ChainCrafts - Armor, Costumes &Jewelry

Metal hand of DOOM

2012-01-30T08:00:00.000-08:00

My latest custom project for one of my clients is now complete. A videoof it can be seen here:

My client, Mr. V, commissioned the hand to go with a costume he’s beenimagining. Mr. V told me that he was putting together a steampunk costume wherehalf of his body was going to look like mechanical prosthetic devices. Withthat in mind, I built an enclosure to hid his human hand and added extra-longsprings to act like tendons on the back of the hand and give it a morebio-mechanical feel.

Thanks for the fun build Mr. V!

Armored Medical Wrist Brace for my Wife

2011-12-30T09:48:00.000-08:00

So, my wife had to go to the doctor today because she hyper-extended her wrist a few days ago. As it turns out, she strained her tendons pretty bad and the doc gave her a brace that she has to wear for the next two weeks. When she got home from the doctor's, she asked me if I would like to decorate it for her. Needless to say, I was very excited to do so!

Here's how the brace looked to begin with (with the first bits of sharpie drawing on the thumb piece):

And, after more black sharpie and a bit of chainmaile:

I decided after it was finished that it was no longer a wrist-brace. Far from it. It has now become a futuristic battle-gauntlet that prevents her wrist from snapping back when she fires her super compact, hand-held Railgun. She fires the Railgun with her off-hand, of course, because her dominant hand needs to be free to wield her Tesla Sword!

My wife sent me a modified picture with her thoughts on the subject:

And now she'll happily follow her doctors instructions and actually wear the brace for the full two weeks

Mission accomplished!

Lord Bearington, Duke of Grizzlyshire

2011-12-27T00:06:00.000-08:00

Some of you may remember this little guy. Back in September, he was strapped to my daughter's torso while she was fighting zombies:

And at the time I had made him a little helmet. My daughter loved the helmet so much that for Christmas this year I thought I'd go a step further and create an entire suit of armor for her favorite teddy bear. She's had the Bear since she was born and it's one of her most cherished possessions. To create the armor, I had to sneak into her room at night and borrow the bear. When she opened her present, she surprised me by taking one look at the pile of metal in the box and saying, "HEY! It's BEAR armor!!!!" I was pleased as punch that she was able to identify it so quickly.

And so, I present to you, Lord Bearington:

His chainmaile is made from 16 gauge, 5/16" Stainless Steel rings woven in a European 4-1 pattern. It includes flaps for the shoulders to support the spaulders(Shoulderplates).

Like the chainmaile, his Spaulders are also made from stainless steel. These are a scale model of a modified style of medieval spaulder and include tiny straps and rivets on the inside for articulation. They are attached to the chainmaile shirt via 2 rings. [after forming the plates, I carefully rounded all of the edges with a fine metal file for safety's sake ;) ]

The trim of his shirt is made from stamped, nickle-plated mild steel scales.

His simple, warrior's circlet(crown) is made from the same material as the spaulders; a strip of stainless steel.

His greaves(shin guards) are made from chunks of a leather belt held together with rivets. (I put my hands in this picture so that you could get a sense of the scale of the bear :) )

Finally, when his Lordship grows tired of the burden of his armor, he can remove it and stow it for future use! :D

*a special note* the bear's real name, as given by my daughter, is actually Jinx (formerly just "Bear"). Lord Bearington just felt like a more appropriate thing to call him as I pieced together his armor.

The new hands are complete!

2011-11-15T18:36:00.000-08:00

I should have posted this a little while ago... but my most recent set of hands is now complete and they've been sent off to the client that I built them for. They're going to be used in a theatrical production, so my wife and I thought we should use them for a silly theatrical production of our own before we said goodbye to them.....

As you can clearly see.... monstrous mechanical mitts are no match for my daughter's "Knock it off, DAD" voice.

On the other hand....

2011-11-01T06:27:00.000-07:00

Over the past two weeks, I've been working on a new set of mechanical hands for one of my clients. They're almost complete. All that remains is some adjustments and clean-up work. To make sure they're functioning properly, I took them for a test-drive.

Delicious!

Photos by Jennifer Owen of Jen Martin Studios

A Knight on the Town

2011-10-22T15:47:00.000-07:00

Last night a buddy of mine helped me this silly video. It was a great way to spend an evening!

Special thanks to Terry of Terry-oke: Terry-oke's facebook page

Fun with License Plates

2011-10-15T22:52:00.000-07:00

I've been slowly amassing a collection of license plates.... I now have enough to start playing with them.....

and making..... [bad pun warning]....... Plate-Armor!

More to come soon!

Custom Mad Max Costume

2011-10-09T10:29:00.000-07:00

My most recent custom project for one of my clients was to create some items from Mad Max's outfit in "The Road Warrior". The project is now complete! I've created his shoulder armor, leg-brace and knee pad. I've been wanting to do a project like this for a long time and It's been a ton of fun!

For all of the pieces I first made them all shiny and new... and then attempted to subject them to months worth of abuse in just a few minutes to make it look like the outfit's been through the wastes and back. My client found the jacket and sent it to me to be modified. It's an awesome coat and was already perfectly worn and beat up!

My client was kind enough to send me some extra belts to work with, which certainly were handy!

After experimenting with various pre-fabricated bits of sports equipment, I ended up deciding to create the entire knee-pad from scratch. I started with closed cell foam padding, leather and rivets and ended up with this.

I was happy that the brace not only supplies a solid visual, but it allows for a great deal of movement as well! Here's a video of the leg brace in action:

This was one of those projects that a part of me wishes I could keep. I'll have to make another one in the future. Before I sent this out to my client, however, I couldn't resist providing a "WTF???" moment to a bunch of people during their morning commute:

Bartertown or Bust!

!!!Extension on Halloween Sale!!!

2011-10-08T10:41:00.000-07:00

Due to the success of the sale, I'm extending the discounts on some of the items in my shop by another week. If there's something in my store that catches your fancy, you have until 10/17 to get it at a special low price!

I have a very large, complex build going on currently and I'm trying to make some more room in my workshop by selling some of my inventory.

Also, I'm always willing to give people quotes on how much I'd charge to make a custom item you might be interested in. You can see some of my past custom projects in the older posts on my blog. Or, check out the new "Mad Max" post which shows the custom project I'm currently working on.

My shop can be found here: http://www.etsy.com/shop/ChainCrafts

Here's a few pictures of what's currently available:

Women's Traffic Sign Shoulder Armor

Raider Armor

The Red Gauntlets of Thirst

And more!!!

Check it out today!

The Family that Slays Together....

2011-09-11T14:06:00.000-07:00

My wife only asked for one thing for her birthday this year. She wanted to do a Post-Apocalypse/Zombie Slaying family photo shoot! To that end, I created armor for all of us.

We're gonna get that Zombie!

(all photos by Bakan Photography: http://www.bakanphotography.com/)

There's a bunch of pieces here, so rather than going through one-by-one, here's a list of the materials used to make the costumes:

- Hubcaps

- Railroad crossing sign

- Soda tabs

- Strips of stainless steel

- Various bits of sports equipment

- Jump rings

- Aluminum from duct parts

And here are some pics of our adventures!

She's gonna get 'im

Do you hear that?

CRAP!!! ZOMBIE!!!!!

Even bears need armor

!VANQUISHED!

In the chaos, they turned against each other

On the lookout

The mighty Chevrolet Sword!

The hole he crawled out of

You know what they say.... The family that slays together, stays together.

Special thanks to the super talented Langley West for coming along to play Zombie for us!

Post-Apocalyptic Street Sign Armor

2011-07-23T12:02:00.000-07:00

This armor was one of my most fun projects to date. Inspired by the wholesome goodness of post apocalypse films, medieval armor and the Fallout games, I had the privilege of working with a nice fellow who found me via Etsy to bring his ideas to life.

As you could probably guess from the pictures, the armor plates were made from a stop and a dead end sign (obtained through legal means, of course). These are affixed via arming points to a harness made from belts that features ammo loops and two straps to hold equipment. The plates were formed, in the spirit of the end of the world theme, the old fashioned way; with a ball peen hammer and an anvil.

To top it all off, the extremely tallented Jen Owen of Jen Martin Studios (http://www.jenmartinstudios.blogspot.com/) captured images of the armor at an abandoned mental institution in Washington State. This created the perfect setting and really brought everything together. Now that's what I call a road warrior!

Special thanks to Eric L. for modeling the armor!
More images of the armor can be found here: http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.254780294533679.73230.176049985740044&type=1

METAL Doll

2011-06-26T19:27:00.000-07:00

Someone asked me if I would shave their mohawk off for them. I asked if I could keep the hair afterward, and they said, "Sure.....?" The end result, a little death-metal loving plastic person with genuine multicolored HUMAN hair! Huzahh!

This is what the little fellow looked like at the beginning.

To start the process, I drilled holes in his head for the hair!

Then, I cut a slit in the back of his head so I could reach in to pull the hair through (when I couldn't get the right angle through the other holes). I added holes on either side of the slit so that I could stitch it back together later.

I fashioned a hook out of a paper clip and used it to pull the tufts of hair through the holes.

Once in place, I squirted super glue into the base of the tufts to secure them.

Next, I used some left over scraps from armor projects to make a shirt and my wife made some tiny red pants for him!

Finally, I used some yarn to stitch the slit shut on the back of his head.

And he was complete! Now, he can rock out hard core with his creepy hair!

The I-Neck

2011-06-25T00:26:00.000-07:00

So... recently a buddy of mine from work told me of his idea to start hanging his I-Pad around his neck and that he wanted to make something to do just that. We got together and made this ridiculous product complete with a cheesy infomercial. We have another infomercial in the works right now!

http://www.etsy.com/listing/75531907/the-i-neck-i-pad2-necklace-hands-free

Table Top Angy Birds

2011-05-17T22:31:00.000-07:00

My two youngest kids and I built a table-top version of Angry Birds! It's loads of fun and doesn't cost much to make! The materials needed are hard Styrofoam, balsa wood, pingpong balls, paint and Sharpies. Here's a quick how-to on making it:

For the project we purchased a large sheet of about 1" thickness hard Styrofoam and balsa wood boards from a craft store. The first step was to decide on the length of our blocks and how many we wanted to make.

Next the blocks were cut out. I used a hand-held jig saw, but a coping or other hand saw would work just as well (the jig saw just makes the process much faster). After the blocks were cut we set about painting them. We tried to simulate the wood, stone and glass blocks from the game.

And here they are! The blocks finished and *almost* dry! While these were drying, my middle boy took on the task of creating the pigs and birds.

Our pigs and birds were made from pingpong balls. In the first picture of this post, you can see all of the birds/pigs we have so far. In the closeup above, you can see where we hot-glued some black beads to the bottom of the pigs to create their hooves and give them the ability to stay put until they're shot at.

With all of the components made, it could then be enjoyed!!!

The only thing I don't have pictured is the sling-shot, which I made from a piece of cereal-box cardboard, a few bits of tape and some rubber-bands. The slingshot is hooked to the tops of two dinner chairs.

Tabmaile Tutorial

2011-05-04T22:38:00.000-07:00

I've decided that I'd like to provide a detailed tutorial for those who wish to learn the basic tabmaile weave. If you've made European 4 in 1 before, the process is nearly identical. If you're completely new to chainmaile, it's a very simple pattern that you should be able to pick up fairly easily.

First up, materials and tools:

To make the weave, you'll need a bunch of soda tabs (surprise!) and 5/16" Jumprings. I recommend using 16ga stainless steel rings. The only tools you will need are two pairs of pliers.

The first step is to open one of your rings like the picture above.

Next, loop it through the bottom holes of two tabs like so.

Then take the ends of that ring and thread the top holes of two other tabs onto them.

You can now close the first ring and add a second. After adding the second ring, place the right-hand side of the ring through the bottom hole of a new tab.

Then thread the top hole of another tab onto the same side of the open ring. You can continue this pattern to the right (or left) as long as you wish to create your first row.

For the purposes of this tutorial we'll limit the row width to three tabs. To start the second row, loop a ring through the bottom hole of the two lower leftmost tabs.

Close the ring and loop another through (just like when we made the first row :) )

And now, add the final tab and close the last ring. You now have a 3 by 3 patch of tabmaile! Like standard European 4 in 1... each ring passes through 4 tabs and each tab has 4 rings attached to it (when a tab/ring is located away from the edge of the sheet). Now it's time to start collecting silly amounts of soda tabs and create all sorts of fun stuff with them.

Feel free to leave a comment with a link to something that you make! I always like to see how others use similar techniques to create different items.

!NORWESCON 2011!

2011-04-25T08:04:00.000-07:00

Strangely enough, my wife and I had never been to a Sci-Fi convention before. So, this weekend for our anniversary, we changed that! We had a great time creating our costumes, attending the event and getting to meet some very nice & interesting people. The individual photos of Jen and I were taken by the amazing Jessica Bjorn of Bakan Photography and all of the images from the convention were taken by Jennifer Owen.

To start with, our costumes :)

Jen designed her costume and I constructed everything except the flower. The light over her left shoulder is an old rail-road lantern from the 1940's or 50's that was mounted to an articulated lamp-arm. The flower on her hat was made from pieces of a vegetable steamer and the head of an old salt shaker. The object she is holding is an extremely brilliant idea of her's. It is a camera cover that is made from a stove-top burner cover as well as an older steamer basket. The basket creates the impression of an iris, so that her camera appears to be some sort of strange metallic eye.

Her left shoulder is covered by a leather shoulder-plate constructed from an old belt and nylon strapping. Her gloves are made from a 4 in 1 chainmaile backing & the wrist-plates are made from old shoe-stretchers! It was fun to get to experience all of her ideas and then work to build them for her :)

Ahhh.. dandelions in springtime! I designed and built/augmented all of the components of my costume (excluding the clothes underneath, of course.) On my left arm is a lamellar bracer laced together with elastic cord for a good fit. In this image you can also see my helmut, which I made by taking an aviator's cap and adding plates from a steamer basket and an aventail made from 4 in 1 chainmaile.

Also on my left arm is a retro-future themed shoulder-plate that I made which is currently available on my Etsy page. It's held onto the body with a harness made from belts and the individual plates were fabricated from an old filing cabinet. On my right arm is my mechanical hand in its finished form!

Now that the convention is over, this hand is now available for sale here. Details about this hand can be found in this previous post.

The following are some of my favorite images from the convention. They are up on my Facebook page as well... so if you see yourself in any of the pictures, let me know and I'll tag you!

Dapper Gents ~ Ruffled Ladies Photo Shoot

2011-04-11T08:11:00.000-07:00

This winter I participated in a photo shoot organized by the amazing Mrs. M. Kirkness down in Seattle. I've finally gotten around to blogging it :D I was asked by M to create items with a steampunk/retro future type feel. The shoot took place at Gasworks Park in Seattle, which made for an amazing setting. In the group shot above, you can even see the moon near sunset.

The following are a few of my favorite images from the event.

Additional images can be found here: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=46066&id=176049985740044

Designers:
Ivan Owen of Chaincrafts (armor & weapons)
M. Kirkness (clothing and accessories)

Make-up artist:
Ellen Dennis

Models~
Jen Page
Andrew Figgs
M. Kirkness
Emily Lester
Gaia M.
Jessica Bjorn
Jen Walker Owen
Ivan Owen

Photographers~
Jennifer Owen of Jen Martin Studios
Jessica Bjorn of Bakan Photography

Links:
http://www.facebook.com/thejenpage
http://www.jenmartinstudios.blogspot.com/
http://www.bakanphotography.com/
http://www.facebook.com/ellendennismua

Mechanical Hand

2011-04-03T10:19:00.000-07:00

It lives!!! Now my plans to destroy the world via a very indirect and overly complicated method can be realized!

The hand is constructed, primarily, from aluminum. I cut the individual components and the frame from aluminum bar-stock. Also involved where some springs, thin steel cable, a short length of black ABS pipe and a bit of Velcro!

And this is what it looks like with the parts put together! I've been making some modifications to it recently and will post an update sometime soon.

Now it's time to start throwing things around and laughing like a madman!!

The Mighty Red Gauntlets of Thirst

2011-04-01T15:00:00.000-07:00

You have found the Mighty Red Gauntlets of Thirst! As you put them on, you feel a surge of strength run through your body. You also, however, have the sudden & inexplicable desire to consume a sweet beverage that contains thousands of tiny bubbles.

I undertook this project as part of a contest for Crafster.Org . The voting starts April 7th!!

Above are the materials for the project I used soda tabs, stainless steel chainmaile rings and a pair of sturdy welding gloves. I toyed with the idea of using pipe cleaners for something, but later decided against it.

The soda-tab chainmaile panels after completion. Each panel is made from 213 pieces (117 soda tabs and 96 chainmaile rings).

After competing the panels, I marked and punched holes in the glove to create the attachment points. For those who aren't already familliar with it, the tool in this picture is a rotary leather punch. My rotary punch is one of my best friends when making armor and costumes! So many different sizes with just a spin of the wheel!

In this image you can see how the rings at the edge of the pannels are looped through the holes that were punched. After including the rings required to attach the panels to the gauntlets, the project required a total of 510 pieces (234 tabs and 276 rings). As far as chainmaile projects go, it's actually a fairly small number

Close-ups of the weave. By using 5/16" rings and standard-sized soda tabs, you get a reasonably tight and yet still flexible weave

And there you have it! Gauntlets with the appearance of scale armor made from soda-tabs.

Just don't drink all 234 cans of soda at once or you might end up convinced that you're Link from Zelda wearing the Power Gloves and run around for 2 hours trying to lift "boulders" (i.e. cars) above your head until you finally collapse in a twitching, caffiene overloaded pile on someone's driveway.

!!Soda-Tab Chainmaile Skirt!!

2011-03-30T08:46:00.000-07:00

By way of a series of of convoluted events, I managed to acquire an entire 10 gallon bucket full of soda tabs. Now I'm making these crazy garments. I sold my first skirt back in November and, after taking a break from making tab-mail, I've now made the skirt available again. I don't plan on making these too terribly often as each skirt contains approximately 1400-1600 tabs and 1400-1600 rings for a total of 2,800 to 3,200 individual pieces. When available, skirts will be up for purchase here

Special thanks to Jen Martin Studios for the pictures and Jae Franko for modeling!

Custom Retro-Future Shoulder Armor

2011-03-13T17:30:00.000-07:00

After seeing my "steampunk" shoulder armor online, a very nice fellow in California contacted me and ordered a set of custom shoulder plates based on a retro-future theme. After he and I worked out the details of what he was looking for, I happily started work on the project.

First things first, I obtained my materials. They included 22ga mild steel, rivets, nylon strapping material and a high durability spray-paint with a "hammered" finish. In the picture above, you can see where the steel has been marked in preparation for cutting and drilling.

Next, I cut, drilled, shaped and painted the individual lames(plates) of the shoulder armor. This armor is based on a medieval design known as a spaulder, which was shoulder protection formed out of a series of articulated metal plates.

After the paint set for the proper amount of time, I hooked the plates together with their connecting straps.
Next came the harness, which I made out of several old belts. There are a total of 4 buckles, which allows the armor to be adjusted to fit just right. The shoulder plates are permanently attached to the belts with rivets.
And here it is; the finished product along with a set of gauntlets that my client purchased from me to go with the shoulders. Watch out, Lord Humongous! There's another road warrior on the loose!

Custom Chainmaile Shirt

2010-12-10T21:00:00.000-08:00

A client commissioned a custom chainmaile shirt from me with a row of blue trim at the edges. This was the result. A nice young lad named Ravel was kind enough to model it for me. All of the images were provided by Jennifer of Jen Martin Studios.

In this second picture you can more easily see the blue trim around the collar, the edges of the sleeves and the base of the shirt.

The shirt was made from 16ga 3/8" stainless steel rings.

!!Beetle!!

2010-05-14T11:42:00.000-07:00

My daughter and I decided to take part in the local Procession of the Species here in Bellingham & didn't have a costume. Necessity being the mother of invention, I was inspired by some empty compressed-paper barrels I found at a used construction supply store to create a beetle costume. It was, however, insufferably hot on the nice sunny day the event took place on. Photos by Jennifer Owen of Jen Martin Studios.

Kid's Chainmail Shirts

2010-01-12T11:32:00.000-08:00

I figured I should finally share these shirts that I made for my boys. I don't remember when I made each, but it was a couple years back. The oldest boy's (the one with the Mohawk) shirt was initially a vest and I later taught him how to construct maile and he added the sleeves on his own. Both are made from galvanized steel using the European 4 in 1 pattern. All photos by Jennifer Owen of Jen Martin Studios

In this picture the younger boy is slaying his Great Aunt

....and then later holds his young sister's hand.

The horribly, terrifyingly, cute pink dragon

2009-09-10T08:45:00.000-07:00

My daughter announced that she wanted to be a pink dragon for a costume party she was going to attend. This is what resulted. It features a string that she can pull to make the mouth open and close. I'm planning to use this costume as a prototype to produce a dragon costume in multiple colors made from durable PVC plastic and nylon webbing. All photos by Jennifer Owen of Jen Martin Studios.

Lamellar Armor

2009-08-25T13:03:00.000-07:00

Here are a few images of lamellar torso armor that I constructed. For those who are not familiar with lamellar, it is armor comprised of small plates laced together. Mine is made out of durable, thick black plastic for use in the SCA. I'm glad my blog doesn't broadcast smell as I'm rather sweaty in the last picture. All photos were taken by Jennifer Owen of Jen Martin Studios and Sandi Heinrich of Sandi Heinrich Photography

Fantasy Roman-styled Breastplate

2006-03-05T12:08:00.000-08:00

This is from way back when... my first armor creation that I made with my good friend, Geat Magen. It was meant to be a Roman-esque fantasy segmented breastplate meant to look like something that might have existed after the fall of the roman empire. Something strange must have happened as I made it, as when I put it on I quite suddenly sprouted a beard!