A certain friend of mine, who will remain nameless, recently talked me into trying to make chain mail. He thought and I agreed that if we could make some up, it would sell for a good price at the next geek convention we went to.And yeah. If we could make a few sets of some chain mail armor it would sell for a pretty penny. The full shirts go for around $350.00 each. All of the overhead cost is about $50.00 worth of steel wire.
So I spent about a week and a half experimenting on my own. Making rings and taking them apart again and starting over and getting pissed off. Getting my hands all nasty from the oil on the wire and rubbing some curious callouses into my fingers.
Finally I sought professional help.
"It's about time!" you say? No, not that kind of help.
I found a website that showed how to arrange the rings so they lay down properly. With diagrams and everything. Printed them suckers out.
And then I sat down this evening in front of my computer, put on my headphones and went back to watching "Adam-12" and "Emergency" on Netflix and started knitting steel rings together.
If you will refer back to the picture above, you will see four strands of chain mail about eight inches long. Not eight feet long. Eight inches.
That thirty two combined inches of chain mail represent three and a half hours work.
Of course that also includes all of the time I spent winding the wire around the mandrel and cutting the links before I started knitting them together. But still.
That three and a half hours represents about six square inches of chain mail and I need about 2400 square inches.
So if my math is correct (and it probably isn't) and I work around the clock I will have an entire shirt made in about..... 150 more days.
Honey! Is there any coffee made?
Now I'm curious. Can the chain mail be made by machine? After all, if it is hand made, where is the profit on a $350 shirt that takes a year to make. It can't be a labor of love, unless you made it for yourself. There's got to be an easier and more efficient way.
ReplyDeleteWell, eventually he'll get so good that he'll be able to whip out a dozen in an afternoon, assembly line style...*ca-chunk ca-chunk ca-chunk*
DeleteMy initial reaction was like - Ugh that reminds me of when I was inserting bicycle spokes into
Deletetiny rim holes at Huffy for minimum wage. Huffy was so evil to us. They set up shop in our town after leaving Celina, Ohio. Paid us far less than
they had paid their previous employees & was always threatening us, that if we let the union in they would move to Mexico. We didn't. The week before
Christmas our 3rd year they announced that they were moving to Mexico anyway. Took us forever to get any severance pay. And all I got for
Christmas that year was a dumb-downed
book written by some corporate fat-rat called 'Who Moved My Cheese'. The whole ordeal was traumatically degrading.
Just looking at all of Rev's tedious little links made me cringe. I wanted to just back on out & go look at gypsy
wagons. Plot my escape. But before I did I left him a kind of encouraging comment. The best I could, anyway. It felt fake. But I thought - Maybe he'll be a mechanical engineer someday & this chainletter armor project is
just what he needs to get his geers cranking-.
It could happen. Anything's possible.
But still....I like your comment better. That was really
funny!! :)
Wow- I can't see me "whipping them out" anytime soon, but I am definitely getting faster, I think.
DeleteYou'll get quicker at it the more you do it.
ReplyDeleteDon't get discouraged.
Like I always told my kids..."A job worth
doing is worth doing well."
Anon- I'll keep grinding away.
DeleteUm, departing from the jocular fer a smidge - find this interesting. OK, haven't done extensive research on the 'technologies' .. but have watched a few documentaries on this complicated subject - correct me if wrong.
ReplyDeleteKevlar vests will stop most commercially available bullets, but won't stop a knife.
'chain mail' does. British police get to choose whether they wear 'knife vests'(chainmail) or kevlar.
Depends on the perception of probable threat, I guess.
Dunno about the 'commercial' validity of constructing a chainmail vest by hand - but does give one pause for thought when one considers that, in medieval times, entire armies were equipped with them ... heh.
Davoh- Makes you wonder about the guys who made them back then, doesn't it? I'm willing to bet they had small strong fingers with lots of callouses.
Deleteaand, while am on the subject of 'defensive' armour - invent one, someone else will design something to penetrate it. One of the reasons why the "Bushmaster" motor vehicle used by Australian troops has a "V" shaped armoured underbody. Tends to deflect anything that pops up from that direction.
ReplyDeleteDavoh (again)- Maybe I need a v-shaped underbody as well. (grin)
DeleteI think it will work out just fine. Profit is so overrated anyway. If you'll remember I used to run a not for profit company. It didn't start out that way but once I told my customers they could deduct their purchases and a charitable contribution it helped a little. LOL
ReplyDeleteTilt- I think any profit I make from this hobby will be severely under rated, for sure!
DeleteI've seen the pro's work and they get pretty fast, but it's still a ton of tedious work.
ReplyDeleteAnon2- I don't think I'll take it up as a profession.
Deleteum. Listen, I know you worried about time constraints and all, but I am really nervous about the pillar of black smoke, constantly rising to the west of my abode, and feel I might be due for a bit of a dragon quest. I have already purchased my EBay "nobbit" replica sword (Yes, Nobbbit, Peter Jackson has cornered the market on all things Hobbit and that shit is pricy). Now all I need is the chain mail and winged boots and I think I can rest easy again.
ReplyDeleteLet me know when you have it ready to go.
Scotty- Man, I really hope you don't need it any time soon!
DeleteA friend of yours eh?
ReplyDeleteSeems more like a fiend of yours at this point!
Vinnie- Most of my friends are fiends. Not much difference.
DeleteAll I can say is, Good luck with that.
ReplyDeleteDonna- Thanks. You are always so encouraging.
DeleteI'll look for your shop on Etsy!
ReplyDeleteThanks for the welcome home. Aside from still wanting to be in the Pacific Northwest rather than here, I'm in a pretty decent mood. Sometimes a gal just has to spit out a little venom, ya know?
haha well when you get one done I will want to by such an item to help with my odds of surviving the upcoming zombie wars. Maybe two...I will also need a sheild, a helmet with rams horns, and a chainsaw that will attach to my left arm.
ReplyDeleteShop smart. Shop S mart!
The new story is up by the way, check it out and let me know what you think.
ReplyDelete