Hey /diy/, I'm in the early stages of making butted mail. Making the mail itself is fairly easy, but I don't have any idea how to shape it to what I want. I want to make a mail shirt, so how would I go about getting the sheets of mail into a shirt shape?
use the templates you already have at home:
-old clothes
-your body
>>1012900
Traditional chainmail can hung in two ways, open and closed.
In your photo, if the piece is draped on the shirt in that orientation its 'open', if it is rotated 90 degrees then it would be 'closed'.
Open mail will hang looser on the body, while mail hung in its closed axis will hug the body.
I prefer my mail shirts in the closed form.
You want to work in a series of expansions and contractions in the shirt. These are easier to do in the closed form than open, but either way its possible.
Depending on how form fitting you want it, your body shape, and ring sizes you'll want multiple 'darts' of expansions.
At about your lowet pec youll want two darts that expand up. Youll want a dart starting below your chest contracting down to the waist. And three small darts that expand around the hips.
On the back youll want two broad darts that expand up your shoulder blades, a small long skinny contraction along the spine down to the waist, and two darts expanding for the hips.
Under the arms you want two triangle sheets to connect the front and back panels to provide room for the shoulder and provide slack when you lift your arms.
You might want to experiment a bit also, since it is so labor intensive to construct a large item of chainmail, you may as well make it spectacular. Look into different weave patterns, you can use 4 in 1 for some and then upgrade to 6 or 8 in one for stiff ribbing sections... like a belt, or patterns built into the shirt. I like using a light Japanese style weave in connecting areas like armpits, as it can improve mobility a lot... then you would need to overhang those areas with like draped triangles of normal weave so it hangs and protects the area somewhat.
You would be well served to figure out how to make items such as 'cone shapes' and 'expanding tubes'. It is really just figuring out a regular pattern to 'adding and extra ring now and then which your next row will incorporate into the usual pattern... it causes the 'sheet' of mail to expand (or contract by removing a ring) slowly widening.
Good luck... time consuming hobby, but fun at times.
>>1012900
Pleb. not using biker leather and little brass squares to protect you from incoming blows...
[find a shirt template online pham]
