Author's Note
I wanted to contribute my tutorials to Chainmaillers.com to help ensure that the entire chainmaille community has access to them. The tutorials are presented here with the same images and text from my old site CGMaille. I hope they continue to help inspire you to learn and create many amazing pieces!
-Phong
Weave Background
Dragonscale is one of the coolest-looking weaves out there. It takes two sheets of Snakeskin (E4-1 with 2 ring sizes), and with some ingenious use of orbital rings, forms a single sheet with the large rings looking like 'scales.'
Aspect Ratio & Ring Sizes
Dragonscale requires two ring sizes. There are two requirements for choosing ring sizes: The first is that the outer diameter of the small ring must be smaller than the inner diameter of the large ring; the second is the inner diameter of the small ring must be at least 3 times the wire thickness of the large ring. This is so everything can fit with wiggle room. Sizes that I like to work with are 16swg 5/16" & 18swg 3/16", 18swg 7/32" & 20awg 5/32", 20awg 3/16" & 20awg 1/8", and 22awg 1/8" & 24awg 5/64".
Metric sizes - approximately 1.6mm wire/8mm ID & 1.2mm wire/4.8mm ID; 1.2mm wire/5.5mm ID & 0.8mm wire/4mm ID; 0.8mm wire/4.8 & 3mm IDs; 0.64mm wire/3mm ID & 0.5mm wire/2mm ID.
Tutorial Color Scheme
Large rings are steel, small rings are gold.
Step 1: Make a 2-1 chain of large-small-large rings as wide as you want the final patch to be.
Step 2: Lay large rings over the small rings. These new large rings aren't attached to anything yet.
Step 3: Attach large rings to the small rings, trapping the rings you added in the previous step.
Note: In practice, you'll be adding one loose ring, trapping it, adding another loose ring, trapping it, and so on. If you try to pick up the chain to trap a ring with a bunch of other loose rings on it, you'll end up picking those other loose rings off the floor. But that's not the way I made up the pictures, so there you go.
Step 4: Connect small rings to the loose large rings from Step 2. Make sure these small rings all stay on the same side of the other small rings. Also make sure these small rings don't go through the other small rings.
Step 5: Connect large rings to the small rings you just added.
Step 6: Repeat Steps 4 & 5 until the patch is the desired height.
Step 7: For the last step, add the final row of large rings.
I wanted to contribute my tutorials to Chainmaillers.com to help ensure that the entire chainmaille community has access to them. The tutorials are presented here with the same images and text from my old site CGMaille. I hope they continue to help inspire you to learn and create many amazing pieces!
-Phong
Weave Background
Dragonscale is one of the coolest-looking weaves out there. It takes two sheets of Snakeskin (E4-1 with 2 ring sizes), and with some ingenious use of orbital rings, forms a single sheet with the large rings looking like 'scales.'
Aspect Ratio & Ring Sizes
Dragonscale requires two ring sizes. There are two requirements for choosing ring sizes: The first is that the outer diameter of the small ring must be smaller than the inner diameter of the large ring; the second is the inner diameter of the small ring must be at least 3 times the wire thickness of the large ring. This is so everything can fit with wiggle room. Sizes that I like to work with are 16swg 5/16" & 18swg 3/16", 18swg 7/32" & 20awg 5/32", 20awg 3/16" & 20awg 1/8", and 22awg 1/8" & 24awg 5/64".
Metric sizes - approximately 1.6mm wire/8mm ID & 1.2mm wire/4.8mm ID; 1.2mm wire/5.5mm ID & 0.8mm wire/4mm ID; 0.8mm wire/4.8 & 3mm IDs; 0.64mm wire/3mm ID & 0.5mm wire/2mm ID.
Tutorial Color Scheme
Large rings are steel, small rings are gold.
Step 1: Make a 2-1 chain of large-small-large rings as wide as you want the final patch to be.
Step 2: Lay large rings over the small rings. These new large rings aren't attached to anything yet.
Step 3: Attach large rings to the small rings, trapping the rings you added in the previous step.
Note: In practice, you'll be adding one loose ring, trapping it, adding another loose ring, trapping it, and so on. If you try to pick up the chain to trap a ring with a bunch of other loose rings on it, you'll end up picking those other loose rings off the floor. But that's not the way I made up the pictures, so there you go.
Step 4: Connect small rings to the loose large rings from Step 2. Make sure these small rings all stay on the same side of the other small rings. Also make sure these small rings don't go through the other small rings.
Step 5: Connect large rings to the small rings you just added.
Step 6: Repeat Steps 4 & 5 until the patch is the desired height.
Step 7: For the last step, add the final row of large rings.
