver? Any help and recommendations are greatly appreciated.