Alright, here is a breif guide to the basics of chainmail making. Below is a picture of my workspace. You'll notice it isn't too complecated (the workspace, that is).
That's about all you need. If you don't know how to make the links, go to
http://www.chainmailman.com/tutorial.html.
Above is an image of basically how I hold the slightly opened links. I use my left hand to shut the links while I hold the links with the pliars in my right hand. NOTE: this ruins your fingernails after a while, but I don't have 2 pairs of pliars...
This is basically what the closed links look like. Sorry, I couldn't get the camera to focus on the link and the flash made it all shiny...
Okay, regular European chainmail is made of basic units I call "fiver"s. Each fiver is basically 4 links hooked together by one link. You need 4 closed links and 1 open link to make a fiver.
This is what a fiver basically is. It will look nothing like this when layed flat on the ground, but if you pick it up by the middle link, you'll see it's just 1 link hooked onto 4 others.
This is a picture of a fiver layed flat on the ground. It looks very different. This is the molecule of the substance chainmail. Perhaps not the best metaphor, but it's the smallest unit that still looks like the chainmail pattern.
Fivers are building blocks of chainmail. Almost like Legos, only harder (and shinier
). Anyway, once you have 2 fivers, you can hook them together with a single link.
Hook the link into one of the fivers as shown, but don't close it.
Now hook it through the other fiver as shown.
Okay, I know this was a bit confusing and the pictures were blurry, but if you didn't understand something just google something like "chainmail tutorial" or "chain mail guide". If you did understand all that, you should be able to figure out/look up how to hook rows together. It's very similar.
I'll try to add to the guide to help you guys understand it better, but now back to the diamond shape. How?
If you make any chainmail you'll notice a pattern rather similar to the arrangement of the stars on the US Flag. With each o being a ring in the image below, chainmail looks more or less like:
o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o
o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o
o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o
o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o
o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o
o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o
o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o
(that's made of 10 fivers wide by 2 fivers tall)
Anyway, it doesn't looks like a diamond. The way to make it a diamond is simple, yet tricky at first. You make it in a steps shape like below (each # is a fiver)
#
##
###
####
#####
######
However this still won't look quite right, so you take a ring off of the uppermost fiver of each column. These are indicated by an o in the following illustration:
o
#o
##o
###o
####o
#####o
so for each fiver represented by an o, you take the free ring off. Which is the free ring. Look at the illustration below:
o x
o
o o
o x
o
o o
Each x represents the free ring. It isn't attached to any other rings. So, if you were able to follow so far, you should have a good idea of how to make a right triangle shaped piece of chainmail. To make the diamond, simply make 4 such pieces of chainmail, then attach them together (with links of course).
Now you're all probably thoroughry confused as to how to make chainmail:P. Sorry I don't have images for the confusing parts (the triangle parts). If you get really confused you can look at the sample picture I had. Below I show how you can see the basic pattern of fivers and fourers (I guess that's what they'd be called).
http://altay.vilko.net/DL/sling/triangleI highlighted many of the fivers in it with red and the "fourers" with a blue outline. This image does a good job showing what 1/4 of the diamond should look like.