# Robin Hood:  How do they make that fake chainmail?



## Emirikol (Mar 18, 2007)

Robin Hood:  How do they make that fake chainmail?  Is it black sweater material painted with silver?  They did similar things with the costumes in the early Xena episodes too.

Thoughts?

jh


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## Ed_Laprade (Mar 18, 2007)

I've never watched the show, so don't know. However. it might be real. I recall that when Excalibur (I think) was made they discovered that London butchers (guild?) used aluminum chain mail aprons that were mass produced, so they bought a lot of the material and used it to make armor.


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## Grymar (Mar 19, 2007)

In the lord of the rings movies they made the chainmail from a sort of plastic so it was light, but each suit still had to be hand made.  I don't know if that is now a common technique or not.


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## Hand of Evil (Mar 19, 2007)

I am on the thought that it is a fabric, I have seen some amazing patterns.  I also saw where a person used a paint on a large weave wool sweater, the paint harden around the wool and made a chainmail look.


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## Thornir Alekeg (Mar 19, 2007)

Grymar said:
			
		

> In the lord of the rings movies they made the chainmail from a sort of plastic so it was light, but each suit still had to be hand made.  I don't know if that is now a common technique or not.




At the exhibit at the Boston Museum of Science last year they had a video about making this and a sample of it.  They cut rings from a plastic tube, snipped each ring open and linked them together.  I remember the video stating that several of the people making the mail suits had literally worn the fingerprints off their fingers from the work.


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## Pyrex (Mar 19, 2007)

Emirikol said:
			
		

> How do they make that fake chainmail?  Is it black sweater material painted with silver?  They did similar things with the costumes in the early Xena episodes too.




I haven't seen the show in question, but several TV Shows and/or lowish budget movies do exactly that.  By lightly brushing silver paint over the sweater the paint only catches on the exposed ridges.  Except for the way it drapes it looks suprisingly realistic as long as the camera doesn't zoom in any closer than a 10' view or so.  Painfully obvious when they zoom in to 'talking head' view though.   :\


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## sniffles (Mar 19, 2007)

Most cheap chainmail I've seen is knitted and painted silver as Hand of Evil comments. They also iron it so the knit lies flat. I think the Robin Hood chainmail looks like this variety. It's a lot less time-intensive for wardrobe to create than the plastic type.


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## Hand of Evil (Mar 19, 2007)

There are web sites on the subject: http://www.chainmail.com/chainmall/cteach2.htm


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