Tested: Adam welcomes friend of Tested Ben Eadie to the cave to geek out over chain mail and Ben's solution to making mail out of EVA craft foam! Ben demonstrates how he knits together incredibly lightweight swathes of foam mail from laser-cut strips, which can then be used for cosplay!
2 comments:
Chainmail is a notoriously difficult material to make and work with. I’ve watched countless different videos on how chainmail can be made, with everything from wire to soda can tabs. But there is one pattern that I notice through all of them – each link is individual. With this technique, not one, but two whole rows of “links” are made at once. A process which normally takes multiple hours can now be reduced to a matter of minutes to make an area the same size. Not to mention, the weight of the finished project. Aluminum mail is a fraction of steel mail, but this foam mail is hardly even comparable. The only downside to this technique is the need for a laser cutter. To hand-cut these shapes is surely possible, but would be very tedious and very easy to mess up and lack consistency. That being said, if one does not have a laser cutter on hand, it is easy to find makerspaces which have laser cutters, or even simply online services that you send a design and receive your cuts in return. All in all, this is a fantastic shortcut to make faux chainmail and it creates an excellent finished product.
Adam Savage has been one of my favorite creators/ inventors for such a long time, and I always absolutely love watching him explain various tools, materials he uses- as well as builds that he does. Other fake types of chainmail that I’ve seen haven’t always looked that great, but what they showed here looks pretty incredible. I’ve also been a fan of Lord of the Rings and medieval style things for a long while; wanting to make chainmail and armor for years now but always being dissuaded by how long it would take and how heavy it would be. Especially knowing my stupid perfectionism and how I’d probably be dead before finishing a full mail shirt. But this process of making it out of the EVA foam would whittle a process down from being DAYS to merely an hour or so- if even that long. I’ve had some experience with working with EVA foam before, so maybe if I can get hands on a laser cutter I’ll give it a go. Can’t wait to see what more he’ll have to show in the future.
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