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[Girlinhat]

...Log benches?  Is that were you put a log on the ground and sit on it?

Otherwise, I got a "woodcarving" knife today that looks a bit low-scale as far as crafting knives go, but it should be solid enough.  I'll see how it goes on some of the spare lumber laying about.

[tommy521]

...Log benches?  Is that were you put a log on the ground and sit on it?

Eh no, it's a long cedar log chainsaw'd in half, then two shorter logs cut in a V to support it.

[Thief^]

I made a few more of the rubber stretchy chains in different widths:


I've also got some higher AR rings to try making euro-6-in-1 and some other patterns with.

[Shinotsa]

Well I have no pictures to post of my recent exploit, as it is actually not all that exciting. What was exciting was that I had an epiphany the other week involving making chains.

I am the bane of anything on my key chain. I have snapped an actual key in half in the lock of my car door, I have broken the connector for my key chain turtle, and I have mutilated the chain that fixed my 3' measuring tape (useful for situations when I'm working at Habitat for Humanity or helping my father build something) to the key ring. Those little reward cards for grocery stores have ripped right off of it, and my flash drive is now a shell of its former self; the cotraption that connected it to the key ring has been mutilated beyond recognition and now hangs separate from the actual drive which is now stuck on the ring, plastic bulging grotesquely as it tries to rip away from it. My realization came when I looked at the sorry state of the key ring and realized that all of these problems (except for the snapping of the key) could have been solved by simply making a chain that was both sturdier and more aesthetically pleasing than the ones that came with each little gizmo, and then attaching the bright(?) aluminum chains with a sturdy, higher ID steel ring.

So far I have a byzantine chain only a few repeatable units long on the measuring tape for testing and it seems to be working great. Despite being a weaker metal and suffering from extensive use (I generally just grab the first thing in my pocket and yank the keys out, which is obviously the cause of all of the trouble I have with the gizmos on the key ring) there seems to be no deformation in the rings and it still looks great. After exams I'm going to make chains for just about everything that can have them since they look great, are relatively quick to make, and make my life easier by making me not have to replace stuff every few months.

Note: I have no clue if this is actually bright aluminum since I buy my own wire from local stores and make my own rings. This is 19ga from home depot purely because it's a cheap, soft, and easy to acquire metal that looks pretty good. It's shines quite well as it is and only leaves a black residue at the joints where it is cut, but generally after handleing there isn't any residue at all.

Anyhow, has anyone else actually gone through with projects and found some practical uses for their work? Besides making money of course.

[Farmerbob]

<snip a lot>

Anyhow, has anyone else actually gone through with projects and found some practical uses for their work? Besides making money of course.

Blasphemy!  Lol.  Practical uses defy the will of !science!

If I lived 500 years ago the chain I was building would be good for armor.  It stopped modern arrows in a 60 lb bow at 20 feet, it would likely stop or deflect anything but a direct hit from a musket or english longbow or crossbow.  Of course, 500 years ago, getting 5/16" lockwashers would not have been very possible.  I could see some very niche uses for heavy chain though - for working in the crabbing / fishing / butchering industries, but they typically use heavy wire weave or cut/pierce resistant nonmetallics - not heavy chain.

[forsaken1111]

<snip a lot>

Anyhow, has anyone else actually gone through with projects and found some practical uses for their work? Besides making money of course.

Blasphemy!  Lol.  Practical uses defy the will of !science!

If I lived 500 years ago the chain I was building would be good for armor.  It stopped modern arrows in a 60 lb bow at 20 feet, it would likely stop or deflect anything but a direct hit from a musket or english longbow or crossbow.  Of course, 500 years ago, getting 5/16" lockwashers would not have been very possible.  I could see some very niche uses for heavy chain though - for working in the crabbing / fishing / butchering industries, but they typically use heavy wire weave or cut/pierce resistant nonmetallics - not heavy chain.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mail_(armour)#Modern_uses

[Farmerbob]

<snip a lot>

Anyhow, has anyone else actually gone through with projects and found some practical uses for their work? Besides making money of course.

Blasphemy!  Lol.  Practical uses defy the will of !science!

If I lived 500 years ago the chain I was building would be good for armor.  It stopped modern arrows in a 60 lb bow at 20 feet, it would likely stop or deflect anything but a direct hit from a musket or english longbow or crossbow.  Of course, 500 years ago, getting 5/16" lockwashers would not have been very possible.  I could see some very niche uses for heavy chain though - for working in the crabbing / fishing / butchering industries, but they typically use heavy wire weave or cut/pierce resistant nonmetallics - not heavy chain.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mail_(armour)#Modern_uses

Cool, I thought those industries had moved on to wire weaves and synthetics instead of chain.  I guess not.

[Girlinhat]

If it's not broke don't fix it.  Chainmail works for those industries, and it'll keep being used because it's cheap and easy, compared to polymers and fancy whatnots.

So far the only practical use I've found is to tease the shit out of my cat.  She has a fit over chainmail.  Anywhere it is, she roots about until she finds it like some mutant chainmail-mole, or some type of truffle-seeking pig, and then she throws it through the entire house until she loses it or gets bored, and if she still has it she'll "bury" it under the carpet or under the bed.  I use baby food jars to hold my rings, and if I step away she's always there holding the piece of work in her mouth and trying to fish inside the jars with her paw.  It's adorable but utterly disruptive.

Although I've been thinking about "climbing gloves".  There's this one tree in the back yard that I keep trimming on, but unfortunately many of the trimming points are high up.  It's a big "bush tree" in that it doesn't have a central trunk, but instead sprouts out like a 40 foot tall bush.  I have to climb up it a bit to get at the base of low-hanging branches and get them there.  I was thinking of making a pair of "gloves" that would work for that, namely with some stainless done in two sheets, about 1.5" wide and 5-6" long.  They'd then be joined halfway along, so there'd be a 2.5"x3" flat segment, and then two side-by-side 2.5"x1.5" thin sections.  A small band would go around the solid end.  This would effectively make a solid cover for the palm, and then have two finger-covers, so it would act sort of like an awkward mitten that only covered the inside of the hand.  If I needed I could slip the finger covers off to do whatever I needed to do, or could slip them on so that I wouldn't scrape up my hand while climbing.  I've just been debating the weave and size needed for this, because it needs a lot of friction to work and I'd like for the chain to "bite into" the tree.  This would probably need large rings of a high AR, so they'd have room to flex a bit and more rings could angle sharply and dig into the bark.  If the weave was too tight then it would just form a sort of cloth and wouldn't grip very tightly.

Also a waterbottle holder.  I go walking a lot, what with having no car and all, and usually carry water in my purse.  But I'd like to make a sort of "bag" shape to hang off the purse and put a water bottle into so that I don't have to reach all the way into the purse, or I could wear it on my belt when cutting grass or something.

[silverskull39]

cellphone pouch/holder, although you might want to put cloth on the inside so you don't scratch the shit out of your phone

You could also use it to make a sort of plant holder; take a potted plant, make a sheet that fits the pot, and make chains and a hook to hang it from the ceiling or something.

I'd like to make a chain door, kinda like those bead doors, and use a whole bunch of different chain lengths, weaves, etc. and hang it from a door frame.

You could also conceivably use full Persian as rope, if you wanted

[Farmerbob]

If it's not broke don't fix it.  Chainmail works for those industries, and it'll keep being used because it's cheap and easy, compared to polymers and fancy whatnots.

So far the only practical use I've found is to tease the shit out of my cat.  She has a fit over chainmail.  Anywhere it is, she roots about until she finds it like some mutant chainmail-mole, or some type of truffle-seeking pig, and then she throws it through the entire house until she loses it or gets bored, and if she still has it she'll "bury" it under the carpet or under the bed.  I use baby food jars to hold my rings, and if I step away she's always there holding the piece of work in her mouth and trying to fish inside the jars with her paw.  It's adorable but utterly disruptive.

Although I've been thinking about "climbing gloves".  There's this one tree in the back yard that I keep trimming on, but unfortunately many of the trimming points are high up.  It's a big "bush tree" in that it doesn't have a central trunk, but instead sprouts out like a 40 foot tall bush.  I have to climb up it a bit to get at the base of low-hanging branches and get them there.  I was thinking of making a pair of "gloves" that would work for that, namely with some stainless done in two sheets, about 1.5" wide and 5-6" long.  They'd then be joined halfway along, so there'd be a 2.5"x3" flat segment, and then two side-by-side 2.5"x1.5" thin sections.  A small band would go around the solid end.  This would effectively make a solid cover for the palm, and then have two finger-covers, so it would act sort of like an awkward mitten that only covered the inside of the hand.  If I needed I could slip the finger covers off to do whatever I needed to do, or could slip them on so that I wouldn't scrape up my hand while climbing.  I've just been debating the weave and size needed for this, because it needs a lot of friction to work and I'd like for the chain to "bite into" the tree.  This would probably need large rings of a high AR, so they'd have room to flex a bit and more rings could angle sharply and dig into the bark.  If the weave was too tight then it would just form a sort of cloth and wouldn't grip very tightly.

Also a waterbottle holder.  I go walking a lot, what with having no car and all, and usually carry water in my purse.  But I'd like to make a sort of "bag" shape to hang off the purse and put a water bottle into so that I don't have to reach all the way into the purse, or I could wear it on my belt when cutting grass or something.

While I whole-heartedly approve of !science! in DF and even to some extent in real life, I also have a penchant for trying to use the right tool for the job.  Rather than climbing around in a tree that you are trying to prune, you should really get one of the long handled pruners.  You can get one that will let you reach 20 feet up into a tree for about $50 bucks brand new.  Not a long saw, a rope-actuated pruner.

If you have neighbors with trees that need pruning, you could buy the pruner for your tree, then charge your neighbors a few bucks per tree to prune their too, and end up making your purchase make you money rather than costing you money.

[MadocComadrin]

cellphone pouch/holder

You'd have to use something other than metal though, unless you want a fancy way to ignore calls (depending on the weave and rings, you'd make a Faraday cage).

[Girlinhat]

It's easy to avoid a Faraday, especially using nonconductive bits like rubber or anodized aluminum.  The anodization process actually makes a thin ceramic layer.  Either way, rubber would definitely not conduct anything, and if I understand the Faraday Cage right, you only need one band of rubber to interupt the conduction and make it not a cage.

[Lectorog]

I finished a thing, so now seemed like a good time to share some pictures. (With links, because they're kind of really big images.)

First, the thing I finished.
http://tnypic.net/68c7c.jpg
Yes, a rainbow-colored bracelet. Red, orange, yellow, green, blue, violet, pink. Took 5 to 6 hours.
I got a bag of mixed anodized aluminum rings a while ago, to see what they looked like. Having nothing else to do with them, I put them to this use. I thought it would look really bad before I started, but it turned out actually looking good. Unless you hate colors or something.
Also, the "clasp" is terrible. It's a segment of 18g steel wire, bent into a sort of double-prong shape. It works, though. I don't really make bracelets and the like, so I don't have any clasps.

Second, my progress on armor.
http://tnypic.net/9079c.jpg
Same penny as last time for reference.
That's all 16g (actually 14 American gauge, but close) galvanized steel, 3/8" diameter (or 5/16 or something else close).
I'm not sure what the triangle shape is for. I just felt like making it.
I have no clue how to get from this to an actual shirt. There's a distance to go, though, so I don't have to worry about it now.

Third, two other weaves.
http://tnypic.net/997c8.jpg
Captive inverted roundmaille with a bend, and dragonscale. Both tremendous pains; at least, for the rings I was working with. Large rings are the same as before. Small rings are 18g (16g American), 1/4" diameter - those are the rings inside the dragonscale.
The CIR isn't bad, it just takes a bit of practice - until you get to the bend. It had a tendency to not want to move, eject the ring I was holding captive in there, or flip the rings the wrong way. I don't know what I can use it for - it's not very rigid (not a good ring size for that weave).
Dragonscale is difficult for traditional work. I figured out a way to work it easily enough, but not with closing the rings normally. I closed a ring, put some needle nose pliers inside, opened it that way, put it on through the appropriate rings, and closed it by pushing opposite sides in with pliers. Perhaps a method to make some cringe, but it works.

I got the large scale flower kit in early January. I still haven't successfully made a flower. Except for the first flower, which I made with ease. Perplexing.

[Thief^]

The rainbow bracelet looks nice, but I'm surprised it took you so long to make. The bracelets I make (half rubber rings half aluminium) only take about an hour. You might want to try closing the rings for half your rows beforehand, and just slotting them on as you go.

The panels for your armour seem to be coming along well. From what I understand, making a vest is easy enough, it's just a flat pattern, the trick is in joining the sleeves on. Good luck

I love dragonscale, I've been working on a fine dragonscale bracelet for a long time. It's the single fiddliest pattern I've tried to make! I've been meaning to try CIR, it's another pattern with completely independent rows that you can make with 50% closed rings, so I could make it with 50% stretchy rubber rings and have a stretchy one.

I've got some scales myself, but haven't done anything with them yet...

[Lectorog]

The rainbow bracelet looks nice, but I'm surprised it took you so long to make.

I hadn't worked with rings that small before. It was difficult. After I figured out how to do it best, it went quicker, but not much.
I'm generally a slow worker; this is a relaxing hobby for me. I haven't sold anything (not yet, at least) - I actually gave that bracelet as a birthday gift to someone.

The panels for your armour seem to be coming along well. From what I understand, making a vest is easy enough, it's just a flat pattern, the trick is in joining the sleeves on. Good luck

Thanks; I'm going to start with just a vest. Then I think I'll make separate sleeves, and figure out how to join them together.
Yesterday I finished the far left segment and connected them together. It's sizeable - should be, considering I've used about 200 feet of wire so far.

I love dragonscale, I've been working on a fine dragonscale bracelet for a long time. It's the single fiddliest pattern I've tried to make!

I'd imagine it to be a very different experience depending on the AR you use. It's overall pretty fun, in my opinion. Looks great, too.

I've been meaning to try CIR, it's another pattern with completely independent rows that you can make with 50% closed rings, so I could make it with 50% stretchy rubber rings and have a stretchy one.

I don't think that would go very well - past making it, that is. The point of CIR is that it's rather firm. What would you be using it for?

I've got some scales myself, but haven't done anything with them yet...

Scales are awesome. Depending on my income in the near future, I may buy a (large, steel) scale vest kit. Going to get the scale sample with my next order, here soon.