Chain Mail Coif Tutorial

By:

Bikini Duck Creations

Bikini Duck Creations www.BikiniDuck.com

& 2001-07 MTL Studios, Inc. POBox 580692, Minneapolis, MN 55458

This here is considered a raw ring. These are of little use on their own. This is a closed ring. After you are done assembling everything, this is what all rings should look like. This is a raw ring that has been twisted to make the ends touch each other, and stay closed.

This is an open ring. These are the rings that are used to weave all chainmail. This is a raw ring that has been twisted to make the ends more open.

Step 1 Measure the circumference of your forehead. This will be the widest part of this coif. For the example coif being built in this tutorial I am going with the figure of 13.5 inches. Once you have that figure you need to multiply it by 4*. That will give you the total number of rings that will be going around your forehead. In this case 54. Now we take that number and divide it by 6. We get 9. The next step is to make 6 triangles that look like the one to the right. The bottom rung of the triangle needs to have as many rings as the number we just found. In this case 9. Be sure all 6 triangles are exactly the same. If not the next steps wont work. Step 2 Now we have to connect the 6 triangles together to form the top of the coif. Line up the 6 triangles like so.

*See F.A.Q on last page.

Step 3 Now we connect the triangles together. Below is a zoom-in of the picture to the left. Be sure to line the two triangles up so that each row leans the same way as the corresponding row on the other triangle. Start at the top. The first ring you add will connect to two rings on the second row down (one on each piece). Now close that ring.

Kit and instructions by: www.BikiniDuck.com

Step 4 Add a ring on the second row down. This ring will connect to two rings on the third row down (one on each piece) and one ring on the top row (the ring you added in the last step).

Step 5 Add a ring on the third row down. This ring will connect to two rings on the fourth row down (one on each piece) and one ring on the second row up (the ring added in the last step).

Step 6 Continue adding rings one at a time on each of the additional rows. Always remember the ring you add will connect to two rings on the row below and one ring on the row above. Next add one more ring to the bottom row. This ring will connect to one ring on the row above.

One you are done connecting all the triangles together you should get something that looks like this.

On to the next page!

Kit and instructions by: www.BikiniDuck.com

Now we have to close that hole in the center of the sheet. You need to pass one open ring through three of the rings. Like in the picture to the left.

Step 7 The next step is to continue all the way around. With one ring going through three. If you get confused look at the picture to the right as to how to place the rings. Once all the way around you should have used six rings in total. What used to be a hole should now look like this. The next step is to add a center ring through all six of the rings you added in the last step. Warning, sometimes this can get frustrating. But once done it should look like this. Depending on the ring size you are using this may not work. If that is the case you will need to use a larger ring size in the center.

Now you should have something that looks like this. Congratulations, you have now completed the hard part. The rest now is easy, although time consuming.

Kit and instructions by: www.BikiniDuck.com

Step 8 Now we have to start building downward so we can lengthen the coif. Right now we only want to go as far as our eyebrows. Youll see why later on. To expand the piece we take one open ring and pass it through two closed one. We close it, and repeat all the way around the piece. Once you have gone around all the way, you have completed one row. Now on to the second one. Step 9 Simple really, all you do is repeat step 8. Although if you notice in the picture, the rings are going in the opposite direction from the last step. Go all the way around adding rings like this until you have completed another full row. Step 10 Continue steps 8 and 9 until the chainmail reaches to your eyebrows. This usually means trying the piece on after the completion of each row. You should start to get something that looks like this. Step 11 Now you are tasked with finding a mirror. You have to wear the semi done coif and look at yourself in the mirror. Dont laugh too hard though. Everyone else already thinks you are mad at attempting this, cackling laughter will only make them think doubly so. Plus it will take you a long time to finish this step. You need to measure your face. In other words you need to figure out how wide to leave the space in coif that your face comes out of. In this coif I found 13 rings made for a nice gap. Dependong on the ring size you use it may be more, or less. You could leave no gap at all, but that is not suggested. Find a suitable distance and mark it with two rings. Now move on to the next step.

Kit and instructions by: www.BikiniDuck.com

Step 12 Now for the really time consuming part. Its not all that hard, it just takes a long time. Continue steps 8 and 9 all the way around the coif. Making sure to skip the section that you measured out in step 11. The edges of this section should look like the pictures on this page. That means that on one of the two steps you will be adding one ring through only one other ring, and not two like the rest of the pattern. Kind of like so.

The spot you left unmade for your face should come out like this picture. Anyways, you should continue adding rows like so until you reach a desirable length, or run out of rings, your choice. In this example I added 20 extra rows. (Extra as counting from step 11)

Kit and instructions by: www.BikiniDuck.com

And there you go, all done! If you would like to purchase rings to make coifs, or other kits for more cool items check out www.BikiniDuck.com or feel free to write to us. We would greatly appreciate any and all feedback on this tutorial. Please let us know what you think! Thanks and enjoy!
Martin@BikiniDuck.com
MTL Studios, Inc. POBox 580692, Minneapolis, MN 55458

Frequently Asked Questions

I have your chain mail coif kit and i want to thuroughly understand it.-in the first step when calculating the number of rings involved in making the coif,why multiply the circumference of the head by 4!-why not 2,3,or even 5-i want to understsnd this so i can do calculations in the future that involve diferent guages and ring diameters-please respond "Step 1 Measure the circumference of your forehead. This will be the widest part of this coif. For the exam ple coif being built in this tutorial I am going with the figure of 13.5 inches. Once you have that fig ure you need to multiply it by 4. That will give you the total number of rings that will be going around your forehead. In this case 54. "
The number 4 is used to figure out how many rings you need in order to get an smooth fit on your head. For the ring size used in the pictures of this tutorial it takes 4 rings per inch. So a strip of this weave in this size will have 4 rings per inch. For other ring sizes you just replace the 4 with however many rings there are in one inch of that weave. For 16g 1/4 rings, thats 5 rings per inch. For 18g 5/32 rings, that 8 rings per inch. And so on.

What size are the rings that you used in these instuctions?
The ring size that I used was 14g 3/8ths. Thats 14g (0.080) wire with an inner diameter of 3/8 of an inch. This tutorial is pretty generic though so you should be able to use it with almost any ring size.

Coments? Questions? Suggestions? Feel free to contact me:

Martin@BikiniDuck.com
MTL Studios, Inc. POBox 580692, Minneapolis, MN 55458