Chain Mail, the coda

So we come to the end of the chain mail saga. I have made enough rings to go around the earth, or so it seems. One last thing to make. It is only fortunate that the recipient does not read my blog. She is much too busy! This number is a fine-mesh, 3/8" or about 10 mm as opposed to my usual 13mm rings. It is harder to do the small rings than the big ones. I have tried 6mm rings and I consider it almost impossible.

 As usual it is a pendant plus a chain. All in 4:1 mail, which means that each center ring links four side rings.

In this piece, the center rings are copper -- salvaged electrical wire -- and the others are steel, 14 gauge fencing wire. Very cheap stuff. I like the contrast. There are two pieces. the pendant and the chain to go around the neck. Here is the pendant. I like the contrast of copper and steel. Picture has a slight yellow cast to it. Sorry. Blame auto-exposure.

 The chain is single-strand 4:1 chain mail. If you were making this for protection you would not use copper, you would use all steel. But I'm making it for decoration. I want it to look nice; protection is merely symbolic.

The wire at the top of the pendant is there to stiffen it up. It does tend to sag, but I think I will remove the wire and just put in two more linking rings into the top.

And I am now really through with chain mail. If disaster comes and we all revert to the middle ages, at least I could make a living as an armorer. Although by now I am quite deft at this, it is very labor-intensive. But then, another word for the middle ages is labor-intensive. No machinery allowed. Glad I did it, but enough is enough. Now back to other things, such as my clock.