R&D - Some More Ring Cutting, Why Not?

This summer flew by fast before I realized it's almost gone.  I didn't maille much; just some experiments here and there; those were fun!

But I know there are quite a number of projects on my to-do list, waiting for me to get started.  Well, to be exact, they're waiting for the jump rings to be ready, namely several different sizes of niobium rings.  Time to cut some rings!!  Nothing like firing up a few power tools to get things going fast :-)

The first batch:  Some niobium rings in 1.3 mm wire, 1/4" ID, for a custom order of a Forget-Me-Not bracelet.

Yes, I'm starting from scratch, I mean, raw niobium wire, that is :-)  17 gauge SWG, at 1.3 mm thick, 20 feet long, just under 2.5 oz.  Power winding in 4 batches onto 1/4" transfer punch.

Yes, I know there are the messy over coiling on the ends.  They used to bother me a lot... Not any more; don't sweat the small stuff, I was told!

Here's why having a Ringinator is a major plus:  Cut off the messy ends, run the good coils through the ring cutter. And in no time, you get this!

Well, there were a few more steps in between... like washing, tumbling, sifting thru the stainless steel shots, and 2 rounds of QC: first one to separate the obvious scraps; second to pick out the defects, like over- or under-cuts, non-circulars, severely bruised, etc.  See the pile of short coils and squigglies?  I used to labor over a hand saw for hours on end (felt like it...) trying to recover them; not anymore; they go into other future projects and experiments!

Then I'm left with the pile on the right, 170+ nice, clean cut jump rings, ready to go.  As to the middle 5 rings, they are randomly picked out, properly closed to be measured for the actual ID entered on my spreadsheet.  Yes, good documentation is not only a virtue, it's a necessity, for a complicated computer system, as well as a lovely handmade chainmaille bracelet!

What have I learned from this batch of rings?  Mind the direction when winding wire.  Noticed the two rings above have different handedness?  The right-handed ring on the left, and the left-handed ring on the right.  Do they make any difference in the end product?  For the majority of weaves, probably not.  But I'll admit, having consistent ring handedness does seem to contribute to a smooth flow of hand movement during weaving.

What do you think?  Have you noticed any advantage or disadvantage in using mixed handedness of rings?  Or am I over analyzing and missing the fun?  LOL!

Next step in prep:  Add some colors!  Stay tuned ;-)

R&D - More Cutting Rings by Hand

As I work on a custom order of a niobium chainmaille finger ring, I thought it's about time I document the process of going from wires to chains.  This is how I first started doing chainmaille back in 2008.  Lots have changed since then.  Now we have many excellent sources specializing in chainmaille supplies.  But once in a while, I enjoy going back to the way it had all started.  So, here it is!

I'm making a Oops finger ring in pure niobium, based on this ring:

 A chainmaille Oops ring in 20 gauge AWG sterling silver.  This one was picked up by my old friend Mary S. :-)  A little more about it in this post here.

This time, my friend Joy M., who's my partner-in-crime from two of my previous lives, wants one of these in anodized niobium to match her bracelet and earrings.  So here it goes!

I start with a bundle of niobium wire.

Cut a length of this wire; I cut about 98".  btw, I use memory wire cutter; don't use your fancy flush cutters for silver or copper; niobium will chew them right up.

Coil tightly on a 7/64" mandrel, I get two coils, each looking like this.

I learned to cut coils by wrapping masking tape around it, put it onto a saw blade, then saw cut from the inside.  This cutting method was introduced in a free tutorial written by Carolyn Allan on JewelryLessons.com long time ago; it's no longer available on that site; but I've been faithfully following her method.

I load the blade cut side facing downward towards my right hand.  Start cutting from inside the coil like this:

I like to draw a straight line on the masking tape just as a visual guide for the blade.  Then cut steadily, keeping the blade to the top of coil, aim for the first 4 or 5 rings.  For this length of coil, it took me about 20 minutes to cut through; the last few coils tend to be problematic; they can be cut, but will take more effort; I mostly leave them out and save them for other projects:

Open the masking tape, and I get these:

A whole coil of rings, neatly open up in a long roll:-)  The masking tape also helps catching most of the metal filing inside, that's a good thing for my lungs!  Oh right, I use Bur Life on both the coil and the blade, re-apply liberally.  Niobium gets warm very fast, seems more so than most other metals I've cut...

Open up the coil and let out the rings! Yay!!

I carefully pick them up and put into a small jar 1/3 filled with water, tiny drop of Sunsheen burnishing fluid, some stainless steel shots, then shake!

Shake shake shake!  Shake shake shake! :-)

This cleans the rings, knocks off small burs from the cut.

It's a little hard to see in this photo, but in that murky water are all the loose stuff that I don't want on the rings.  I pour the water out in the backyard at a spot where I don't plant anything.  Careful not to lose the rings or the shots:-)  According to Rio Grande's data sheet on Sunsheen, it's biodegradable.  I just don't want the metal bits accumulating in my kitchen drain.

Now we get the rings, nice and clean, ready to go!!

Not sure if you can see them, but I coiled these the "wrong" way, which makes them "left-handed", meaning the left side of the ring is closer to me when I hold up a ring with cut end facing up.

Nothing really "wrong" about them, but many maillers reported right-handed folks work better with right-handed rings when it comes to threading them into a weave, specially in tight spots.  I'm right handed, but I'll take them anyway they come :-)

So, this is just an example of how I make a small batch of rings by hand.  If it seems tedious, then making rings is probably not your thing, LOL!  I quite like it; there's a zen to it that helps me focus.

Here is after they're added to the Oops weave; it's almost there... !

Oh and yes, those are two pairs of my favorite pliers, Xuron 475.  My go-to pliers about 80% of the time!!

Whew, this is a long post for me!  But it's well worth it, even for myself!

Glad you stopped by!

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R&D - Saw-Cut Niobium Rings

This is something I had wanted to do even before I got my Ringinator :D

Specs

Niobium (yes, my favorite metal), 20 gauge AWG, half-hard, 0.2 oz, 144 coils on 3/32" mandrel, quick dips 3 times in anodizing bath, voltage 102, 85, 60, run thru Ringinator on 0.010" blade, with only soapy water and Rio Grande's Bur Life stick, loose rings anodized again at 35 volt for cut ends.

Counted 96 good ones.  Not bad for a first try.

What have I learned?

1. Get some real cutting fluid for the Ringinator.  Niobium loads up very fast on the blade, even at this thin gauge...
2. When cut by hand with a jeweler's saw, 8/o blades will do.  But do it in short coils, wrapped in masking tape; they heat up fast!
3. Use low speed on the drill.  Gauge for gauge, temper for temper, niobium is harder to cut than bronze or sterling silver.
4. Up the last anodizing voltage before cutting, to above 63, maybe, so that the final dip after cutting have more choices.
5. For large volume of rings in common sizes, it's still more economical to buy them!!

I thoroughly enjoyed this experiment, and will definitely do it again.

What do you think? ;-)

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R&D - Triple Layered Scale Maille Flower via The Ring Lord

Pretty cool, huh?

Want to learn how to make a triple layered scale flower?  Watch this TRL's video tutorial by Bernice.

I saw it a while back, but never had all the parts on hand, until now:-)

The only detail I added are the additional 18 swg 1/4" rings that go thru each punched hole of the middle layer large scales and the center of the flower; without these extra rings, the top and middle layers tend to shift freely; with these added rings, the scales remain in place and the whole piece stays well in flower shape even when thrown around or dropped.

Oh btw, if the plan is to make a triple layered flower, I'd recommend weaving the rings as such from the beginning, because when fiddling with those 18 swg aluminum rings one too many times, they tend to get marred, and the scales get scratched:-(

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R&D - Sierpinski's Triangle

Sierpinski's Triangle - What's is it?  I Googled it, still it's something I don't understand:-(

But, it looks pretty awesome in maille, don't you think?!

On one of those days when I had a serious case of mailler's block (like the kind I'm having right now, sadly....), I flipped through MAIL's weave library looking for inspiration when I came across an interesting triangle shape thingy created by ElementalDragon.  If you've not done any mailling, it may not be obvious to you, but achieving a straight line with round jump rings is not exactly straight forward (yes, pun intended!)

And triangles are made of 3 straight lines!  So how does this work?

Very carefully; like this!

These are tiny, at AR 2.3 for 18 swg rings.  Very hard to keep hold of.

How about with thicker wire?  Like this.

Then this.

Then back to the first photo on top:-)  

And from a different angle.  Interesting, don't you think?!

Oh, didn't mind the gaps; this is a just test:-)  But I see potentials in this!!  A dainty pendant, perhaps....  OK, will need to fire up my Ringinator to make some tight rings; AR 2.3 is not exactly common....

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Dutch Spiral is Cool!!

You're seeing this right; this is not chainmaille; it's seed bead weaving, one of my favorite crafts.  Been a while since I last did any...  For a new year, some new ideas brewing in my head, something mixed media...  First one to revisit is Dutch Spiral.

This odd-count tubular peyote weave is fascinating!  Yes, it's known as Dutch Spiral, but it's not woven in the typical spiral stitches.

It's done exactly as any odd-count tubular peyote, except it has a "floating bridge" added to each round.  This is where the magic beings!!

My test piece is just a short segment of size 11 mixed with size 6 for the ridge effect, followed by a string of 3-bead, size 15, "floating bridge".  The starting rounds can be a bit confusing, but not as tricky as some other spirals or tubular weaves.

Not too many chainmaille weaves that I know of can do spirals as dramatic and flexible; Markovian Helix may be one, but it's not exactly a quick weave to put together.

This short strip of test piece took longer than I planned; very tactile but still need work before production feasible.

So yes, more R&D, as always.  But I'm very excited about Dutch Spiral; I see lots of potential!!!

:-)


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Tale of Two Leans of Half Persian 3 in 1

Did you ever feel totally confused about the handedness or leans of Half Persian 3 in 1 (HP3in1)?  I did.  I tried many tutorials, videos, read up on books, trying to compare one with another, each time I get turned left and right (yes, pun intended) with occasional success, and I often count those to luck, until when I read through this article by Talia on MAIL really really carefully.  Then I got it!

In the spirit of sharing this with my readers, here's what I documented (as well as in a reply to a question on MWW recently).

----- The basics of HP3in1 with different leans -----

Given HP3in1 has 2 rows, with one row always stacks the same way, you just reverse the other rows when you need a different lean.

That's it!  It's that simple!

To illustrate it, I took some pictures to show how I do it.  I'm right handed and worked these samples from left to right.  When I started, rings of upper row stacked to the back as I built the chain; then starting from the copper ring, I stacked the upper row rings to the front. Then you can pull down (or turn down, or unfold) right side of rings, you get pictures 2, 3, 4 with opposite leans of HP3in1; now you may connect two ends as you wish.

Happy weaving!

or, should it be
Happy learning?!

LOL!

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R&D - Scale Lotus Flower

Been seeing many different lotus flowers made with scales.  Most are made with scales and jump rings.  But since I learned from Xander's tutorial on double-layer scales and rubber flowers, and seeing several other scale flowers with multiple layers, I've been wanting one.  And here's my experiment.

The center is covered with a little wire spiral.

And the bottom is rather open and flat.  With all the little jump rings pulling outward, they function kind of like a stand for the flower.

Using rubber rings instead of jump rings has its advantage, no fussing over closure; but they can be tricky since they are always "closed"; a different way of thinking and linking required:-)

Cute, huh?!

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R&D - Bunny Rabbit

This idea has been floating around in my head for a while....  Many sketches were made (I so wish I knew how to sketch properly)....  Oh and googling down the "rabbit" hole.... LOL, pun intended:-)

Countless experiments later (and there were some fuzzy ones)....  I think it's finally taking shape....

I see it.  Do you?   *grin*

I've been told, "Simple is hard!"  It's true.  Weeding out the unnecessary, playing the negative space, that was hard.

In the end, as it turned out, it really doesn't take much.

This one is mine!!!

Ah, so many animals, so little time....

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