Adam here from Testim in my cave next to my friend Ben edy maker engineer and
chainmail enthusiast this is not something I knew about you well it's I
don't know who what boy doesn't like armor indeed ok so I'm wearing my
personal chainmail quaff i commissioned this a few years ago from an incredible
maker oh it's heavy even though it's aluminum but chainmail
is famously laborious to make and when my friends were making the Lord of the
Rings films at wet a workshop they started by making their chainmail out of
PVC plastic I don't know if you know this they literally bought PVC
electrical conduit and made tiny little slices and then hand assembled all the
Tama Gunn props iris to movies then literally my friend Luke said that the
chainmail team had no fingerprints at the end of each production they probably
didn't have a soul either blood for the third movie if I'm correct Richard
Taylor went to China and had jump rings and closed open rings injection-molded
in China and this is official Wetty wet a workshop email or feel so so very good
so lightweight so this is Weta's solution to the problem of how do you
make chainmail for a film a problem that has vexed every film production that
needs chainmail and ye olden days in Hollywood
chainmail used to be made with a special kind of knitting in fact when you see
like henry v with olivier the chainmail he's wearing is actually a heavy knit
sweater but with this big cable knit that looks like chain mail and that's
the way Hollywood's done it for years until this which is super awesome and
you have i'm looking in front of me some beautiful chainmail made in the simplest
way possible and well and this is this is light yes this is a fraction of this
one this is this is like thickness this is like the weight of a couple of sheets
of paper this is so this is Evie it's like a foam 1 mil in da craft foam Thank
You Kate for Michaels and stuff like that so I was looking I was looking
online somebody you know how you're you have two different disjoint thoughts in
your head yeah so I was looking up knitting stitches but I just finished
working on some armor I'm sitting there and I saw this stitch
I'm like that looks like chainmail I'm like wait a minute
these things can knit together so these are just single long continuous pieces
and you do can you knit one for me absolutely so all we do is you just grab
the first one you lock that one into place and then you just keep coming
through oh it's a little like doing a contractor's wrap on an electrical cord
yeah so the first one is really awkward right and you got to get through but
once you get a little bit of weight you just start linking them like this and so
right yeah and as you go this is you'll notice this this is darker this is the
same material but what happens is it starts arcing over because all of these
want to be flat so you just hit it with a heat gun and then it flattens though a
minute and then the edges the edges kind of taper in and it looks like hammered
chain mailed like the way the rivets were the way the riveted mail was done
the back looks different oh I see the back is quite different isn't it it's
more like a cable knit kind of exactly but this should make a sheet like that
took like 15 minutes for cosplay this is astounding how I mean we're always
saying this on Tesla that cosplay is an exercise and discomfort and pain and
pinches yes and this illuminates so much of that yeah and this is laser-cut am i
right that's right but you know I'm looking at possibly die-cutting some of
this at all depends I'm gonna start selling it soon hopefully well I'm
curious about AK recut printer might also you know I put it on Instructables
I ya the way I'm working is is that like you're free to take my design and use it
you don't so and um there's one guy who tried a creek and he goes it's not
perfect but it works and it's funny you mention that we're talking about that is
because the laser I had set up wrong and it ended kind of doing these little
flashes and it did it was over over cranked exactly but when you heat it up
it looks like beaten up mail so in the end it was one of these like oh that's a
happy mistake and I kind of put that into some of my mail now so I don't have
to break it down anymore it's already broken down when I put together wow that
is really beautiful oh now you also have what do you call a male gorgeous is that
what you know there's that or a Navin tall okay another thing that I've looked
at and I'm probably saying it wrong I I like the way these things look I don't
necessarily know how to speak the language but this is this is getting
some actual form out of it ya like it like a pea
Blake says the biggest difficulty with it is how do you stitch it together and
it looks like it would be very forgiving in terms of being able to create a whole
garment out of it yes yes well we've we've actually taken a scale male
version of this and done stuff for this company I'll make fashion okay
and with make fashion we made a dress out of it and we're going to look at
doing that there's another thing that we tried that with so cools we laser-cut
some leather okay and it is tough as you would not believe oh my god this would
be amazing out of leather so and the thing is is that when you do it out of
leather - one thing that we're looking at is if we do scale mail we can make a
mortar bike jacket then breeze ooh but it's leather so it allows you to
skid if you need that skin oh my gosh okay I'm I have this thing I want to try
it before we're before were wrapped here yeah I want to try to do a little paint
treatment on this well this is your this is part of me bringing it to you because
I can I can design and build this stuff yeah when it comes to painting and
making or breaking it down I really suck at it okay so first up and foremost I
have a couple things I want to try I'm gonna grab a couple sheets of paper to
protect the workbench mm-hmm but let me just set up a couple things
so the main thing I was just thinking was about trying a kind of a of a dry
brush so I got some and I know you're gonna paint it as is yeah
would you ever consider painting these first individually or you know certainly
that's that's certainly feasible it's certainly feasible if you lay those out
here go ahead and let's uh put out a couple if you laid those out I'll give
them a quick hit over because I think that the fact that their base is black
actually works in their favor and was all I know I'm not wearing a dust mask
I'm just doing a little spritz yep go easy on you okay so there's that and to
be honest I actually feel like that probably is gonna look okay but it
doesn't get quite shiny enough well also I like the fact that the base is black
and that actually could end up blending some interesting
well the silver shows up on top and yeah because the the dirt always goes into
pockets which is where your that's gonna be hard to get the paint to exactly so
I'm just thinking about trying it and whoops I forgot to take the plastic off
my brush I'm not the only one who does stuff like this this is it I was like
why isn't it spreading okay I always like watching other people's mistakes
because it makes me feel more human
so immediately oh my right a stipple yeah and this is a this is a lacquer so
it's drawing almost immediately and we get all that wonderful variants and you
see it right that looks totally genuine yeah oh my god it's crazy how light it's
just its brighter but like you've got that one us so it just yeah we're
getting there so these guys yeah they did a I think they started out with the
ring slightly silver and they do a thing where after its assembled a diffident
ABS glue to kind of set the whole thing right but this is I'm quite happy with
how this is looking this is some let's do a little heavier
here try it like yeah I mean that's so simple look at that we're getting some
real well I like the fact that it's varying too like you always have the
people have like you it's like you get that plastic toy the paint's perfect or
it's just like it's flat because of the exactly you need that variance this
looks great that is awesome oh man cosplayers
watching this are very excited so I hope so um man this is beautiful so you are
going to be doing hopefully some manufacturing and selling of this I'm
hoping so what I'm gonna do is I got a laser cutter and a few friends and stuff
we're gonna make some short runs and see if people want to buy it and then you'll
go from there if there's enough interest in who knows maybe a die cutter or get
somebody to make some more stuff for us but don't go from there
you might also consider figuring out how to make a shirt like the pattern yeah
yeah exactly how to make a shirt and where to stitch it and sell those for
like 10 bucks well right now with this guy here there's different lengths and
it's all like it's all just different lengths in a finished piece but right
I've already got a kid for this that's great it's really really
cool dude I love innovations like this this is where the rapid manufacturing
revolution yeah gets really exciting because it's literally trivial to cut
this out on a laser cutter and the results are like something I swear like
when the Weddell workshop people see this they'll be like oh my god have you
tried for instance like a denser foam that's with smaller rings I we I haven't
we've tried it a little denser foam and we find that going past about three
millimeter this is about two millimeters foam right going going up to three is
about where you get work lays flat at least at this ring density okay we will
be trying some smaller rings and stuff but I I made this because well one is is
that this is you'll notice that when you hit it with a heat gun it shrinks a
little bit okay you're gonna keep that in mind I'm not sure what the
percentages but we gotta you know I'll have to try some smaller stuff because
this was me kind of taking a shot in the dark and then seeing some of the other
chain yeah it's obviously a lot more dense I don't know if I get that density
but I can definitely get that size so my rings are like you know I just have to
take the inside diameter make that the outside diameter and can't go but again
with the laser cutter and stuff like you're saying with rapid manufacturing I
scale it the iterations vibrator you later yeah oh dude that is freaking
awesome get these some chain mail and make some soon yeah thank you sir thank
you