The chainmaille dice

5/32" ID, 18-gauge stainless steel rings



A chainmaille dice.
It may not surprise people to know that I am a gamer. Not just video games, but tabletop games as well (see the dicebag for proof. I mean... who else would create a 3, 5, and 7 sided dice?) It can be well assumed that many of my friends are tabletop gamers as well. This particular project concerns my roommate, who challanged me to make a chainmaille dice. Hence... I lept at the challange. A closeup of the chainmaille dice, showing the numbers 1, 2, and 3, on a wooden surface.
It took me a little bit of trial-and-error to find a good ring-size that made a fairly solid weave. Eventually came to the conclusion that with 18 gauge rings (generally, I'm not too fond of working with thinner... too weak in my opinion) work best with 5/32" inner diameter. Hence... to The Ring Lord to order rings. Mainly because I'd need a lot of them, and I could also order blackened rings to make the numbers. Originally, the numbers were going to just be 'dots' of sort on each face, but I soon after beginning discovered that the pattern made a nice grid that I could create numbers out of, sorta like how they appear on a microwave. The other side of the dice, showing the numbers 4, 5, and 6, also on that wooden surface.
It ended up almost exactly 1 1/4" across each side... which isn't too bad, considering it's made entirely out of chainmail. The funny part is that it's quite possibly the most accurate dice in existance. For one, it's equally weighted on each side (since the blackened rings are also stainless steel), unlike a regular dice that has material missing to make the indent for the dots or numbers. Secondly... due to the aformentioned uneven shaped/number of dents in a regular dice, the air will flow over each side of this dice identically. So not only is it weighted perfectly on all sides, it's also aerodynamically more accurate to boot :P The dice sitting in Kabutroid's hand, overtop of the table. It's several centimeters across.


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