My Begginings
Making chainmail first peaked my interest while I was in my junior year of high school in 2007 when my friend John talked me into it. He recommended some sites to do basic work to then prepare you for the harder projects later on, and with this information, I was able to talk my cousin into joining me on this new venture. However, we decided to take on a hard project right off the bat making each of us a Hauberk (essentially a long sleeve chainmail shirt that also goes past your waist) out of 14 gauge galvanized steel in the classic European 4-1 pattern. After countless hours and weeks of research on how to make our new sets of armor, we knew it was time to begin. We started our new venture equipped with two pliers each, a rod to coil the wire, a rig to hold the rod, and then a pair of bolt cutters to cut out our rings. During the long hot summer days we worked on our new armor constantly coiling, cutting, and knitting each and every ring one by one. Then, after months of us constantly going out to the grocery store to return bottles for cash to fund our project and then off to buy the wire to make it; we finally hit the moment where our armor was a working vest and wearable to the Michigan Renaissance Fair. At this point now both John and my cousin halted their chainmail projects, but I continued on after a much needed break. After a while I began to add the sleeves to my armor making it a nice looking T-shirt (roughly 15-20lbs). Then (about 1-1/2 years since the beginning) I finished the sleeves and the part where the length went to my knees. However, I was not satisfied with the results and cropped it back to a T-shirt to work on fixing it for another day.
Once I was done taking another break from chainmail, I had another crazy idea. I decided to make a "kings maille, or European 8-2" vest; which is simply what I made the first time, but double the ring count. If there was one thing that proved my dedication to chainmail, it was this armor piece. This armor put me through constant bruising, needle nose pliers flying off the rings and hitting my eyes, wire spring back causing cuts, and a lot of mental headache; but I continued on. The kings maille armor to this day is still not finished because it was halted when I met my girlfriend (now wife) in 2012. She being a renaissance fair girl, gave me another outlook on chainmail that I did not see it as before; and that was to make a jewelry piece just for her. With not many months to go before Christmas; I secretly researched day and night for weeks, bought supplies, and made her a sterling silver chainmail heart pendant for our first Christmas together (This heart is my shop logo, and sorry, only she will get a sterling heart from me). Making that heart for her made me want to make more jewelry pieces and share my love for the art to many more people. I hope to expand this into a full time business in the near future.
