Finally... > Creative Projects
Girlinhat: Proficient Metal Crafter
Shinotsa:
Well I have no pictures to post of my recent exploit, as it is actually not all that exciting. What was exciting was that I had an epiphany the other week involving making chains.
I am the bane of anything on my key chain. I have snapped an actual key in half in the lock of my car door, I have broken the connector for my key chain turtle, and I have mutilated the chain that fixed my 3' measuring tape (useful for situations when I'm working at Habitat for Humanity or helping my father build something) to the key ring. Those little reward cards for grocery stores have ripped right off of it, and my flash drive is now a shell of its former self; the cotraption that connected it to the key ring has been mutilated beyond recognition and now hangs separate from the actual drive which is now stuck on the ring, plastic bulging grotesquely as it tries to rip away from it. My realization came when I looked at the sorry state of the key ring and realized that all of these problems (except for the snapping of the key) could have been solved by simply making a chain that was both sturdier and more aesthetically pleasing than the ones that came with each little gizmo, and then attaching the bright(?) aluminum chains with a sturdy, higher ID steel ring.
So far I have a byzantine chain only a few repeatable units long on the measuring tape for testing and it seems to be working great. Despite being a weaker metal and suffering from extensive use (I generally just grab the first thing in my pocket and yank the keys out, which is obviously the cause of all of the trouble I have with the gizmos on the key ring) there seems to be no deformation in the rings and it still looks great. After exams I'm going to make chains for just about everything that can have them since they look great, are relatively quick to make, and make my life easier by making me not have to replace stuff every few months.
Note: I have no clue if this is actually bright aluminum since I buy my own wire from local stores and make my own rings. This is 19ga from home depot purely because it's a cheap, soft, and easy to acquire metal that looks pretty good. It's shines quite well as it is and only leaves a black residue at the joints where it is cut, but generally after handleing there isn't any residue at all.
Anyhow, has anyone else actually gone through with projects and found some practical uses for their work? Besides making money of course.
Farmerbob:
--- Quote from: Shinotsa on April 29, 2012, 01:59:00 pm ---<snip a lot>
Anyhow, has anyone else actually gone through with projects and found some practical uses for their work? Besides making money of course.
--- End quote ---
Blasphemy! Lol. Practical uses defy the will of !science!
If I lived 500 years ago the chain I was building would be good for armor. It stopped modern arrows in a 60 lb bow at 20 feet, it would likely stop or deflect anything but a direct hit from a musket or english longbow or crossbow. Of course, 500 years ago, getting 5/16" lockwashers would not have been very possible. I could see some very niche uses for heavy chain though - for working in the crabbing / fishing / butchering industries, but they typically use heavy wire weave or cut/pierce resistant nonmetallics - not heavy chain.
forsaken1111:
--- Quote from: Farmerbob on April 30, 2012, 07:55:54 pm ---
--- Quote from: Shinotsa on April 29, 2012, 01:59:00 pm ---<snip a lot>
Anyhow, has anyone else actually gone through with projects and found some practical uses for their work? Besides making money of course.
--- End quote ---
Blasphemy! Lol. Practical uses defy the will of !science!
If I lived 500 years ago the chain I was building would be good for armor. It stopped modern arrows in a 60 lb bow at 20 feet, it would likely stop or deflect anything but a direct hit from a musket or english longbow or crossbow. Of course, 500 years ago, getting 5/16" lockwashers would not have been very possible. I could see some very niche uses for heavy chain though - for working in the crabbing / fishing / butchering industries, but they typically use heavy wire weave or cut/pierce resistant nonmetallics - not heavy chain.
--- End quote ---
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mail_(armour)#Modern_uses
Farmerbob:
--- Quote from: forsaken1111 on April 30, 2012, 08:36:40 pm ---
--- Quote from: Farmerbob on April 30, 2012, 07:55:54 pm ---
--- Quote from: Shinotsa on April 29, 2012, 01:59:00 pm ---<snip a lot>
Anyhow, has anyone else actually gone through with projects and found some practical uses for their work? Besides making money of course.
--- End quote ---
Blasphemy! Lol. Practical uses defy the will of !science!
If I lived 500 years ago the chain I was building would be good for armor. It stopped modern arrows in a 60 lb bow at 20 feet, it would likely stop or deflect anything but a direct hit from a musket or english longbow or crossbow. Of course, 500 years ago, getting 5/16" lockwashers would not have been very possible. I could see some very niche uses for heavy chain though - for working in the crabbing / fishing / butchering industries, but they typically use heavy wire weave or cut/pierce resistant nonmetallics - not heavy chain.
--- End quote ---
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mail_(armour)#Modern_uses
--- End quote ---
Cool, I thought those industries had moved on to wire weaves and synthetics instead of chain. I guess not.
Girlinhat:
If it's not broke don't fix it. Chainmail works for those industries, and it'll keep being used because it's cheap and easy, compared to polymers and fancy whatnots.
So far the only practical use I've found is to tease the shit out of my cat. She has a fit over chainmail. Anywhere it is, she roots about until she finds it like some mutant chainmail-mole, or some type of truffle-seeking pig, and then she throws it through the entire house until she loses it or gets bored, and if she still has it she'll "bury" it under the carpet or under the bed. I use baby food jars to hold my rings, and if I step away she's always there holding the piece of work in her mouth and trying to fish inside the jars with her paw. It's adorable but utterly disruptive.
Although I've been thinking about "climbing gloves". There's this one tree in the back yard that I keep trimming on, but unfortunately many of the trimming points are high up. It's a big "bush tree" in that it doesn't have a central trunk, but instead sprouts out like a 40 foot tall bush. I have to climb up it a bit to get at the base of low-hanging branches and get them there. I was thinking of making a pair of "gloves" that would work for that, namely with some stainless done in two sheets, about 1.5" wide and 5-6" long. They'd then be joined halfway along, so there'd be a 2.5"x3" flat segment, and then two side-by-side 2.5"x1.5" thin sections. A small band would go around the solid end. This would effectively make a solid cover for the palm, and then have two finger-covers, so it would act sort of like an awkward mitten that only covered the inside of the hand. If I needed I could slip the finger covers off to do whatever I needed to do, or could slip them on so that I wouldn't scrape up my hand while climbing. I've just been debating the weave and size needed for this, because it needs a lot of friction to work and I'd like for the chain to "bite into" the tree. This would probably need large rings of a high AR, so they'd have room to flex a bit and more rings could angle sharply and dig into the bark. If the weave was too tight then it would just form a sort of cloth and wouldn't grip very tightly.
Also a waterbottle holder. I go walking a lot, what with having no car and all, and usually carry water in my purse. But I'd like to make a sort of "bag" shape to hang off the purse and put a water bottle into so that I don't have to reach all the way into the purse, or I could wear it on my belt when cutting grass or something.
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