Yesterday I began the first phase of my chainmail project: making the jig.
The jig is 3 pieces of wood hammered together to make a box with no roof and with two parallel sides. There are little holes in the middle of the two parallel sides where the dowel will go. Take a variable speed drill and connect the dowel to the drill. Make sure the dowel has a hole in it so you can stick the wire into it.
Take the wire and stick the loose end into the hole in the dowel then put on heavy duty leather gloves (in case your hands get stuck in the wire). Now run the drill at a very slow speed and carefully wrap the wire around the dowel (the drill will do this automatically). Then take the wire off the dowel and you’ll have a product that looks somewhat like a spring. Now take your wire cutters and shear straight down the length of the coil. This will make chain rings. To be continued…
Going to Home Depot to get the stuff was actually pretty fun. My favorite part was getting Almond Joy afterwards. Coconut and almonds and chocolate? So awesome.
We built the jig at the barn where we keep our horse Jack. I made a new friend there named Aiden. He’s pretty legit. He also likes making things too, but he has never made chainmail armor. He bought his on the internet. He thinks that making chainmail is harder than it looks, but it doesn’t look very hard to me. It looks really easy. I guess we’ll see.
