Looking for a tool

I'd like to cut some rings to make chainmail. I'm using 16ga mig wire and winding them on a 1/4 inch dowel.

I want to cut them with a jewelers slotting saw. I've found the blades all over the place but can't find an arbor that will fit into a 3/8 inch drill chuck. Where do I get one?

Reply to
Mark Healey
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Hand holding a jewler's saw in a drill might prove a little vicious... It is going to want to grab and jerk. I'd suggest a Dremel tool with a cutoff wheel.

Jerry

Reply to
Jerry Foster

I used to use nippers but now I'd use fencing pliers if cutting by hand. I like your idea but I'd build some sort of jig with the arbor mounted to it and a guide for the coil. That was always what I planned to do anyway. We preferred galvanized electric fence wire as we believe it was stiffer than regular wire. I spun the coils using board a with a hole slightly larger than your rod and a screw near it as a guide. I'd recommend a !/4" steel rod in a variable speed drill. Start the wire by sticking it in the chuck between jaws or drill a hole in the rod and make a loop in the wire when you start so you have a way to cut it off the rod. It goes without saying keep everything including your fingers away from the wire while spinning. If you want to use the dremel cut off wheels use the fiber ones the others wear out quickly. For the number of links you'll be cutting I doubt it's cost effective. The final most important suggestion is google search for: Society for Creative Anachronism SCA chain mail. Karl

Reply to
Karl Vorwerk

Got a 15YO painstakingly making himself a big old bunch of chain mail this summer, he just uses wire cutters. I've watched him, and he spends maybe 1% of his time on cutting. I don't think it's worth your time to fuss with exactly the right tool -- it's the crimping and assembling the rings that takes all the time. Find a tool to speed you up there and you have something.

GWE

Reply to
Grant Erwin

DON'T DO IT! I did this as a kid and damn near cut my thumb off. DON'T DO IT!

Reply to
Chuck Sherwood

If these were silver jump rings the way to do it would be to split the rings with a jewellers saw, cutting lengthwise along the dowel (ie with the mandrel still in the rings). You do all the of the rings-to-be coiled on the mandrel with one cut. BTW I cut mild steel (and worse) with a jewellers saw all the time. I suppose you might use a hacksaw, but my bet is that the jewellers saw would be enough easier to control that it ends up being faster.

Hand tools are very efficient for some operations.

Adam Smith Midland, ON

Reply to
Adam Smith

I used tin snips to cut my coils. The problem is it leaves a pointed cut edge. With a thin cutoff disc you get nice flat cuts that close up really well.

-will

Reply to
El Barista

The drill is already taken apart and mounted (The trigger is in a pedal so I could foot operate it.) I don't plan to hold it.

Reply to
Mark Healey

I have some old costume chainmail with links made from almost 2 turns of wire and cut with diagonal cutters. The points rest on and are shielded by the other loop and don't snag tightly-woven cloth too badly. They look a lot like small key rings.

I also have a single link of ~500 year old mail that was damaged when lightning struck the museum. The ends were flattened and pierced, evidently with a shaped punch, then riveted with thin wire.

jw

Reply to
jim.wilkins

You just need a mandrel with a 1/4 ir 3/8" shaft on it. Any of the handpieces loke Foredom have the mandrels as well as the 1/(" Dremel mandrels. Tool shops should have all the mandrels that you'd desire. I'll note that a drill motor doesn't have enough rigiditity in the pistioning of the chuck in and out of the motor to really handle a slitting saw. You'll have all kinds of problems ussing something like this. Much better would be to make up a sort of table saw with a groove in it so that the winding mandrel with the rings on it can slide along nicely against the blade.

-- Why isn't there an Ozone Hole at the NORTH Pole?

Reply to
Bob May

One other tip I saw recently was to double the wire when you wind it, then you won't have to open half the rings to weave them (just close the closed ones).

I've seen rings cut using aviation snips, and with a small set of bolt cutters. I think the best way is as someone else mentioned a cut-off wheel in a dremel, because you get a cleaner joint when you close the ring. The various snips often leave a burr.

HTH --Glenn Lyford

Reply to
glyford

"Bob May" signed off with:

Do some research, there is.

Reply to
Phil

Sorry, there is depletion of the North Polar area but not a full extiction like at the South Polar Region. Besides, 80% or more of the nasty ozone depletion chemicals are vented to the atmosphere in the Northern Hemisphere and they don't fall down to the South Pole, now, do they? Seems the polar bear farts don't do as good a job as penguin farts do ;-(

-- Why isn't there an Ozone Hole at the NORTH Pole?

Reply to
Bob May

I still want to know how freon, which is a heavy molecule, gets way up into the ozone layer. And if the interaction happens here, then why is ozone considered a pollutant at our altitude?

Reply to
Dave Hinz

When I was in High School, mumble-mumble years ago, one of my buddies claimed that he was going to make chainmail out of split lockwashers, now that you've got your cutter all set up. ;-)

Good Luck! Rich

Reply to
Rich Grise

That's part of the question. The old Freon R12 is pretty much obselete due to only enviromental "conceerns". The stuff worked very well and was easy to produce. Yet the enviromentalists have succeeded in getting it banned on all new production referigation systems. Brownian motions of the atmosphere will make the chemical raise into the atmosphere but you still have to fight the truth that the freon hasn't been proven to be really an ozone depletion chemical otherwise you'd see the mid latitudes having more of a problem than there supposedly is. As to the "global warming" problem, all I can say is when are we going to get to the temps that were around 1000 years ago, much less those that were around 2000 years ago? We still aren't that warm yet.

-- Why isn't there an Ozone Hole at the NORTH Pole?

Reply to
Bob May

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