Chainmail Patterns

Though you may know about only one or two types of chainmail, there are actually a great number of different patterns. Here, I will briefly describe the different patterns I cover here on this web site. Each category has a link to a brief step-by-step process for making it. From there, you can get more detailed information on the more confusing or hard to describe steps.

If you know about a pattern that you don't see here, let me know and I'll see about adding a section covering it.

European 4-in-1


This is usually what comes to mind when people think about chainmail. Named for the fact that each one link in the pattern has four more rings passing through it, it's the most common pattern, and is easy to make. This is the pattern I used for this site's wallpaper.

4-in-1 rounds


Square patches of chainmail are nice, but sometimes you need to go around corners or make something cylindrical. For these projects, you need rounds.

European 6-in-1


So-called because each ring has six others passing through it, European 6-in-1 is sometimes referred to as "king's mail", though I personally have seen this name used to refer to at least three other unrelated patterns. It's a much more dense pattern than 4-in-1, and when made with 14-gauge wire on a 3/8" mandrel, only bends easily in one direction. Due to the tight spacing, it's considerably more difficult to make than European 4-in-1.

Double-link 4-in-1 (8-in-2)


I first made this pattern while just playing around one day. Like European 6-in-1, it's only really flexible in one direction, and is a very dense pattern. I still use my original patch of this pattern as a keychain, as the weight of it is enough to keep my keys from falling out of my pocket while riding my bike. Due to the density and close spacing, I use a different method for this pattern than for 4- or 6-in-1.

Oriental 4

A much looser pattern than the European 4-in-1, the Asian 4 pattern is actually just a network of rings joined by four diagonal rings which only join 2 rings each.

Oriental 6

This is the same as Asian 4, except that instead of having four connecting rings, each major ring has six links connecting it to the rest of the pattern.