online exclusive
intermediate wire chain mail
Corrugated Knot Chain Bracelet Combining basic wireworking skills with a traditional Byzantine chain mail pattern results in an eye-catching, distinctive chain. by Howard Siegel
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This project involves two such wonder-
t’s no secret that jewelry makers are, quite often, tool junkies. We get
ful homemade devices: a wire feeder and
positively giddy over good tools —
a jump ring opener. The raw ingredients
with “good” defined not just as high-
to make these tools aren’t expensive —
quality tools from manufacturers, but
a wooden spring clothespin for one, and
also as those inventive little devices that
an old broom handle for the other.
our fellow jewelry makers cook up and make themselves.
© 2009 Kalmbach Publishing Co. This material may not be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher.
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Once you’ve made the tools, you can make this chain, which requires coiling, cutting, fusing, stretching, forging, annealing, and corrugating fine-silver wire, then connecting the corrugated rings with Byzantine knots made from handmade sterling silver jump rings. When you finish this eye-catching bracelet, you’ll have conquered a host of basic wireworking skills.
make your own
tools!
materials Fine-silver wire: 18-gauge (1.0 mm) round, 5 in. (12.7 cm) ■ Sterling silver wire: 20-gauge (0.8 mm), round, 4 ft. (1.2 m) ■ Sterling silver jump rings: 16-gauge (1.3 mm), 4 mm inside diameter, 2 ■ Crab-claw clasp ■
Rope recess
Slotted screw (for flat head screwdriver)
Drilled hole Wire End of dowel/broom handle • Clothespin tool (left): To make your own jump rings, you’ll need to coil wire around a mandrel. You can do this by hand, but this handy tool, which you can make from a spring-style wooden clothespin, helps control the tension of your wire as you coil it mechanically.
toolboxes, www.artjewelry mag.com/toolboxes Chain mail Soldering ■ Sawing/Piercing ■ Wirework ■ ■
additional tools & supplies Wooden spring clothespin Jump-ring-opening tool; or 3–4-in. (76–102 mm) wooden dowel, slotted screw (optional) ■ Coil winder ■ V-block tool (optional) ■ Shears ■ Tweezers ■ Ring stretcher (or snap ring pliers) (optional) ■ Felt-tip pen ■ Corrugator (choose from): paper crimper or tube wringer ■
To make the clothespin tool, select a drill bit that’s slightly larger than the gauge of wire you’ll use to make the jump rings. Insert this bit into a flex shaft, and drill a 45° angle hole through one leg of your clothespin, below the rope recess. The 45° angle will allow the wire to pass smoothly through the tool without kinking.
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• Jump ring opener (above): To help you use good technique while opening your jump rings, you can buy a slotted ring tool from a tool manufacturer, but making your own is fairly simple. Start with a 3–4-in. (76–102 mm) length of dowel (I used an old broom handle) and screw a slotted screw into one end.
suppliers ■
Mandrels, Blazer-type butane torch (Harbor Freight Tools, 800.444.3353, www.harborfreight.com)
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The clothespin tool was shown to me by master chain maker Cao Madina. He has my thanks for sharing this very simple but useful tool. The idea for corrugating the links in this chain is the result of taking a corrugation workshop taught by Trish Macaleer for the Society for Midwest Metalsmiths. I was greatly aided in the composition and taking the chain process photographs by Herb Halpern of Herb Halpern Productions.
See Safety Basics at www.artjewelrymag.com/howto
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Part 1: Make the jump rings
easier to cut with a jeweler’s saw. You will need roughly 70 small jump rings to complete the bracelet.
Position fine-silver wire in your clothespin tool. Cut a 31 ⁄2 -in. (89 mm) piece of fine-silver wire. Insert one end of the wire through the drill hole in your clothespin tool (see “Make Your Own Tools!” page 2) so the wire comes out inside the rope recess. Pull the wire through the hole and the jaws of the clothespin until you have a 1-in. (25.5 mm) tail. Use chainnose pliers to make a 90° bend about ½–3 ⁄4 in. (13–19 mm) from the end of the wire.
Cut the sterling silver coils into jump rings . Thread a 2/0 or 3/0 saw blade into one end of a jeweler’s saw . Thread the blade through a sterling silver coil, then into the other end of the saw frame, and tighten. Lubricate the saw blade by pulling the teeth through beeswax or another lubricant. Place the coil against your bench pin. (Instead of using a bench pin, I use a Vblock tool that I designed and made for myself [2].) Saw through the coil with the saw blade tipped at roughly 45° so you’re only cutting through two or three wraps at any time. Collect the jump rings as they separate from the coil, and resume sawing.
Prepare a coil winder. Insert a 9 mm mandrel into a coil winder and tighten the chuck. Then insert the bent end of your fine-silver wire into the jaws of the chuck, tightening again if necessary. This will hold the wire so you can wind the coil. Wind the coils. Turn the coil winder’s crank clockwise to wind the wire around the mandrel. Use the clothespin tool to guide the wire so the wraps lie side by side with no gaps [1]. Continue until you have wound all the wire; the coil should have about seven or eight wraps. Slide the coil off the mandrel. Coil the sterling silver wire. Using 8– 10 in. (20.3–25.4 cm) of sterling silver wire and a 3.6 mm mandrel, repeat the previous steps to make another coil. Wind a coil about 2 in. (51 mm) long, then use flush cutters to cut the wire. Continue winding and cutting 2-in. (51 mm) coils until you have coiled all the sterling silver wire. NOTE: Limiting the length of the sterling coils to about 2 in. (51 mm) makes them
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NOTE: Be careful to align the saw blade with the cut end of the last ring. If not properly aligned, there will be two cuts in the ring, one only partially through the ring. If you try to open a ring with a second partial cut, the ring will break, making instant scrap metal. Continue sawing until you’ve cut all the wraps on the coil. Then, cut the remaining sterling silver coils into jump rings. Cut the fine-silver coils into jump rings. Grasp the fine-silver coil in your nondominant hand between the heel of your thumb and your fingers. Hold a pair of shears in your dominant hand and insert the lower blade inside the coil [3]. NOTE: The shears should point down the center of the length of the coil to ensure that you don’t cut your hand.
4 Continue cutting until it becomes difficult. Then, collect the cut rings and resume cutting, taking care to align the blades with the cut end of the last wrap on the coil. Continue cutting the coil until you have cut all of the wraps. Open the sterling silver jump rings. Pick up one sterling silver jump ring, and grip one side of the ring with chainnose pliers, positioning the pliers’ tip close to the cut. Place the other side of the jump ring in the groove in your jump-ring-opening tool (see “Make Your Own Tools!” page 2; as an alternative, you can use two pairs of pliers ) and twist the tool away from your body until the ring is open about 60° [4]. Repeat to open all the sterling silver jump rings. Prepare the fine-silver jump rings for fusing. Place a fusing or soldering board on top of a firebrick to prevent burning your bench. Using pliers or your fingers, close a fine-silver jump ring so that the cut edges make good contact. To do this, over-form the ring (bring the cut edges past each other), then carefully pull them apart, and line up the cut edges. Make sure the edges are aligned both when viewed from the edge of the ring and down the center of the ring. Place the closed ring on the www.A r t J e w e l r y M a g . c o m
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5 fusing board with the cut facing forward. Repeat for the remaining fine-silver rings, placing them in a row across the fusing board and leaving a little space between each ring. Fuse the fine-silver jump rings. Put on an Optivisor so you can clearly see the join in each ring as it fuses. NOTE: If you hold your torch in your right hand, start with the ring at the rear left of the fusing board; if you hold your torch in your left hand, start at the rear right. This will minimize the danger of accidental burns by keeping your hand away from previously fused rings. Move the torch flame in a circular motion around the first ring until it turns a dull red. (I use a propane-fueled pencil torch, but any standard jeweler’s torch setup will work, including a handheld butane model.) TIP: When you’re fusing, turn down your studio lights to make it easier to see the metal change color as you heat it.
will cause the join to “thin out,” then melt completely and form a ball of metal on either side of the join. If this occurs, the ring is scrap. Try deliberately overheating the first ring so you can observe what happens.
Fuse all the fine-silver jump rings. You will need about eight fused rings to complete the bracelet. Use tweezers to push the fused rings off the fusing board and into a water-filled container to cool. Stretch the fine-silver rings. Place a fused ring on a ring stretcher about halfway down the jaws [6]. (You could also use roundnose pliers.) Mark this location on the stretcher with a felt-tip pen so you can position all the rings in the same place and stretch them to the same size. NOTE: Position the fused join on the outside of one jaw of the stretcher. This will stretch the ring so that the join will be inside the chain and not visible on the finished bracelet. Stretch all the fine-silver rings.
Once you see the color change, move the flame to the join in the ring and move the flame in a small circle. Concentrate the heat evenly on both sides of the join [5]. In a short time, the silver at the join will melt and surface tension will pull the molten metal together, fusing the join without the use of solder. TIP: When you’re fusing jump rings, remove the flame from the join as soon as the metal melts. Overheating
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Forge the fine-silver rings. Place a stretched ring over the corner of a bench block so that only half of the ring is on the block [7]. Use the flat face of a ball-peen hammer to flatten this side of the ring to about twice its initial width. Reposition the ring so that the other side of the ring is across the corner of the bench block, and flatten this side. Try to forge both legs to the same width. Do not forge the curved ends of the
8 rings. Forge all the fused jump rings in the same manner. Anneal the fine-silver rings. Forging the rings work-hardens the silver. Since our next step will be to corrugate these rings, we need to soften the metal. Annealing softens the metal and is done by heating the metal . Place the forged rings in a row on the fusing board and turn down the lights. Heat each ring until it is dull red, then move on to the next, keeping the torch moving in a circular motion so you don’t melt the rings. After heating all the rings, push them into the container of water to cool them. Corrugate the fine-silver rings. Use chainnose pliers to place the narrow end of a forged and annealed ring into the corrugator. I used a paper crimper from a local craft store as a corrugator; you could also use a tube wringer. Whichever style of tool you choose, use it according to the manufacturer’s instructions to corrugate the ring [8]. Corrugate all the fine-silver rings.
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Process photos by Herb Halpern.
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Part 2: Assemble the bracelet
Byzantine knots until your chain reaches the desired length. End the chain with a Byzantine knot (rather than a single ring).
Weave the chain. Pick up a corrugated ring. (If desired, you can thread a paper clip or twist tie through this ring for a better grip.) Thread a 3.6 mm sterling silver jump ring through the corrugated ring and close it; repeat with a second 3.6 mm ring. Thread a third 3.6 mm ring through the first pair of rings and close it; repeat to add a fourth 3.6 mm ring [1]. Grasp the corrugated ring and the first pair of 3.6 mm rings between your thumb and forefinger. Separate the second pair of 3.6 mm rings and flip them back, one to each side of the first pair [2]. Grasp the corrugated ring and the second pair of 3.6 mm rings between your thumb and forefinger, and push up on the second pair of rings. Insert a scribe or needle tool above the corrugated ring to hold the first pair of rings open and expose the second pair of rings [3]. Thread a fifth 3.6 mm ring through the V-shaped opening in the knot, then through a second corrugated ring, and close it. Repeat to add a second 3.6 mm ring through the same path, going through the two 3.6 mm rings and the corrugated ring. You have just completed a Byzantine knot at the end of the first corrugated ring and added a second corrugated ring to your chain. Each corrugated ring and Byzantine knot is slightly under 1 in. (25.5 mm) long; you can estimate the length of the chain by counting the corrugated rings. Continue adding corrugated rings and
Add the clasp and finish the chain. Open two 4 mm inside diameter (ID) sterling silver jump rings. Thread a single 4 mm jump ring through the Byzantine knot at the end of the chain; add the clasp to this jump ring and then close the ring. Thread a second 4 mm jump ring through the corrugated ring at the end of the chain, then close the ring. This ring will form the other half of the clasp. Alternately, you can skip this second jump ring and close the bracelet by closing the clasp through the final elongated corrugated link. Place the chain in a tumbler with mixed stainless steel shot and burnishing compound. Tumble the chain for 1–2 hours. Remove the chain from the tumbler, rinse it with running water, and then dry it. Pull the chain through your hand. If the chain feels rough, put it back in the tumbler, and tumble it until the chain feels smooth. Additional tumbling will not harm the chain.
3 Bonus Videos Check out these bonus tutorials for fundamental techniques used in this project: Making jump rings Threading a saw blade in a saw frame ■ Opening and closing jump rings ■ Annealing metal ■ ■
Videos, www.artjewelrymag. com/howto
Howard Siegel has a master’s degree in metallurgy and works in lapidary, silversmithing, and chain making. He teaches at the William Holland School of Lapidary Arts, the Society for Midwest Metalsmiths, the Craft Alliance, and the Jacoby Arts Center.
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