Baron Byron

Merry Christmas!

2010-12-25T14:37:00.001-05:00

It's been a while since I've put anything up, but I wanted to wish everyone a Merry Christmas.

Still trudging along on the massive chainmaille project, and have done a few other things lately. My mother-in-law got her PhD this month and I made her a sterling silver byzantine necklace that she loved. Also made a coworker a byzantine keychain and euro 4-1 bracelet for Christmas gifts for his family. Also made a large dragonscale cuff for one of the security guards at work, a Christmas gift to himself.

Here's to wishing all a great new year and much chainmailling to come!

The Holidays are coming!!!

2010-11-05T17:57:00.001-04:00

Well, the holiday season is fast approaching. So with that I bring you the above holiday inspired pieces that really need a good home. I think you all agree a dark cabinet is no place for these creations. :-) On the left is a sterling silver jens pind linkage earring with a swarovski crystal snowflake and on the right is a simple 3-3 chain made from bright aluminum and anodized aluminum. Both have sterling silver earwires.

Also for the holiday season I've brought back the wrapping service upgrade that I used last year. Click here for a picture and the original blog post which includes a link to the upgrade listing on Etsy.

MASSIVE Chainmaille Project (part 3)

2010-10-13T15:13:00.000-04:00

UPDATE 10/13/10: It's been a long journey on this project and I'm guess-timating that I'm about 33% done overall. The good news is that the first major portion of the project is completed! You can see a picture here and there's a picture will all components of the project here. Some of you might also notice that the JPL section is a bit smaller. I robbed from this chain for another project. Progress so far: JPL = 621 rings / FP = 402 rings / J8-2 cube = 8670 rings / DS = 1464. Total ring count: 11,157.

USN Ribbons Chainmaille Inlay (part 3)

2010-09-11T08:44:00.011-04:00

I guess it's kinda fitting that this post was ready for today. Let us never forget the events of 9/11/01 and all those who have fought and those who continue to fight terrorism around the world.

Here is my completed US Navy Ribbons inlay project. Okay, so I still have to rig up something to hang it by so it still looks right, but the chainmaille work is pretty much done. Each ribbon is made up of 350 rings for a total ring count of 3,500 rings. The vast majority of these rings are anodized aluminum, but there is a small portion (160 rings) that are anodized niobium since I couldn't get the color I wanted any other way.

Oddly enough I just rediscovered this project. It's been sitting on the shelf for I don't know how long now because I didn't have the rings I needed to go any further. So I had some paypal money from a recent order and decided to order some new supplies. I dug this project out and found out I had everything I needed so I sat down and finished to up. I ended up having 1 ring to spare of the color I was low on; good thing I didn't damage any of those.

You can read my previous update to this project here.You can read about the process involved in getting a picture into chainmaille format in my previous blog post here.

Follow me on Facebook

2010-09-10T09:32:00.000-04:00

So I've been on Facebook for a while now, but I've started an Official Baron Byron Chainmaille Fan Page. I'm still figuring out all this stuff so I apologize if not everything is working as far as links, but I'll be working on it until things are the way I like. So for now you all should visit my page and 'like' it.

MASSIVE Chainmaille Project (part 2)

2010-08-14T13:01:00.001-04:00

UPDATE 8/14/10: A while back I decided to only update once per month, unless I make significant (i.e. noteworthy) progress, so when I got on here to update for Aug imagine my surprise when I hadn't updated in July. Progress has been slow, but the project isn't dead. I hope to be completing one major portion in the next month or so. Progress so far: JPL = 905 rings / FP = 402 rings / J8-2 cube = 6570 rings. Total ring count: 7877.
UPDATE 5/23/10: Summer and work haven't allowed too much time on this project, but it's coming along nicely. Progress so far: JPL = 905 rings / FP = 402 rings / J8-2 cube = 5426 rings. Total ring count: 6733.
UPDATE 5/23/10: New photo on Flickr. Progress so far: JPL = 905 rings / FP = 402 rings / J8-2 cube = 3110 rings. Total ring count: 4417.
UPDATE 5/10/10: Been steadily chugging away on this project, but it'll be on the back burner once my latest TRL order arrives for me to complete 2 other projects. Progress so far: JPL = 905 rings / FP = 402 rings / J8-2 cube = 1592 rings. Total ring count: 2899.

Previous progress updates: part 1

Happy 4th of July!

2010-07-04T07:00:00.005-04:00

Happy 4th of July to all my fellow chainmaillers (and Happy Birthday to my sister Melissa)! This summer has kept me pretty busy and away from the chainmaille, but I've been coming up with some wonderful ideas once I have more time/money to buy materials. Of course the MASSIVE chainmaille project continues, sometimes it seems like I'll never finish!

What a Tangled Web We Weave

2010-06-02T13:48:00.000-04:00

Update: 6/2/10 -- Added photo Barrel Weave.

I've been trying a lot of new weaves lately which has been quite rewarding, both for me and my future customers. So, I've decided to break down the list of what I've got under my belt so far with links to my Flickr photos. I'm always trying new weaves so this is by no means the only patterns I'm capable of doing.

Barrel Weave / Box Chain / Byzantine / Byzantine "Ladder" / Byzantine "Spikes" / Captive Inverted Round / Captive Zen / Celtic Visions / Double Spiral** / Dragonscale / European 4-in-1 / European 6-in-1 / European 8-in-2** / Full Persian / Half Persian 3-1 / Half Persian 3-1 Sheet 5 / Half Persian 4-1 / Helm Chain * / Inverted Round * /Japanese 8-in-2 Cube / Japanese 12-in-2 / Jens Pind Linkage 3 / Jens Pind Linkage 5 (JPL5)** / Mobius ** / Rondo a la Byzantine / Shaggy Loops **

Some of these I've done in different sizes and I'm trying to get the pictures updated to show each size side by side for a good comparison.

* Okay so I haven't done a piece with these weaves alone yet but the knowledge of these weaves was gained while learning others.
** No picture currently available of my work. (I'm probable waiting on a clasp before I take a photo.)

Shipping blues...

2010-05-23T11:00:00.003-04:00

Here I am wishing UPS delivered on weekends. Yet again my latest TRL order has been sitting in West Chester, PA since 8AM on Friday. The UPS hub there is about 10mins away from my house. So, no new supplies until whenever the delivery guy gets here tomorrow. :-( On previous orders I have called UPS to see if I could pick up my package there, but alas that is only an option if a delivery attempt has been made without success, which means the package requires a signature, which mine doesn't so they just leave it on the doorstep.

Chainmaille Raffle for Breast Cancer

2010-04-16T12:26:00.002-04:00

A fellow chainmailler, Janine of Athena's Armoury, is going to be taking part in the Susan G. Komen Foundation 3 Day for the Cure event. Over the course of the 3 days she will be walking 60 miles and looking to earn $2,300 to aid in the fight against breast cancer. Another chainmailler, Rebeca Mojica of Blue Buddha Boutique, has donated some pink anodized aluminum rings to Janine with with she is making a "Pink Warrior Chainmaille Collection" with all proceeds going towards her fundraising. She is also conducting a raffle with ticket sales supporting her fundraising. I'm happy to announce that I've made my own donation to Janine's raffle, a bracelet and matching earrings set.

They are both made using the Japanese 12-2 weave with bright aluminum and red anodized aluminum.

Visit Janine's blog for updates on her training for the walk as well as updates on her fundraising.

Heidi Klum wears chainmaille

2010-04-09T15:21:00.014-04:00

So there I was watching the latest episode of Project Runway on the DVR with my wife before I left to work when I had a chainmaille siting. There Heidi Klum was as the runway show was about to start wearing a Byzantine necklace. (Sorry about the poor picture quality, but this is just a poor photo of my TV screen as the show was playing.) I'm not entirely sure what the material is; it's almost black, but really shiny almost silver-looking in spots, which could just be lights from the set. My initial thought was a sterling silver treating in liver of sulfur, but perhaps this is something a bit more unusual. The size also appears quite larger than what I've done, I'm guessing it's about 14ga.

MASSIVE Chainmaille Project

2010-04-08T13:41:00.003-04:00

UPDATE 4/8/10: Haven't really put to much time into this project due to my work schedule the last 2 weeks, but I'm up to 50-something inches of JPL chain which is approximately 800 rings.
UPDATE 3/26/10: Created a Flickr set to keep a photographic record of the "Massive Chainmaille Project" "Massive Chainmaille Project"
UPDATE 3/17/10: Happy St. Patrick's Day! I recieved my TRL order for the "Massive Chainmaille Project" today! Let the chainmailling begin!
UPDATE 3/6/10: Just ordered my rings for the "Massive Chainmaille Project"; over 3lbs and some clasp and more wire for other things! Now I have to sit around and wait for about 2 weeks until they get here :-(

Original post 3/2/10: I've been doing a lot of planning lately for a very massive chainmaille project. By massive I'm talking about close to 25,000 rings! I'm not going to tell you what it is I'm making yet, but I will tell you that it will be comprised of 4 different weaves:
1. Japanese 8-in-2 Cube
2. Full Persian
3. Jens Pind Linkage
4. Dragonscale
I will be using bright aluminum rings for this project and given my current estimates it will weigh in at over 3 pounds!

I've gotten about 300 rings done on this project, but I ran out of wire. Now I'm just waiting for some black anodized aluminum rings to be back in stock so I can complete my US Navy ribbon inlay and I'll be ordering the rings for the massive project too.

Not really chainmaille....

2010-03-24T11:32:00.000-04:00

I came across this line of pop-tab and crochet purses and handbags from Escama Studio. While I know these items aren't chainmaille, I know there are chainmaillers out there who have worked with pop-tabs to make some amazing things. Escama Studio is a member of Fair Trade Federation (FTF) and each bag is signed by the individual who made it. Each of these bags are hand made using post-consumer recycled aluminum pop-tabs. One of my favorites is the Leda.

Tiffany & Co. + Elsa Peretti = great jewelry

2010-03-20T14:31:00.000-04:00

With all this chainmaille popping up in my wife's magazines lately I've been compelled to dig thru my favorites folder where I have bookmarked things to blog about. I while back I came across a pair of earrings and a necklace that Elsa Peretti designed for Tiffany & Co.Both of these pieces are made from 18K gold and cultured freshwater pearls.

ECG: Meet our Members ----> ME!

2010-03-19T19:49:00.001-04:00

I am a member of the Etsy Chainmaillers Guild. The blog is being maintained by Jill at Liv'nGood Jewelry and she recently started featuring members of the guild in a blog post. Today is the day where I am featured. Check out the interview here.

Elle magazine + Chainmaille = great fashion (again)

2010-03-04T21:35:00.009-05:00

Yet again my wife was flipping thru her fashion mags today and came across a chainmaille fashion trend spread (pictured at left, click for larger image). Almost all of the pieces included chainmaille in them! One of the designers is Eddie Borgo and she has quite a wonderful set of chainmaille pieces. Along with the necklace featured in Elle magazine there are also several other versions of the same necklace, another necklace in 3 styles, and a bracelet in 4 styles.
Another designer featured is Jen Kao who had a chainmaille tankdress in her collection. Several of the models wore sandals by Tania Spinelli for Jen Kao and also carried the lucite clutch with chainmaille detail (all 3 pictured at left).
One last notable piece featured in Elle is the black suede and chainmaille bag by Versus.

Here's to hoping chainmaille keeps popping up in these magazines for me to share with you all.

Chainmaille for auction...

2010-02-23T18:41:00.007-05:00

One of my 4 brothers is a freshman at St. Louis University High School this year. Every year the school holds a charity auction event called Cashbah. The theme for this years auction is "Welcome Aboard" and will be held on March 20, 2010.

For more details (as they become available) go to the Cashbah 2010 webpage.

For this event I created a chainmaille necklace that I donated for the auction. The necklace is made using my current favorite weave, Jens Pind Linkage. I made the necklace from bright aluminum, coiling over 150 ft of wire and cutting the coil down to over 250 individual rings, all by hand. The clasp for the necklace is a sterling silver "S" clasp. Then anchor pendant has several small Swarovski crystals and a blue glass bead dangling below it. The winner of this item at the auction will also receive a gift certificate to my shop. View another photo on Flickr here.

Blog mention

2010-02-23T16:57:00.003-05:00

Thanks to Vanessa from CrochetMyBaby for adding my shop to her favorite recently. She wrote a blog post about her top tens favorite shops and I'm one of them!

Check out the blog post here.

nOir Jewelry + Chainmaille = great fashion

2010-02-18T19:16:00.007-05:00

My wife was flipping thru her fashion mags today and came across this necklace from nOir Jewelry (pictured here). So this got me looking around their site at some pretty awesome pieces. I also found a bracelet in similar design.

After some further digging thru the site I came across a blog entry detailing the creation of the spiky gold dress that Rihanna wore to her album release party. I caught a glimpse of the dress on TV at some point and remember I should write something about it, but as with some many things on here I never got around to it. Read the blog entry and enjoy all the photos here.

Necklace copyright © nOir Inc.

Happy Valentine's Day

2010-02-14T20:32:00.000-05:00

Happy Valentine's Day to you all.
My wife got me this card (picture coming) for Valentine's Day. She said it caught her eye in the store, but it wasn't until I opened it and saw it that she realized why. I guess all my chainmaille stuff all over the house is really beginning to contaminate her mind. :-)

USN Ribbons Chainmaille Inlay - part 2

2010-01-20T16:04:00.010-05:00

Back in November I discover IGP and decided to try my hands at an inlay of my own. So I came up with the idea to recreate the ribbons I earned while in the US Navy using anodized aluminum rings. You can read about the process involved in getting a picture into chainmaille format in my previous blog post here.

Things are coming along pretty quickly. At this point the ring count is 2,520 rings! In fact, I've hit a stopping point as I need to order more rings before I can go any further. One of the colors I need was out of stock when I placed my original order and I decided to not use rings I originally got for one section because the color just wasn't right. I'll be using anodized niobium rings as a replacement for these as I just couldn't find the ring size I needed in a color close enough to what I was looking for.
Here is a list of all my awards from top to bottom, left to right:
Navy and Marine Corps Achievement Medal, Meritouriuos Unit Commendation, Battle "E", Navy Expeditionary Medal, National Defense Medal, Global War on Terrorism Expeditionary Medal (in progress), Global War on Terrorism Service Medal, Sea Service Ribbon (in progress), Expert Rifle (rings out of stock), Expert Pistol (rings out of stock)

Happy New Year!

2010-01-04T08:05:00.001-05:00

Happy New Year to all you out there. Hopefully yours was better than mine as I ended up in the hospital with some major pain and it turned out I had kidney stones. So after quite a cocktail of drugs I'm feeling better but nor quite 100% yet, however I think the worst is behind me.
Hopefully this year will be better for my chainmaille. I ordered the rings yesterday for my USN Ribbon Inlay project. I'll update as I can with pictures of it as I go. I also ordered some new mandrels in 128th" increments so I can expand my knowledge to sculpture work.

So many rings, sooo much time.....

2009-12-05T17:36:00.006-05:00

Back in June I blogged about my Koil Kutter and what a wonderful contraption it is. In my post I mentioned I was working on a purse and I'm pleased to announce that after sitting in a basket for a while it is finally finished! All said and done this purse has almost 5,000 rings! This purse is made using a very dense European 4-in-1 weave from 18ga bright aluminum rings. Some rings on the flap are stainless steel so that the flap has a little extra weight to keep it hanging shut.

This purse is currently available in my Etsy shop here. I can also make this purse in different sizes and metals as well as including an inlay design within the weave of the purse.

USN Ribbons Chainmaille Inlay

2009-11-15T18:18:00.016-05:00

I've been quite impressed with all the chainmaille inlays I've seen on the various blogs/forums. So I decided to give it a shot myself and see how they turn out. Many thanks to zlosk for his Irregular Grid Painter program. I've only just begun to tinker with this program, but I've already had some incredible results. So far have 2 inlay projects that I've decided to work on.

The first one I've got pretty much as set, I just need to buy the rings and start assembling. I decided to put together a sheet of European 4-in-1 using anodized aluminum rings to make a representation of the ribbons I earned while in the US Navy. First I had to come up with a picture of all the ribbons I had (in their proper order of course). This was actually pretty easy as I found a web site that created a graphic after you checked boxes for your ribbons. This is what I got:The next thing I had to do was to simply the colors on a pixel level so IGP didn't take forever to process and to minimize the number of colors I'd need rings for. Some colors got changed based on the colors I had available to me, for example the navy blue of rifle and pistol marksman ribbons became black). This is what I got:Next I had to resize the image so I didn't end up with an inlay 1000's of rings wide. Once I resized I had to work with the colors on a pixels level again to smooth things out a bit. I also needed to rework the "E" on my Battle "E" ribbon which allowed me to add the E's on my rifle and pistol marksman ribbons as well. Things are a bit fuzzy when zoomed in, as expected, so I figured I'd plug in into IGP and see what happens. This is what I got:Things are a bit fuzzy when zoomed in, as expected, so I figured I'd plug in into IGP and see what happens. I input my file into IGP and selected the appropriate chainmaille pattern and approximate ring size and out it spits your graph:I will be using rings in 9 different colors and each ribbon will be made up of 350 rings. Using bright aluminum rings for the top corners this will put my ring count at 4200 rings!

Recent Interview on Beads Perles

2009-11-10T21:47:00.004-05:00

Many thanks to Beads Perles for featuring my on her(?) blog. The blog is mainly in Spanish but there are photos of the artists profiled as well as some of their work. All of the work featured is fantastic and I'm so happy to be including among them. The interview just went up today and already there are 6 comments which is exciting. My Spanish is severly rusty, but I've been able to figure them out so far. View my interview here; English translation is below the pictures of my work.

New Shipping Upgrade Available

2009-11-08T10:34:00.004-05:00

For the coming holiday season I've added a gift wrapping service upgrade option now available at my shop. I'll ship the item to you or to who you're giving the gift to.

Micromaille Byzantine

2009-10-23T15:23:00.000-04:00

vesna necklace
Originally uploaded by tigerluxe

I was working on a very tiny Byzantine bracelet that had been put to the side for other projects. I was going to get back to it, but then my wife came up for a use for the 3" or so that I had finished. It now adorns the neck, along with some other assorted chains, of this doll that my wife made. The byzantine chain is made using tiny 24ga 5/64" stainless steel rings. I've still got plenty of rings left so I'll get around to making a complete bracelet some time soon.

Winter is coming

2009-10-21T15:39:00.001-04:00

Just the other day we wrapped up a spell of quite below average weather and now we are in a few days of slightly above average temps (74 on my way home for work). Unfortunately the forecast is calling for a return to the upper 50's - low 60's in another day or two, so as much as I hate to admit it, Winter is fast approaching. So in the spirit of the coming season I bring you these Sterling Silver Jens Pind Linkage earrings with Swarovski crystal snowflakes.

Things yet to come

2009-10-08T15:12:00.000-04:00

Well, I've been pretty tired from work, but I have managed to work on a few more pieces. Somewhere along the line I made a copper byzantine bracelet using square wire rings and missplaced it. I also FINALLY got the clasp for my Half Persian 3-1 Sheet 5 bracelet. I've also finished the sterling silver JPL necklace I mentioned a few weeks ago. Pictures of all of these will be added to my Flickr soon and Etsy listings will be soon to follow.

I've had a pile of rings sitting around for a while left over from Chuck's coif so I started fiddling around with these and made a European 8-in-2 bracelet and a Double Spiral bracelet. As with most of my projects I still need clasps for these which I'll get next time I place a TRL order.

2009-09-13T15:17:00.000-04:00

It took me long enough, but I've finally got all my latest things posted to Etsy. Below are all the links for these projects. With all these projects I've gotten my listings total over 50 for the first time!
brass JPL bracelet / square brass JPL bracelet / square brass JPL earrings / copper JPL bracelet / sterling silver JPL earrings / sterling silver Dragonscale earrings / bright & anodized aluminum box chain bracelet

I've also got another TRL order for more silver so I can make a JPL necklace (this will match the ss jpl earrings above) for another pendant I've found. And best of all, I finally remembered to order some clasps for some things that have been sitting around so I'll be able to get those photographed and posted in a few weeks!

I also found the best bead shop around the other day, The Potomac Bead Company in Phoenixville, PA. I've been looking around town but haven't been able to find a good one-stop shop for all the things I need. So I picked up some beads and have been working on a few chakra pendants. I still haven't decided whether I list this pendants by themselves or include them with a chainmaille necklace. We'll see what happens....

More chainmaille available!

2009-09-02T18:14:00.000-04:00

Well, it took me long enough but I've finally gotten photos of all of the completed projects that have been accumulating over the last several weeks. I've uploaded some of these to Flickr already and will be listing these items on Etsy as a find time.

So here's the list of what is coming in the next week or two:
* brass JPL bracelet
* square brass JPL bracelet and earrings
* copper JPL bracelet
* sterling silver JPL earrings
* sterling silver Dragonscale earrings
* anodized aluminum box chain bracelet

Etsy Treasury by HannahsHands

2009-08-19T23:34:00.000-04:00

I was featured in an Etsy Treasury! Thanks to HannahsHands for including my Spiky Byzantine Bracelet in this collection with other great chainmaille pieces from other Etsy sellers.

Here is the link for this treasury: link

Check it out before it expires Saturday Aug. 22 at 12:24PM

Jens Pind Linkage is my new best friend`

2009-07-31T17:59:00.001-04:00

First off, still hot and humid but might be getting some sun soon so I'll be able to get good pictures taken since things are really starting to pile up.

Ever since completing my square stainless steel JPL I've been going nuts with this weave. I've ordered more rings from CandT Designs and have really been enjoying working with them. So on the way (once I get clasps, which I always seem to forget when I order rings/wire) are 2 brass JPL bracelets, one made with square wire rings, the other using the standard round wire rings. I've also got another square wire stainless steel JPL on its way, but a co-worker has already laid claim to it.

In non-JPL news I did get a square copper byzantine bracelet done and will be having some sterling silver projects coming since I just spent my birthday money at TRL. I still have a Half Persian 3-1 Sheet 5 bracelet lying around that I always forget to order a clasp for until my most recent order has shipped. Yes, my forgetting clasps is a recurring problem, lol.

I hate crappy weather

2009-07-20T17:53:00.000-04:00

Well, the weather here has been pretty crappy for a while. Hot + rain = humid and that's about how it's supposed to be for the foreseeable future. Okay, so it probably hasn't broken 90 degrees yet, but I work in a steel mill so add about 50 degrees to the outside temp and that's if you aren't close to the roll line. So work has really worn me down and I haven't done much chainmailling lately, along with not getting pictures taken of the things I've got done. Hopefully I'll be able to knock most of it out while I'm on my long break in a few weeks.

Chainmaille Squared & Jens Pind Linkage

2009-06-28T11:02:00.000-04:00

Way back when I came across some chainmaille pieces made using square wire that I blogged about here. Well I'm pleased to announce that I've finally gotten myself come square copper wire from CandT Designs and have started pieces for my shop. The first piece on it's way is a European 4-1 (It started as Jens Pind Linkage which worked, but was just a bit too loose for my taste.) I'm planning on continuing the square line of products with JPL, Byzantine, and Full Persian as well others as I come up with good sizes for the rings.

Also from CandT Designs I picked up some 18ga square stainless steel rings that were perfect for JPL. I've been trying this weave for quite a while now with very little luck. I just couldn't quite get the rings to lay right to get it started. I know I was using rings with the right AR so I'd get frustrated and try again a few weeks later. Finally with these rings I got everything to work, and it was pretty easy once I got things started. I loved how this bracelet turned out so much that I'm keeping it for myself. Don't worry, I'll be adding one in my shop soon for you all.

Koil Kutter cuts time (and rings too!)

2009-06-15T18:11:00.000-04:00

I purchased a Koil Kutter not to long ago and and absolutely love it. There was a bit of a learning curve to it, but things get easier with each coil I cut. So far I've only been cutting 18ga 5/32" bright aluminum rings for a purse I'm working on. My first batch of rings was ~700 rings and a lot of this had burrs. I was able to rub most of this of with my pliers after closing the rings. All batches since have been fine in this regard. The other problem I had with this batch is my rings where a dark gray after tumbling for ~30mins. It took several tries to get them shiny again, but tumbling in nothing but lemon juice worked amazingly. (This batch was noticibly harder to open/close from all the tumbling.) They key to avoiding this problem is wash those rings good before tumbling. My lubricant, Tap Magic, a cutting fluid used primarily for machining (I work at a steel mill) works great but is makes a sort of goo when it combines with the metal dust. HOT water and soap has done the trick for me. I've only cut 18ga bright aluminum with it so far, so I'm anticipating that it will respond differently to other metals and will have to learn the best speed for each.

This has really helped me with my current project. I'm making a small purse using 18ga 5/32" bright aluminum rings (and a few stainless steel, same size). My rough ring count is about 4000 rings, and I've got the purse done, with about 10 rings to spare and ran out of wire. So eventually I'll order some more wire and make the strap and get it photographed and posted.

Now I'm looking to make a longer version of the Koil Kutter so that I can
cut longer coils since I have 18" mandrels that I'm only using the first 4" of.

What I've done with my time....

2009-05-23T18:07:00.000-04:00

Well, I spent the last few weeks the latest victim of our economy. On a positive note, I had more time to do things around the house (I installed a pocket door and did some painting.) and of course work on my chainmaille! With anodized niobium I wrapped a Limoges cameo (pics coming soon) that my wife had wanted to turn into a necklace and started a sterling silver wrapped cabochon project but I ran out of wire. I also did 2 pieces with copper, the first a Full Persian Bracelet and the second, a Half Persian 3-1 Necklace. I also added to my line of keychains with a Dragonscale Keychain in orange & black anodized aluminum and bright aluminum. And finally I made a Double Byzantine Bracelet using sterling silver and anodized titanium finished with a sterling silver tube clasp.

Do you lose your keys often? I do.

2009-05-07T22:46:00.000-04:00

If you're anything like me you have a habit of misplacing your keys. Well, perhaps these new keychains will be just the thing to help remedy this problem. Turn that boring old keychain into something eye catching with chainmaille! Currently I have a Full Persian Keychain made from stainless steel and a Captive Inverted Round Keychain made from bright aluminum and I plan on adding several others as time allows.

Another One Bites the Dust

2009-05-05T10:10:00.000-04:00

Update: 5/5/09 -- I've finished the brass bracelet mentioned in the original post below. It was created using ~600 brass rings all hand coiled and saw cut. I think the finished product is definitely worth all the work. This bracelet is also available in my Etsy shop here. (I swapped the original pic from this post for one of both bracelets for a size comparison.)

Another chainmaille bracelet has hit the streets here at Baron Byron Chainmaille! This bracelet is made in the Rondo a la Byzantine weave created by Rebecca Mojica of Blue Buddha Boutique. Approximately 225 bright aluminum rings went into this project and is currently available here.

Be on the lookout for another bracelet using this weave using smaller rings in brass coming in the future.

Custom Order - Byzantine Bracelet

2009-05-01T18:12:00.000-04:00

Here is my latest custom order piece. Yet again we have a Byzantine bracelet made using 20ga 1/8" sterling silver and anodized niobium rings. It is approx 7" long and is finished with a sterling silver lobster clasp. This is the first time I've worked with the niobium and found it a great experience. Thanks Jason for your order.

Free at Last.....

2009-04-11T17:21:00.000-04:00

"Free at last; free at last; thank God Almighty we are free at last." (Extra points if you know who this quote is from.) Yes, I've finally completed the 2nd coif for Chuck. Don't get the wrong impression from how I started this post, but I'm glad to be done with this project. Thanks again Chuck for your order. I'm still working on getting pictures of the completed project; they'll be posted on Flickr once they're ready.

Now I can move on to some other projects I've been wanting to work on that don't yet have buyers. Perhaps you can give these coming pieces a good home. Yet again I have a bunch of rings left over from the coif project so I started looking at what I could do with these rings. I wanted to try a new weave that I haven't done before and I came up with a bracelet made using the Full Persian weave. As always, pics and Etsy listing to follow soon.

I'm in love with Dragonscale

2009-04-09T01:19:00.000-04:00

After some trial and error, I've finally gotten good ring sizes for the Dragonscale weave. Seen here is a Dragonscale bracelet made from Bright Aluminum. I would love to do this using silver and anodized niobium, anodized titanium, or enameled copper but that will have to wait for either a custom order of such a thing or I get more money from sale that I can put into such a project.

There's a first time for everything...

2009-04-07T01:08:00.000-04:00

Well, as the post title states, there's a first time for everything. In this case I'm talking about my European 6-in-1 Bracelet, my first time using this weave. This bracelet is made using the 16ga 5/16" stainless steel rings left over from Chuck's 1st coif I made. Originally I was going to finish this off with 2 stainless steel lobster clasps, but decided on only 1 after I tried it out.

Between this and the 2 coifs I've put together for Chuck I've been doing quite a bit with the 16ga stainless steel rings. I've enjoyed the results greatly however I would caution a beginner against as large an undertaking as a coif (or 2 in my case) before using this material in such a large gauge.

Custom Order - Byzantine Bracelet

2009-04-05T19:07:00.000-04:00

Here is my latest custom order piece. This time around we have a Byzantine (I sure do like this weave) bracelet made using 18ga 5/32" stainless steel rings. It is approx 8.5" long and is finished with a stainless steel lobster clasp. I really like the weight of this bracelet, so much in fact that I have started making one for myself. Thanks Steve for your order.

Gold is a Girl's Next Best Friend

2009-03-30T15:26:00.000-04:00

Here is my most recent chainmaille project, a simple yet amazingly stunning European 4-in-1 Bracelet made using gold-filled rings. Gold-filled wire/rings have a much thicker layer of actual gold compared to gold-plated material. Because of this there is little to no danger of the gold layer being chipped or worn down as can happen with plated jewelry. This makes the 2nd piece done using gold, and I'm looking forward to many more to share with you.

Etsy Treasury by TheBeadedHeart

2009-03-29T22:17:00.000-04:00

I was featured in an Etsy Treasury! Thanks to Julie at TheBeadedHeart (also from BeadedHeartsVintage) for including my European 4-in-1 and Mobius Necklace in this collection with other great chainmaille pieces from other Etsy sellers.

Here is the link for this treasury: link

Check it out before it expires Tuesday Mar. 31 at 5:07PM

More projects on the way!

2009-03-20T13:47:00.000-04:00

Looks like I'm gonna be fairly busy for a wee bit. Chuck liked his coif so much he's having me do a 2nd one for him. That's the largest project and I've gotten a good portion of that out of the way. I also have a 2 stainless steel byzantine bracelets in the works. The first is a custom order using 18ga 5/32" rings like I've done before just not with steel. The second is my first attempt at micromaille using 24ga 5/64" rings. These rings are TINY so it's been slow going. I also have a European 4-1 bracelet made using gold-filled rings that is done with exception of the clasp, which I'll be picking up Tues. Pictures and Etsy listings for each project to follow as each project is completed so keep checking back.

Custom Order - Stainless Steel Coif

2009-03-11T11:25:00.000-04:00

Back on 2/17/09 I mentioned 2 custom orders. The first was a Byzantine bracelet and earring set. I've finally completed the 2nd order, a stainless steel coif. It is officially the largest and most time consuming endeavour yet, with just shy of 4,000 rings and weighing in at a little over 4.25lbs.
I'm seen here with the coif completed, but I added a mantle to complete the project. I'll be adding photos of the completed piece to my Flickr as soon as I get them taken. This is my first non-jewelry piece so things took a bit of trial and error, but I was really happy with how it turned out as was Chuck. Thanks Chuck for your order.

With the rings left over from this project I put together a European 6-in-1 bracelet, so be on the lookout for that soon as I get the clasps from my upcoming TRL order.

Etsy Treasury be BeadedHeartsVintage

2009-03-07T15:25:00.000-05:00

I was featured in an Etsy Tresury! Thanks to Julie at BeadedHeartsVintage for including my Byzantine 'Ladder' Bracelet in this collection with other great chainmaille pieces from other Etsy sellers.

Here is the link for this treasury: link

Check it out before it expires Sunday Mar. 8 at 7:36AM

Custom Order - Byzantine Bracelet and Earring Set

2009-03-04T13:39:00.001-05:00

Well, as mentioned earlier I had some custom projects come thru and here is the first one to be completed. It is a Byzantine bracelet and earrings set made with primarily gold-filled rings with accents of sterling silver in the connector links. Thanks Gary for your order.

Etsy Chainmaillers Guild Featured Items of the Week

2009-02-24T20:32:00.000-05:00

I had an item listed on the Etsy Chainmaillers Guild blog as one of the featured items for this week! This is the 2nd time my work has appeared in the featured items on the blog! It is my Byzantine 'Ladder' bracelet made using approx 700 brass rings, all hand-coiled and saw cut. So far this has been my favorite project yet and I hope you all enjoy it as much as I do.

New projects coming soon!

2009-02-17T15:50:00.000-05:00

Well I've got 2 custom orders in the works that I'm just waiting on the rest of my supplies to get here so I can start on them. I'm pretty excited about it and of course definately will post pics of them once complete.

Update on the gift certificates: All denominations mentioned in the previous post have been posted. If you would like a gift certificate in another denomination not currently available, let me know and I can make one up for you.

Gift Certificates are here!

2009-02-03T19:52:00.000-05:00

Gift Certificates are now available at Baron Byron Chainmaille! I've been wanting to do gift certificates for and ended up completely abandoning my original plan for them after playing around in Photoshop for my banner. As mentioned in my last post, I am no whiz with photo editing, but once I got the first certificate how I wanted it, the rest was just a matter of cut and paste which I can handle. Currently they are available in $5, $10, $25, $50, $75, and $100 denominations (althought not all are posted quite yet), but I can always offer other denominations if you'd like.

New Etsy Banner

2009-02-03T12:21:00.000-05:00

So I'm sure people who visit my shop have been confused for some time by my banner full of radios when I do chainmaille. The reason for this is because the shop was originally created for radios I modified, but soon I fell in love with chainmaille. The original banner was made for me by my wife as she's the one in the house with the skills in the photo editing, but after much hair pulling and clicking undo more than a few times I've managed to get something that reflects my shop alot better up. It's not 100% how I want it yet, but it's a journey that will never end. Who knows, maybe I'll be able to create different banners for special occasions, or promotions.

Ruth Borgenicht - Ceramic Artist

2009-02-02T14:37:00.000-05:00

My wife came across artist Ruth Borgenicht a while back and saved me a link I've been meaning to blog about, but have just now found the time to. Ruth is a ceramic artist, which doesn't fit this blogs theme, except for some of her ceramic work has been to create chainmaille pieces like the one pictured here. How she does it is beyond me, but the result is truly wonderful. Visit this link to see more of her ceramic chainmaille works of art.

Etsy Chainmaillers Guild Featured Items of the Week

2009-01-22T18:46:00.000-05:00

I had an item listed on the Etsy Chainmaillers Guild blog as one of the featured items for this week! It is my Japanese 12-in-2 bracelet made using bright aluminum rings and red anodized aluminum rings. It was one of my earlier creations and as such it has been put on clearance to make room for more wonderful pieces.

Etsy Treasury by BeadedHeartsVintage

2009-01-10T14:46:00.000-05:00

I was featured in an Etsy Treasury! Thanks to Julie at BeadedHeartsVintage for including my European 4-in-1 earrings in this collection with other great chainmaille pieces from other Etsy sellers.

Here is the link for this treasury: link

Check it out before it expires Sunday Jan. 11 at 9:39PM

Complete at last!

2008-12-24T11:05:00.000-05:00

Well, I've finally completed my latest creation (as well as several others). This bracelet is made from brass using a variation on the Byzantine weave that ends up looking somewhat like a ladder. It was quite an endeaver to make as there are just shy of 700 rings that had to be coiled, cut, and assembled to complete this bracelet. It is available for purchase in my Etsy shop here and as always it's avalable in other metals as well, custom orders are my friend!

Square Byzantine Bracelet

2008-12-12T02:11:00.001-05:00

Square Byzantine Bracelet Originally uploaded to Flickr by cMaille
Unfortunately I can't take credit for making this bracelet, at least not until I get my own wire/rings and make my own. I'm starting to see a lot of chainmaille pieces done using this square wire and started looking into where one would get such wire. One place that I've found is Urban Maille Chainworks. They have square wire available in copper, sterling silver, and argentium silver here. They also have other specialty shapes of rings such as a twisted wire that looks much like rope. You can find the specialty rings here.

The square wire can also be found in stainless steel and sterling silver at The Ring Lord.

Some other great square wire chainmaille:
Square Helm chainmaille
Square Dragonscale
Square Jends Pind Linkage

If only there was more time.....

2008-11-11T01:37:00.000-05:00

Unfortunately I haven't been able to spend as much time as I would have like to BaronByron lately so things have kinda fallen to a state of disrepair. The house and work have been keeping me pretty busy. But I've had a little more time lately so I've started to clean up shop. So here's what's new in my little world:

ETSY: Thanks to my wonderful wife for taking some new pictures I was able to update a few listings here, here, here, and here.

FLICKR: I finally got descriptions up for all of my photos. I'm not sure why it took me this long to realize I had descriptions already when I posted these on Etsy.

MAIL MARKET: Posted several more items that have been in my Etsy shop for a bit and with links to my Etsy shop. I still need to update some photos here but all of my wares are up to see as well as a listing for a copper byzantine bracelet to be made as ordered.

DEVIANT ART: This is the remaining aspect of BaronByron that stills needs tidying up. Really all I need to do is add all the pictures that aren't up yet, but it can be quite time consuming.

Christmas is coming ---> FREE gift wrapping!

2008-11-08T19:47:00.000-05:00

These festive earrings are perfect for the holiday season.

FREE gift wrapping is available in my shop for all Christmas purchases. I'll wrap the item purchased and include a gift tag with the to/from info you provide me. I can mail directly to you or to the recipient. Just let me know during checkout in the notes to seller.

Gold and (more) Silver are coming!

2008-10-18T19:33:00.000-04:00

Rachael and I recently took part in a local craft fair. My chainmaille caught the eyes of a fair amount of people which was nice. I did learn quite a few things regarding my pricing, custom work, presentation, etc. so I don't see this as a completely wasted day.
Once thing I was asked about quite often was gold and silver items. I have done a piece or two with silver but nothing in gold; so far I've mostly favored copper, brass, and aluminum. Well this silver bracelet is my latest listing made using precious metals. I am working on designing a custom piece for a guy I work with as a Christmas gift for his wife.

It's been a while...

2008-08-03T14:27:00.000-04:00

Well we recently bought a house so I've been pretty busy lately and haven't had as much time as I'd like to spend on my chainmaille. I had some things that I already had pics of so I was able to post them periodically on Etsy as well as renewing some expired items, but other than that I haven't done much. I had a few sales over that last week or two so that has been nice. Flickr among other things is in desperate need of some updating and I hope to get to that soon. Finally got the Spiky byzantine bracelet posted on Etsy, it only took 6 weeks. I must be going for some kind of record :-)
Well I gotta go make my lunch and get to work, man it'll be nice to finish this week up and get to enjoying my long break.

Spreading my influence...... part 2

2008-06-23T17:31:00.000-04:00

I've also joined up at DeviantART. It's mainly a site for selling prints of artwork, photography, and such but I've seen quite a few chainmaille pieces on there, and who know's if the photos are popular enough I may even sell prints of my chainmaille. (I have to give credit to my wife for all the photos though cause I'm not that good with the camera...)

I've mainly joined The Maille Market and DeviantART to get seen by more people, but I do really enjoy both of these site as they have a lot to offer.

Spreading my influence......

2008-06-20T14:03:00.000-04:00

I recently joined The Maille Market, a new venue for my chainmaille pieces. To find my listings you can go to the Directory and scroll down until you come across Baron Byron Chainmaille. You can also use the link in the sidebar to get there.

Spiky Byzantine Bracelet

2008-05-18T15:57:00.000-04:00

Okay, so I've finally got some pictures taken of recent projects. Here is a variation of my byzantine bracelet. Like I mentioned earlier, I'm really enjoying the byzantine weave alot right now. I have another project using this weave started but it'll be a while coming cause I have lots of rings to make and then weave before my vision becomes reality.

Thrift Store Fixer-Upper

2008-05-18T15:39:00.000-04:00

As I mentioned several weeks ago in my "Dragonscale problems..." post I re-purposed a neat necklace my wife found at the one of the many local thrift stores we frequent. I added all of the green beads and two links of brass byzantine as connectors along the original chain. Eventually I'll get this into my Etsy shop, but I've been very busy with buying a house and work so I've been left with very little time or energy to work on my chainmaille.

Expired listings = Discount!

2008-04-26T00:39:00.000-04:00

It's been a few weeks since I've been able to maintain my Etsy shop so a few listings have expired. Be sure to check the shop as I'll be relisting these items over the next several days. Some items may even be offered at a discount off their original prices so I can get them out of my house and into yours!
Update: My Byzantine project that I mentioned on 4/23 is complete so I'll be posting that as soon as I get photos taken. As usual my work schedule will dictate my ability to get this up for sale so keep checking back.

Minor site changes

2008-04-23T18:22:00.000-04:00

Some of you who have visited before may have noticed a few changes to the site. Really all I have done is make the page wider. With making the page wider that allowed me to widen both the main section with the posts in it (which allowed a large post to not take up the entire screen, which was my main goal) as well as the sidebar a bit. This helps reduce what was huge black sidebars (they're still sizable, but better) present if viewing the site in a full size window on a widescreen monitor. If you aren't using a widescreen monitor and my page no longer fits please let me know and I'll tweak it on down a bit so you only need to scroll up and down to view the entire site. Now I just need to adjust my header picture so it fits in the new header box, but that's gonna wait for another day.
I also added a few sites to the Chainmaille Links portion in the sidebar. Definately be sure to check out Chainmail Basket for some incredible sculpture made from chainmaille.

Dragonscale problems...

2008-04-23T18:02:00.000-04:00

Well I was trying out the Dragonscale weave using 18ga 7/32" bright aluminum rings and 20ga 5/32" copper rings, and had gotten several rows done when I realized that it started getting too tight to weave. When I was adding the larger rings I was actually stretching open the small rings from the previous row. The copper was just to weak in 20ga rings. If anyone has had better luck using other sizes and/or materials I'd be interested in what worked for you.
So I junked that project and moved on to another one. I'm working on a variation of the Byzantine bracelet available in my shop. I'm about 25% done with it and it's looking pretty good so far. I like the Byzantine weave because it has a more masculine feel that most of my other projects, but at the same time isn't so masculine a woman wouldn't enjoy the same piece.
On other news I completed a quick project re-purposing a necklace my wife found at the thrift store. I added 2 links of Byzantine weave to the chain and a bunch of small green beads to the pendant. I will be adding it to my Etsy shop and Flickr as soon as I get the pictures taken so be on the lookout for it in the next several days or so depending on my work schedule since today is the last day of my long break.

Busy, busy, busy...

2008-04-21T20:22:00.000-04:00

Well, it has been a bit since I've put up anything here or on Flickr or at Etsy. I've been adjusting to a new work schedule that has left me with little spare time that hasn't been spent sleeping. I do have a couple projects in the works. One is a necklace I'm making using Japanese weaves, and the other is a Dragonscale project.
The necklace is brass and copper. I don't wanna ruin the surprise by giving away to many more details. It will be released as soon as I find (or make myself) a suitable clasp and of course get the photos taken, which shouldn't be too hard with all the sun we've been haing lately.
I'm not really sure what my Dragonscale project is gonna be yet, perhaps a pendant, or even bracelet or necklace if I get really ambitious. I've been wanting to try the Dragonscale weave for quite some time, but have had the time, or materials to do so. I'm still experimenting to the size rings that I feel are right so that'll be a while before it hits the streets.

Update

2008-04-10T14:59:00.000-04:00

About 2 weeks ago I posted about a set of earrings currently for sale on my Etsy shop. Well now I also have a matching bracelet available and wanted to share a picture with you all. Just like the earrings these are made with the same pattern of copper and brass rings using the European 4-in-1 chainmaille weave. The clasp for this bracelet is handmade from 18ga copper wire. I hope you all enjoy.

New items available!

2008-03-27T21:42:00.000-04:00

I've just finished adding 2 new items to my Etsy shop. The first item is a bright and shiny pair of earrings made with brass and copper using the European 4-in-1 weave. A matching bracelet is also on it's way very soon. The second item is a copper clasp perfect for either a bracelet or necklace.
I also have posted a picture of the earrings on my Flickr for you all to see. Thanks to all the people who have visited thus far.

Custom Orders

2008-03-22T21:26:00.000-04:00

See something you like but would prefer another color or maybe another material? I can make pretty much anything you can imagine in aluminum, copper, bronze, brass, stainless steel, titanium, niobium, 14K gold-fill and sterling silver for material. Color options include red, orange, yellow, green, blue, violet, pink, brown, gold, black, dark purple, and turquoise (all only available in anodized aluminum). Also I'm slowly trying new weaves, so let me know if there's a particular weave you'd like. Let me know what you'd like and I'll send you a quote.
Custom work typically will take about 2-3 weeks to be listed. My work schedule plays a large part in this, but also I may need to order additional supplies to finish your project.

New and upcoming things....

2008-03-20T23:06:00.000-04:00

Well, I didn't really have a lot of time today, so I just added a Links section in the sidebar. Right now the only things there are links to my Flickr photos and Etsy shop. I plan on adding a seperate Links section down the road for other chainmaille related links.
I've also been busy on a new chainmaille project. I don't want to divulge too much now, but it is made of copper and brass. I'll post again once it's completed, so be on the watch for that. One spool of the brass wire I ordered didn't match the other spool, so I could make what I had originally planned, but I came up with something new and I think you all will enjoy.

I'm on Flickr!

2008-03-18T01:42:00.000-04:00

Today I set up my Flickr account with a little help from my wife who's been on there for a few years. I've posted several pictures of my creations thus far. Most of what you see is already available in my Etsy shop, but there is one or two that will be posted in the next several days. I still need to go thru each pic and add a description and better tags, but for tonight that was a good start. Now off to bed with me cause I have to get up for work in a few hours.

Welcome to Baron Byron Chainmaille!

2008-03-15T22:15:00.000-04:00

Welcome to my latest blog. This one is dedicated to the art of chainmaille. Please bear with me as I know there isn't much here yet, but I have lots of plans for this site. I've added a sidebar to link you to items I've made that are for sale in my Etsy shop. I hope you enjoy and visit often!