A Lesson in How to Make Classic "European" Chain Mail (Maile, Maille, Chainmaille, europeanchainmail, chainmail)

Here's a brief "how-to" for making the kind of chain mail worn by knights of the past in battle--and by fashionable people today as jewelry. The techniques are the same, and the results can be quite stunning.

Tools and materials

To make chain mail (often misspelled "chain maille") you will need the following:

• 2 pairs of flat, needle-nosed pliers (jewelry-style, without grooves).
• A bunch of "jump rings", if you are making a piece of jewelry, or special-purpose rings for making armor or other types of chain mail. Choosing 2 different colors of rings will help in learning this technique and following these instructions.
• A velvety mat or similar work surface to allow you to easily pick up chain mail rings without having to set down your pliers.

To close a ring properly...
Your goal is to have rings closed so perfectly that you cannot feel the opening and you can only see it if you look very closely.

To do this, twist one wire-diameter past the point where the wire ends match up. While doing this, push the ends together twice the amount of the gap. This creates tension in the loop that will help keep the gap closed.

Then, twist the ends back together until they meet perfectly. The spring tension should hold the gap where the ring was cut together and your over-twist should should keep the ends aligned in a perfect circle.

Prepare a bunch of rings
1. Open a small bunch of copper rings to about a 30-degree angle.
2. Close a small bunch of silver rings.

Row 1
1. In your pliers, pick up 1 open copper ring.
2. Pick up 4 closed silver rings in the open ring.
3. Close the copper ring.
4. Put the assembly down on your work surface and arrange the rings as shown in Figure 1.

You have just completed one basic unit of chain mail--European 4-in-1 chain mail, to be precise, because 4 rings are linked through each 1 ring.

Figure 2 assigns some letters to the rings to help later on in this process.

5. Pick up 1 open copper ring. This is Ring D.
6. Pick up 2 closed silver rings in Ring D.
7. Join to the assembly by routing Ring D down through B and C.
8. Double-check your work! Close Ring D.
9. Look carefully at Figure 3 and arrange the rings exactly as shown, so that all of the copper rings are laying flat against each other facing one direction and all the silver rings are going the opposite direction. Double-check that your rings are laying exactly as shown.

For wider pieces of chain mail, repeat steps 5 - 9 as many times as needed to get the width you need.

Congratulations, Row 1 is done!

Row 2
10. Pick up 1 open copper ring. This is Ring E.
11. Pick up 2 closed rings in Ring E.
12. Join to the assembly by routing Ring E down through Ring A then up through Ring B.
13. Double-check your work! Close Ring E.

Again, arrange the rings carefully on your work surface and verify that the chain mail looks exactly like that in Figure 4.

14. Pick up 1 open copper ring. This is Ring H.
15. Pick up 1 closed silver ring in the open ring. This is Ring J.
16. Join to the assembly by routing down through F and B then up through Ring G.
17. Double-check your work! Then close Ring H.
18. Arrange the rings carefully on your work surface. Your chain mail should now look like Figure 5.

Row 2 is now done!

Additional Rows
Repeat steps 10 - 18 until your piece of chain mail is as long as you need it to be.

^{These instructions are copyright (C) 2003, 2009 by Laura Schneider and are for personal use only; they may NOT be used for any other purposes without written permission.}