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Mithril
Per Jasmine: Everything that is supposed to be made of mithril
is made from sterling silver dipped in pure silver.
Pictures
- Not Wounded
- Mithril maille shirt
- Bilbo holding up the shirt
- Laying out the shirt
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Notes
- Best info on the construction mystery of
the Mithril vest with a direct
quote from Richard Taylor,
- "in the end, the Mithril was made of
lightweight, stainless-steel chain mail used for butchers’ gloves.
That mail was finer than the movie’s craftsmen would have been able to
produce, Taylor said, and looked appropriate when sprayed with a
pearlescent paint."
- From ROM exhibit report by Kyra
- 4 or 5mm links, European 4-in-1 style. The neckband is loomworked silver-lined beads with appliqué or couched work embroidery in
gold, and small scattered rhinestones.
- During actually shooting, the full Mithril vest was not worn for
fear of damaging it. Instead, wardrobe created just used a small
piece of the mess with the beadworked neckband.
- It was referred to as a dickey but we don't know if the reference
was just to the mesh or the costume piece. Guess: the mesh
dickey is attached a black knit shirt... like we've seen for Gandalf's
partial sweater, etc.
Notes about pre-manufactured mesh and ring:
- Whiting & Davis
-
http://www.whitinganddavis.com/ .
- Besides the gorgeous flat mesh they make Stainless Steel
Rings.
- "Ring Mesh: Whiting & Davis makes three types of ring
mesh. No. 5, in .021” stainless steel wire and No. 9, in
.031” stainless steel wire. Both these meshes have welded
rings which give it great strength, yet it has the ability
to collapse in both directions, allowing optimum
flexibility. The third and largest ring mesh is No. 13, in
.039” aluminum wire. While not as durable, it is extremely
lightweight, and when used in designs where stress is
limited, is very dramatic and has the look of strength."
- They don't mention prices on their website. It think it
all depends on how much you need and whether you are a
designer who will be back.
== Lisa
Estimate on what it would take to hand make it:
- One of our mad mailler mathematicians at the chainmaille
board has calculated (and i quote) this:
- "22g 3/32 works out to be about 17,500 rings per square
foot, roughly.
- Figure 12 square feet of material for the shirt,
roughly.
- So that's about 210,000 rings. Not a problem.
- I think I'm somewhere in the 250 rings per hour range
with this ring size, once I get used to it. So about 840
hours of work.
- Since I can easily put in 40 hours of work per week,
it'd only take me about 21 weeks to build a shirt this size,
excluding time for coiling and ring clipping if I outsource
the rings.
- Not too bad..."
(we don't have the original name of the mailer who did
the calculations, but we appreciate his numbers.
Astounding.
- thanks to JB, Xander and Lisa for extra info
- Another calculation comes from Steamboat
- It was made by dwarves, to a dwarf's size by dwarven hands
to dwarven proportions. Therefore, storyline-wise, it's tiny.
- I would go with the estimation given on ACS by the
mysterious mailler; it seems s/he thinks they're 22 ga., but a
20ga. should suffice. Anything larger than that might be
unwieldy when it comes to assembly. It also seems they
estimate the ID at 3/32, but again, anything from 1/16 to 1/8
should cut the mustard for it.
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This page was last updated
11/21/09
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