Simple Soldered Silver Chain

I love chain maille jewelry, but I wanted to have a simple, thin and light chain that I could wear all the time, day and night, without having to take it off when I go to sleep, for example. I remembered my soldering lessons from before, so this weekend I made this silver chain with some jump rings that I already had at hand. Not perfect, but I see my soldering is better than it was a few months ago when I gave it a previous try.

This one is mine :)

First Ever Soldered Chain

I'm learning to solder using two beginner metalsmithing courses - one by Melissa Muir (workshop here), and one at Craftsy (Metalsmithing at home - link here) and Melissa's first project is a soldered chain. She uses 3 different jump ring sizes, and I used only two because I already had these cut, but overall I like it for a first piece. I stretched the larger rings into ovals a bit with the round nose pliers, and the rings didn't come apart, so the solder seems to hold.

There are tons of possibilities opened with soldering, imagine soldered frames without having to fiddle with wire wrapped bails, or soldering silver wire to a silver sheet cut to a particular design...I'm really excited about it. I know there are still flaws with this piece, have to remove some extra solder from the joints, some rings need a bit of adjusting (the ovals are not quite the same size everywhere), but I'm getting there with practice.

Here are a few pics taken of this first piece, one that I will keep, afterall it's my first :)

Byzantine Knot Silver Bracelet

Here is a bracelet I finished last night. Tumble polished it and took pictures of it today. It's a weave that I learned, I saw a bracelet just like it and was curious as to how they did it. Found the weave at Mailleartisans, and here is the result.

I quite like it, however personally I like daintier chains than this. However when worn is quite beautiful indeed.

The rings I cut have these stats: 0.9mm 4.27 ID, with an AR of 4.74 (this is just for me really, if I want to do another one, to use this as reference). The bracelet measures 19.5cm (7.5") including the lovely silver heart clasp which I bought from Etsy from a wonderful seller a while ago.

Note: the Byzantine Knots weave was invented by Christian Dietrich) and if anyone wants to learn this weave, there is a also nice tutorial by Zili on Mailleartisans.

Rosetta Chainmaille Bracelet In Sterling Silver

I liked how the Rosetta weave looks from the first time I saw it. It's an easy and fun weave to do, one that I haven't tried until now. And I quite like the result. It looks slightly like a variant of the Byzantine weave, but it's woven up completely differently.

It's very sleek and soft when worn, it's becoming one of my favorite weaves.

This bracelet is made of sterling silver, measures almost 19 cm (7.5") and the jumpring dimensions I used when I cut them from the silver wire were: 3.84 ID for the 2 in 2 chain and 3.5 ID for the 4 side rings, wire of 1mm WD.

Zigzag Silver Chain Maille Bracelet

This is a simple European 4 in 1 weave in a zigzag pattern. While I've seen diamond shapes and grape shapes, I haven't seen many (actually any) zigzag shapes in this design. The pictures really don't make the bracelet justice. It's really sleek and elegant.

Measures 19.5 cm (7.5") and I love how it's a bit lose on my wrist. It's really comfy. Made of sterling silver.

Chainmail Bracelet For Men - Sold

The latest jewelry piece I've sold was one that really took me a lot of time and silver. Not sure if I'll ever attempt another one so detailed, intricate ... and heavy.

Made of pure sterling silver, the chainmail weave for the bracelet is called Turkish round, and I've saved some of the pictures of the piece before selling it off in my Dawanda shop.

The size is 20 cm (8.5 inches) and it's really one of the heaviest bracelets I've ever created. Each silver ring was hand-sawn by me and interlaced with each other to create this long bracelet chain.