Chainmaille Sculpture, Hacks & Juggling Balls

Wee Maille Scotsman - Warning, the Maille Scotsman page may not be prudent for workplace environments.
Turtle #3 is similar to "Mr. Dribbles", but a bit larger and uses parts from a bicycle chain on its belly.

Maille Lizard made from little metal rings like most other maille - also made from a lot of other little bits of junk, unlike most other maille.
My third maille spider... clicky on the picture for more details and maille-geekish info.
Mr. Dribbles - Mr. Dribbles is a Chainmaille Turtle, click his picture to the left for more pictures and information.
Spider #2
My second maille spider - click the picture to the left to bask in the splendor of its titanium and bikechain-parts maillish spiderly goodness; or click the picture to see better pictures of it.
Dragonfly
Click picture to left for more info and pictures.

Copper Spider
This was my first completed attempt at chainmaille sculpture. It is a spider made from several gauges of copper and several ring sizes. The green eyes and dark saphire wrap on the fangs is 20 gauge craft wire. At least seven ring sizes were used to create this spider, as well as three different gauges of wire, and three different types of wire. The spider's butt is made with a combination of Japanese 6 in 1 and 5 in 1 that used three different ring sizes; to help it keep it's shape, and add a little more color, I filled it with red and green glass blobs. The torso part of it's body is made with the Japanese 4 in 1 "Cube" weave. The legs are made out of four 16ga 1/16"ID springs which are sort of tied together and tied into the body with 20 gauge copper wire. A friend told me I need to add another set of legs because the small legs near it's fangs are something that spiders have that are more like hands.
Maille Jello-Cube Paperweight
This is a large stainless steel Japanese cube which works well as a paperweight. The grid-like weave is continuous throughout the cube, but I made it so the weave is less dense on the inside which gives it a soft and jiggly sort of feel... so I call it the maille jello-cube.
Maille Fabrege Egg
Stainless steel maille and several ring sizes and weaves were used to wrap this wooden egg in a shell of maille. Weaves used are European 4 in 1, and Half Persian 4 in 1. The one pictured to the left is a unique item from me. It is the only one of that design I plan on doing. The original idea behind this was a maille covered easter egg, with the textures of the maille weaves making it so you not only see the pattern, but can also feel it.

Maille Hacky sacks & Balls

Chainmail Hacky Sacks
Doesn't blow away on a windy day. Great for people with boots, bad for people with bare feet. Many people who have used one of these prefer them over the cloth ones. I started making chainmail hackysacks in 1995 and over the years they have been my best selling chainmail item. Over the years my hacks have been rigorously tested and improved upon to stand up to a lot of use and abuse. The one in the pictures above is what has become my standard design can come filled with bits of metal, plastic pellets, etc... email me for availability. Prices start at $35 for my standard design.

This is a deluxe version of my standard hack. I only make a few of these since half of the materials are a byproduct of maille projects using parts from bicycle chains. The rings in these that look like squarish wire are extremely tough steel roller bearings harvested from bike chains. The filling of this hack is also small parts from a bicycle chain, which happen to work very well as a light-weight filler.
Chainmaille Hack, Titanium Sometimes I have a bit of Titanium wire on hand, which is an ideal material for hackysacks... not just because it's a swanky aerospace metal that everyone loves; but also because Titanium weighs almost half as much of stainless steel, while being about equal in strength. Aluminum also weighs just about the same as Ti, or slightly less, but aluminum is fairly soft, and toughness of metal is something to be taken into consideration when it's going to be made into a little maille ball that gets kicked around and skids across pavement all day). To get to the point, Titanium has a strength to weight ratio that makes it the ideal metal for this type of thing... and another cool thing about it is that with practice it can be colored some very interesting colors (a range of blues and violets, yellow/gold, light green, and brown) with just a blow torch. The colors do wear off after a while... maille has a natural tendancy to polish it's self as it moves. but if anyone buys a Ti hack from me, I'll explain how to use a blow torch to recolor the metal; or if you want me to recolor it, my current deal is that I'll do so for the cost of shipping. Because Titanium is quite a lot more expensive than other metals I use, I have to charge a bit more for it.
Juggling Doodads - I make a variety of juggling balls and... things. My hackysacks also work well for juggling, but because juggling is a bit less stressful than being kicked around by a group of people, a wider variety of chainmaille goodies work for juggling. I can make them out of stainless steel, aluminum, brass, copper, etc. I will sell juggling doodads as sets or individual objects. Email me for prices and availability.
Coin Balls
I make these from foreign (foreign to the US) coins that are linked together with chainmail rings. The two pictures above show a couple different ways I link them together... The coins (old Brittish pennies)in the ball in the first picture have the sides trimmed down so they can be linked together in a way that forms a much harder ball. This ball would make a good juggling ball, paper weight, sling bullet, or just an odd thing to stick on a shelf so people will ask you what it is and you can tell them that you really don't know... just don't try it for a hack cause you could break something.

The second ball is made from a mix of foreign coins that were selected because I thought they had interesting things on them. There's a Turkish coin with a cresent moon and star, mexican coin with the eagle biting a snake, a Deutschmark, a Farthing, a couple neat looking Islamic coins, and some others that I'm not sure where they are from. The way this one is linked together makes a softer ball that would work better for a hackysack and also works well for juggling.