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HooDooHex

I love chainmail.
I think I enjoy it because it's a process-oriented art. The goal (usually) isn't a figure, a picture, an allegory; the glory of chainmail is someone going "wait you put how many rings together?" and marveling at the pattern you can create with a few hundred identical round things.

A bunch of aluminum rings, slightly open.
"A few identical round things"

I want to introduce you to HooDoo Hex sheet. It might be my favorite chainmail weave.

Two views of a key-chain-sized patch of chainmail. It has the hexagonal structure of honeycomb, but is made of smooth round rings.

HooDoo Hex creates a web of interlocking hexagons. This weave is a sheet, which means it can expand forever on any side. Normally this patterns needs a very 'fat' ring where the inside diameter of the ring is only about three times the thickness of the metal. The ratio of inside diameter to wire thickness is called Aspect Ratio, or AR. If the AR of the rings is too large, the rings twist and slide past each other and the pattern becomes unrecognizable.

Unless you start filling that space with something else.

A wide bracelet made of 3 rows of interlocking hexagons, with gemstone beads captured inside each one.
The Aspect Ratio of these rings is a smidge large, about 3.2, which provides room to capture beads. Aluminum, Garnet, Turquoise, Quartz.

HooDoo Hex sheet allows you to capture beads. Chainmail captures are magical, because they don't require any adhesion. No glue, no soldering, they just rely on friction and geometry to hold everything together. Using beads of exactly the right size is necessary to ensure they fit, but don't fall out.

If you add a little insurance, by way of a cable down the middle, you can even take a few of the rings out.

A much thinner bracelet made of a single row of hexagons, with beads captured in the center of each one.
Without the beads, the hexagons will lose their structure, and this becomes a weird jumbled chain. Aluminum, Czech glass pearl beads.

However, if there is one thing we know about me, its that I like fiddly things.
And I can solder. Which means I'm not limited to bead captures.

So I tried replacing one bead with a silver tube set with a gemstone.

A pendant made of 7 hexagons, one in the center and 6 around it, and larger ring through the outermost edges to hold it flat. A single gemstone is set inside the central space.
Sterling silver, 2mm Cubic Zirconia

The tube is soldered to the 6 rings of the central hexagon, but the rest of the rings are still free to move, so this has a nice flexibility to it. You can see how the tube setting pushes the central rings further apart compared with how they sit in the other hexagons. The weave didn't support multiple tubes of this size next to each other - there was no space.
But I have smaller tubes and smaller rocks!

A pendant with 7 tube-set gemstones, one for each hexagon.
Sterling silver, 1.5 mm Cubic Zirconia.

Because so many of the rings are attached to tube settings, this version is very rigid. It doesn't have any of the flex that this chainmail pattern normally has. Maintaining some fabric-like draping requires skipping some hexagons so that the rings can move freely.

A thin single-row bracelet with tube-set gemstones in every other hexagon.
Sterling silver, 2mm Cubic Zirconia.
Side note: I keep coming back to Eternity Bracelet or "Tennis Bracelet" styled designs. I don't know why, other than they're a special kind of challenge. Did you know the term Tennis Bracelet was coined by a single event? Checkout the Wikipedia article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bracelet#Tennis

Remember that HooDoo Hex is a sheet and can be expanded in all directions? I haven't made a full bracelet (yet) but I did stop to consider what this bracelet would look like with extra width.

There's potential for a beautiful wide cuff here.

All of this made possible by a pile of rings and a single chainmail pattern!

I am planning additional experiments (and earrings!) and I'd be interested in any questions or suggestions you may have!

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Jamie Larson
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