Saturday 1 March 2014

Armoured dragons...

Someone said to me "There's this picture of a rabbit in chainmail. Do you think you could do the same for dragons?"

I have NO idea, but I'm more than willing to give it a try!

I had some zinc plated wire lying around after buying some metal mesh fencing for the new dragon slope - I had a dowel I could use as a mandrel, and I have a few different pliers handy - as well as my famous obsessive patience, just right for a job like this.

Winding the wire was the easy bit - zinc plated steel wraps beautifully, and pulling it off carefully went well. Snipping the rings (the technical name is "jump rings"!) went reasonably well, but stitching them together... hoo. That's a steeper learning curve than your average Olympic ski jump!

Some four hundred rings and rather more hours than I'd care to admit later thanks to several teardowns when it all went to pot, I finally have a swatch of maille about 4 or 5" square - just enough for a dragon armour prototype, for one of the smaller beardies.

And I think I know just the beardie...

Hyphen really likes his ears being rubbed in the evening, which made him the ideal candidate. I used cardboard, rivets, aluminium tape and a paper template - and the result is AWESOME!