For those of you who don’t know, I have the dual-hobbies of a) putting spikes in clothing and b) making chainmail. I got into this almost a year ago to the day, when I was riding down the street and thinking about what awesome fashion sense Mad Max had. It inspired me to get a biker-style leather jacket, and then tool it out with 1970’s punk-style studs and spikes. Then I was like, “well, I’ll need a proper belt to go with it. I should look around on eBay for the most over-the-top belt buckle I can find… and then instead of leather, I should get a belt made out of CHAINMAIL.”
When it eventually proved easier to make a belt out of chainmail rather than buy one, so that’s what I did.
It all just kind of spiralled out from there, gradually turning me more and more into a walking heavy metal album cover designed by He-Man villains.
But enough of my jabberings. Here are a few of the things I’ve made:
I dubbed these my “grand ultimate shit kickers.” There were spikes in them before, but they kept falling out. I’m currently looking into a way to affix them more permanently.
My other Grand Ultimate Shit Kickers. These are my winter boots, substantially warmer than the above, and also substantially more covered in scale mail.
My gloves. I really want to falcon punch someone with these.
A decent shot of my jacket/how I look on a day to day basis. Note the spikes on the left arm - there’s a lot of them. Note the scale mail on the right - there’s a a lot of that, too.
Obviously, this photo was taken before I pimped out my gloves.
A close up of the scale mail on the right shoulder.
Another close up, this one of the side lacing of my jacket. Those are wolf teeth attached to the ends of the laces.
I’m currently working on a chainmail shirt/vest (haven’t quite decide which it’ll end up as), which is by far the largest project I’ve undertaken. I’ll have photos of that up, as well, when it’s done.
Gloves are crazy time consuming, because of the amount of measuring and adjusting that needs to be done. It’s hard for me to give exact time measurements, as I tend to spin a bunch of wire into coils en masse, then cut a bunch of coils into rings en masse, then finally weave it together.
I’d estimate somewhere from 6-10 man hours in total for the gloves.
Fortunately, unlike, say, painting, you don’t have to be only making chainmail when making chainmail, as it only requires your eyes and hands but not your mouth and ears. Thus, it’s easy to sit around chatting with friends or playing dungeons and dragons while working on a project.
I’ve found that my professors don’t particularly appreciate it if I make chainmail in class, though, even if I am being perfectly attentive to lecture while doing so.
Cool stuff. It looks like you got the tail end of a motorcycle in that picture of yourself. At least I hope its a motorcycle. Don’t know if you could pull off the mad max thing on a ten-speed, but cool stuff regardless.
They don’t get snagged on much, but the ones on the end do get twisted around a fair bit. Particularly the ones that connect to the chains securing them to my boots/jacket - the strain twists them around a bit.
It does actually snag me girls sometimes. My past two S/O’s were initially intrigued in me because of the way I dressed. It seems that the punk/goth crowd are the ones who appreciate it the most, which is unsurprising given the role of nontraditional fashion in those communities.
I suppose it also does get some negative attention, but mostly from the type of people I’m not really interested in being friends with.
Yes, I do take commissions. What are you interested in? Also, don’t you live in Australia?
I’ve never made a bra before, but I’m sure my girlfriend and her boobs would help me with the finer details of it. I do indeed sell the stuff occasionally - I made my first sell not long ago, to a friend of my brother’s who wanted a chainmail tie. I’d need to look into bra construction before I could give you an estimate, but I think we could work something out.
Send me a PM, and we’ll hammer out the details.
Probably. I’d like to think that it’d hurt them a lot too, though.
This is a very interesting hobby. I know a guy that does all of those renaissance fairs. He has a whole suit of amour that was custom made. I always thought it was a little unusual but I took my family to one of his fairs, and it was pretty fun. They had some good ass beer at that fair.
I don’t think i’d ever wear any of that stuff -well, at least not until the zombies start taking over. Still it’s interesting to see what martial artists do when their not martial artsing. I like the scales -seems they’d be more practical in a real sword fight but that’s another topic(lol).
I was gonna guess Stirling’s series (Island in the sea of time, etc…) but I don’t think magic works in them, and they were started in the late 90’s. Oh well.
