This chainmaille dragonfly came about from my desire to further explore maille as a sculptural medium; and to implement an interesting but unexpected effect caused by doubling the rings of a Half Persian 3-1 chain, which now makes up the head and tail of this dragonfly (with a slight variation between the two). The thorax (or body, the parts the wings and legs connect to) is made with techniques from the Japanese 4-1 3D/Cube weave. The wings are European 6-1 attached to a wire frame, which passes through rings on the top portion of the thorax. The legs are coils of wire (similar to what I would make and cut up to make rings for weaving maille, but an inner diameter too small for weaving) inserted onto wires that pass through rings on the bottom of the thorax.

Most of the rings used are .035" diameter (~20 gauge) Stainless Steel welding wire (ER316L surgical stainless); except for the four rings that make up the mouthparts and end of the tail, which are .045" (~18ga) wire of the same alloy as the others. Ring sizes used for this piece were 3/16" (head and tail), 5/32" (wings), and 1/8" (thorax, wingtips, mouth, end of tail) inner diameter. The leg coils are 1/32" inner diameter.