Modelling: Making real maille for miniatures

Librarium Online
28 Dec 2004
Forj

Introduction

This is one of those truly excessive things that, if done right, will make people love
the model, and think you’re a nutcase. Remember, these are gamers who think you’re
a nutcase, so they’re starting from a few levels up in nuttiness from the average
person. If they think you’re a little crazy, it may not be such a good thing. If you are
undaunted by this (as most of you probably aren’t), read on…

The correct term for what we are about to make is mail, or maille. NOT chain,
chainmail, or even chainmaille. Maille is already chain, so there is not need to say it
again. In history maille was worn by Celts, Romans, and just about every culture
between 500 and 1400 AD. It is made from iron or steel wire, coiled into rings,
knitted together in what is called a 4-in-1 pattern, and riveted closed. (We are going
to skip the riveting on our maille; it’s hard enough on 8mm rings!)

Maille should be used on your miniatures sparingly, since the coils are actually far too
large for the scale of the model. This means that it will not flow properly over the
miniatures body. Plus, unless you want to file it all off, there will be lots of detail on
the model that will hold the maille away from the body, making it look ill-fitted and
generally nasty. Case in point is putting over the Logan Grimnar model, or Abbaddon
the Despoiler, both of which have large details on their chests that will make the
maille stick out. It is best to use the maille as a loincloth/tabard type arrangement, or
in other such patches. It is possible to put a full tabard over a normal space marine
torso, if you are careful, and the torso doesn’t have too much detail. This is actually
trickier than a simple patch, since you will have to make a gap in the back for the
backpack to fit through. After making maille garments such as this, it would be best
to use greenstuff or some other modelling putty to make a belt over the maille. This is
done in reality to take the weight off the shoulders, and does much the same job on
the model, but also bringing it in at the waist so it doesn’t flap about and get caught
on everything. Nothing looks quite as foolish as a maille shirt flapping from the neck
rather than the waist.

Tools needed

1 nail (2-3mm dia.)

Wire (about 0.5-1mm dia)
Clippers
Long nose pliers (2 pairs is best)

Note: Gardening wire is best, the type that comes in small coils with a plastic cage to
hold it, and a spring type shear attached for cutting it off)

Method
 1. Take the nail, and coil the wire around it into a spring. The easiest way to do
this is to coil it quickly up the length of the nail, then push the coils down to
tighten them. The coils should lie tightly in contact with each other.
2. Clip the spring along its length, to form small circles of wire. The ends will
not meet, but be offset from each other. This is not a problem, and will be
fixed later.
3. Take one ring, and use the needle nose pliers to make the ends meet.
4. Take four other rings, and one by one, loop them through the first ring, and
close them too.
5. Lay the five rings flat on a surface.
They should form a square rosette type
shape. Using the needle nose pliers, take a
ring and thread it through two corner
rings, so that it lies in the same way as the
centre ring.
6. Now add another two corner rings in the
same way. Continue this line for as long as
you need the width of the garment.
7. Repeat steps 3-6 to form another line
across the width of the garment.
8. Add centre rings between the two lines to
join them together, making sure said rings lie in the same way as the other
centre rings.
9. Repeat steps 3-8 until you have the
length of garment you need.
10. Use greenstuff or other modelling
putty to fix your maille onto the
model.
11. Sit back, relax, and bask in the
excessiveness of your project.
12. Pray you never want to make a
unit/army using this method. Stick to
characters!

Afterword

There are many other patterns of maille that

can be made, but these are best left for full-
scale projects. There are also many other
methods of making 4-in-1 maille, depending
on personal preference. It is recommended
that you do some research of your own if you
find this method not to your liking.

For the truly excessive, some additional steps can be added, whereby you solder half
of the rings shut before you start making the maille. These become your corner rings,
and only the centre rings are left un-joined, and are used to thread the piece together.
Be warned, this can be incredibly fiddly, and you will want near perfect joins, since
any protrusions will get in the way of the other rings, and will cause the maille to lie
wrong.
Using real maille can be a great
accompaniment to a hand-forged
sword in your models hands, but this
forum really is the wrong place to go
describing forge construction and use!

Good luck! Have fun! Get excessive!