Materials and Tools

Choosing Wire

• Material Properties Metal Properties and naming conventions. The key to the shorthand references for materials used in metal projects.

• Wire Gauges
• Aspect Ratios
• Wire Gauge Conversions

Choosing rings

• Rubber Rings
• Ring Sizes and gauges at Ring Lord

• Base Metal Ring Counts This page will help you calculate how many base metal rings you'll need for specific weaves.
• Sterling Stats Statistics and recommended weaves for the Sterling Silver rings from Blue Buddha Boutique

Standard Lengths for Jewelry

Piece of Jewelry	Women's	Men's
Standard Bracelet	7 inches	8 inches
Short Necklace	16-18 inches	18 inches*
Medium Necklace	18-24	22-24 inches

• Roughly 2-3 inches larger than shirt collar size

For more precision on a bracelet: Measure around the wrist at the wrist bone, add about 1 inch (more if particularly thick metal).

Making rings

• Coiling Wire
• Cutting Coils
• Coloring Rings or Wire
• Heat-welding rings
• Riveted maille instructions by Joris de Sutter

Deburring rough edges

• Tumbling And Burnishing

Cleaning

• Safe Home Cleaning ¿Safe Home Cleaning
• Simple Green - A mild and safe degreaser/cleaning agent.
• Tumbling And Burnishing will also clean metals.
• Wax Polish
• Cleaning Silver
• Cleaning Copper, Bronze and Brass
• Cleaning Stainless Steel

Aging and Distressing

• Aging Brass Techniques

Tools

• Tool Belts

List of suppliers

• Godefroy's list of Suppliers covers suppliers around the world and tips for finding supplies at local resources.

Designing inlays

• Maille graph paper for creating inlays
• Use Irregular Grid Painter, IGP, to design inlays on rings.
• IGP2POV will take your data image file and convert into a POV-Ray scene file which can be further modified, or just render it.

Other links

• Riveted Maille by Forth Armoury
• Instructions for using Vernier calipers
• Make Duct tape Body Double
• Maille from Bicycle chains and pop tabs
• Butted Mail: A Mailmaker's Guide, 4th Edition

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-- Mon May 15 09:32:46 2007:

See Picture Tips to improve digital examples of your work.

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-- Fri May 25 19:32:46 2007:

At first, I couldn't believe it when my carrier pigeon returned with a scroll from Sah Thoth telling me he didn't believe I had the flu and he commanded I appear immediately at the workshop, interrupting my planned trip to the jousting finals. Then, my spider-sense went nuts when I was greeted by Sieur Godefroy with a worried look on his face. They were afraid I'd mishandled some rings so I spent the day under surveillance while they watched carefully for signs of metal fume fever while lecturing me endlessly on safety.

So next time, don't call in "sick" right after you worked with venomous metals or you'll have to attend a seminar on handling potentially hazardous materials.

• Don't attempt to melt aluminum with flame. Fumes are toxic.
• Zinc, galvanized steel, welding, and metal fume fever: A comprehensive discussion and review this subject.

PS Ask Arkbat The Dim for the recipe for his "special" tea [then post it here for me, I need to know what was in that tea...] he won't reveal the secret ingredient to me.

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