How to Make Dragonscale Chain Maille

	Artistic Wire, Chain Maille Jump Rings, 18 Ga / ID 5.95mm / 45pc, Tarnish Resistant Silver Plated SKU: FMC-1594 $4.29
	Xuron Jeweler's Super Fine Pliers Chain Nose Flat Nose SKU: XTL-5450 $25.99
	Beadalon Large Beading Mats - Prevent Bead Rolling 13 X 18 Inch (Set of 2) SKU: XTL-9935 $6.75

Note: This audio transcript is auto-generated and may not be completely accurate.
Hi this is Megan with Beadaholique.com and today I'm going to show you how to do dragonscale chain maille. This is a bracelet that I made using the dragonscale weave. You can see it has a really nice thickness to it. It does look a lot like scales. All you'll need to do this are two different chain maille ring sizes and two pairs of pliers and as far as the different sizes goes I'm actually just using the sizes that are recommended for this weave on the back of the artistic wire chain maille weave package but some rules of thumb if you're going to choose your own ring sizes is that the smaller ring needs to be able to fit inside the larger ring. You lay it flat like that. The bead inner diameter to the inside measurement of the smaller ring needs to be at least three times the thickness of the wire gauge of the larger so that you'll be able to fit three rings of the big one inside the smaller one and I noticed that when I used a smaller wire gauge for the smaller ring it went together easier than when I tried to do it with two different sizes of the same gauge. So I'm using my larger rings are eighteen gauge ring with an inner diameter of fifteen sixty fourth of an inch and my smaller rings are twenty gauge with an inner diameter of nine sixty fourth of an inch. When you began the dragonscale you're going to establish the width of your piece and you're going to open up the link to have some of my smaller rings open and some of your larger jump rings are closed and I'm going to do like this one I started this one with four large rings and three small rings across So I'm going to do the same for showing you how to do the weave the chain maille rings come slightly open so you will need to either open them or close them all the way You going to make a little chain of large small, large small two large rings on a small ring close it up put those and another large ring on another small ring close that once more I'm using contrasting colors to show you the difference in this piece I used brass inside and silver outside you can see it looks kinda cool when you use a different color for the inside than the outside. I'm using the black this so you can see really what's going on. What we're gonna do next is you're going to want about three more close rings the next step is going to be to anchor these closed rings onto your row of smaller rings you're gonna put one over each but it's of course easier to work with them one at a time so they don't fly everywhere. Pick that up and hold it steady you just take the ring and go through the smaller ring and it will capture that loose ring in place close that up and that's the first one and then you're going to add another loose large ring over the next small ring and this time we're going to capture both of these rings by going through the smaller rings and holding them in place go through that smaller ring and the next one hold both of those loose rings in place As with any chain maille this can seem really daunting at first but once you get the hang of it it's not that bad and if you are having a really hard time with this one using larger rings I'm using pretty big ones so if you're trying to do this with a smaller size and its giving you trouble you might want to use a bigger size and we're going to put one more closed ring over that last small ring and we're going to go through the middle small ring and that last one and then you're going to go ahead and finish the row by putting one more large ring into the small ring. You can see that there's two coming out of each ones. We need to finish that off. And your rows well alternate between three and four rings. So you start with a row of four you're next row if you look they are stacked diagonally like this. You have a row of four a row of three and a row of four and if you can see the way that your rings do stack diagonally your large ones stack to one side and the small ones will stack to the other side it kind of has criss cross pattern on the edge that's the way you're going to work. You're going to keep it stacked toward you as it comes forward. So to complete the next step we're going to put a small ring inside of each of the large rings on the last row that we added and they're going to continue to step down. So each time you put in a new row of rings they need to be below the ones above it so this new row of the small black rings is going to sit right underneath those three that are in there you're going to take the ring and you're going to go through the top ring and you're going to capture the large ring from the row before and as we take these rings through here you're going to go through the top make sure it's to the right of those other small rings that were in there and you're gonna go through both of the rings before and you want that to be inside this ring here If it moves around and gets above the ring next to it you wanna make sure that you fix that so you want it to go around the two in the middle row and coming out right in the middle of that one there but you also want it to go through the one from before on the first row you can move them and get them in the right place afterwards but it is hard so its important to try to get them in the right position in the first place. So again take the small ring go down around the two rings in the middle with the back of the ring going through the one two rows behind and then one more ring in that last ring from the row before when you lay this out you can see your new row of the smaller rings sitting right inside the row of the larger rings you're going to continue working in rows of three, four, three, four rings and you're always put the large ring in and then put the small rings in each of the larger rings the way you start a row from here out is a little easier you're going to take a large ring and you're going to grab just the small ring coming up through the opening you're gonna put a large ring through each of the small rings from before don't forget you have the rings the small rings from before coming up through there. You don't wanna grab those. You just want the ones from the last row that you put in this row will have three large rings Now you have three large rings in your last row and you're going to go back in and put small rings inside each one and just like before going to go down through the large ring around the two large rings from before just underneath put those in Again you want to make sure that you're new small rings are sitting underneath the ones from before down through the top and around the two from the last row just one more for this row because we only have three large rings You can start to see the sides of the scales are forming and so that's the end of that row the next will have four large rings which you just put right into the last row of the small rings just like you did before and you put a ring on each end that will hang kind of loose that's how we go back to four from three okay and then just like before we're to just take each one of the large rings from last row and put a black small ring inside exactly the same way again on the last ones here there's just going to be the one loop from the row before to go around this is a little bit painstaking but when you get going you'll find a groove and it goes a little bit faster than it seems like it would through the top around the two from the last row through the top around the two from the last row this particular weave is a little bit more difficult in execution then in theory sometimes it can just be hard to get your pliers in where they're supposed to go and one more through the top and the end is just going to go around that last one you're going to continue just like that you always want to make sure it's below the row before continue in that way until it's as long as you like I'm going to do one more row of three and then I'm going to show you how to taper the end like I did on the ends of this bracelet so it can be easier to attach you're findings to. you wanna start your taper with a row of three go ahead and put another row in and putting the large ring through the last small rings tapering off the end will also keep these last couple of rings from flopping around keeps it nice and sleek Your row is going to have three large rings and then you're going to put three small rings inside one for each through the top around the last two close it down through the last ring go through the two from the row before one more for this row and then to taper for the end you continue this decrease. You went from four to three instead of going back to four we're going to go from three to two so just like when you go from four to three you're just going to put rings through the middle where you have two of the smaller rings on each side and then you're going to put the smaller ring inside each of the two large rings down through the top and around the last two one more for that row and just like we went four three two in the next row we're gonna put just one of the large rings and then we need just one of the small rings to go inside there through the top and around those last two rings that's how you taper it off get that nice finished look and then all you do to do the other side is flip your work over you can see your work flipped over looks exactly like it in the other way. You're going to taper it off on this side just the same If any of your inside rings are not in here. If they are sitting up above you can just take your pliers and pop them in where they need to go when it's done correctly it should all look uniforms from both sides you can see sometimes the end pieces get popped up the inside rings, you can just move them back down it should be very fluid when it's done correctly there shouldn't be any rings that look out of place that's how you do Dragonscale chain maille. Go to Beadaholique.com for all of your beading supply needs!