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LOTR Maille Patterns

Lots of info about chain maille in these sections, here's where it matter.  The filmmakers used a lot of maille in the LOTR Trilogy.

Spec on exact pattern used in LOTR

• Running favorite on the maille boards is
  • Euro 4-1
    • Most outfits are vanilla 4-1
      • most European weave look like sheets of grey cloth from the distance
    • Gimli's shirt, which is > apparently some hellish knitted washer and wire creation
    • Elrond's mantle. Think it's smallish euro 4-1 hung sideways (maille has a grain, and depending on how you hang it, it looks and behaves differently) but the opinions about that  beastie are still divided.
  • Euro 4-1 Pattern:
    • http://www.theringlord.com/patterns/european/basic1in4.html
    • http://www.cs.hmc.edu/~cweisige/euro4.html
• Maille reports from the London Exhibit, 2003 (JB/Xander)
  • Found some real maille, no plastic! Sauron's 'loincloth', chausses and sleeves have 'round rings', unlike the plastic maille. I ran into a bit of a maille conundrum with the third age Gondorian maille, the rings seem to have a groove running around the outside, they almost look like key ring maille without the thread ends showing. Very strange.
  • Some notes on what was said about the plastic maille: they are made of 2mm thick polybutylene rings, half of which were cut open with a knife, on an angle to make them stronger when closed. After weaving, they were melted closed with a hot knife, and metalplated. There were two patches of their plastic maille you could touch. One was coppertoned with smaller rings (8-10mm, sorry no calipers on me), the other was silvertoned with bigger rings (20mm or bigger). Especially the small rings weren't much lighter than aluminum. There were also some Rohirrim and elven swords on display in the epoxy, steel and alu versions, which you could also touch and they challenged you to guess which was which.

Orc maille	Boromir's maille	Elven Maille

• Runners  up, but now almost all completely discounted... but it was a fun quest while the research was done!
  • Japanese Hitoye-Gusari (2-4)
    • It's a bit lighter and more flexible
    • Pattern:
      • http://www.theringlord.com/patterns/japanese/hitoye_gusari.html
      •  
  • Snakeskin
    • because it films better than euro 4-1
    • weave is Euro 4-1 but with small rings between large rings
• Flatted rings
  • These are the cuts from the PVC pipe.

• Gimli: J2-4 - agreement
• Aragorn: Snake?

Thank you to all who contributed to this section... too many to name individually.

LOTR Maille Patterns | Making PVC Maille | Chain Maille Cheats | Link Materials | Tools | Making Metal Rings | Pattern Making | Aging Maille | Tips

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This page was last updated 04/22/08