No.4
Today we'll be building one of these.
No.5
You'll need exactly 180 rings with an AR of ~6.5 (see the sticky for AR chart). I'll be using 14g, 1/2" aluminum.
No.6
Grab five rings, close one, and open the other four.
No.7
Construct a 5-ring Mobius unit by running each ring through the others in the same direction each time.
No.8
Grab six more rings and open them all. Link one ring through any two rings from the 5-link Mobius unit.
No.9
Use the remaining five rings to complete a 6-ring Mobius unit.
No.10
Grab six more rings and open them all. Connect one ring through two rings each from the 5-ring and 6-ring units. This ring should connect to a total of four other rings.
No.11
Close-up of the previous connection.
Dubs get.
No.12
Now connect one ring through each of the two sets of two rings from each Mobius unit. These will be the same rings that the single ring was connected to in the previous step. These two new rings will also be used to complete this new Mobius unit so make sure they also pass through the existing ring correctly.
No.13
Complete the new unit as in
>>9, then repeat
>>10 and
>>12 two more times, making sure that you build around the 5-ring unit and not the 6-ring ones.
No.14
>>13 Also notice that since this new unit will connect to three other units instead of just two there will be two rings which connect to four rings each as in
>>10.
Complete this unit as in
>>12 and
>>9. You should end up with a pentagon.
No.15
At each of the "edges" of the pentagon, connect five 5-ring Mobius units as in
>>10 >>12
>>9. You should end up with a star.
No.16
In between the new 5-ring units construct a 6-ring unit as in
>>13 ,>>12 ,>>9. You should end up with a larger pentagon.
No.17
At the each of the edges on this new pentagon connect 6-ring units as in
>>13, etc. The piece will begin to curve at this point.
No.18
By now the pattern should be more intuitive but a bit harder to see. At each point that is bordered by three 6-ring units, build 5-ring units as
>>13, etc.
No.19
Another view of
>>18. This is a good time to choose a core for your orb if you want one.
No.20
I've chosen a ping-pong ball as the core for this piece but depending on your choice of ring size you may need something larger or smaller.
No.21
Now go around the opening and build 6-ring units at each point adjacent to 5-6-5 ring units. This by far the hardest step but it should look like pic related when you've done it right.
I myself messed up on this step during this build but I corrected it.
No.22
Build one final 5-ring unit at the opening to complete the orb. You may need to adjust the way you slide each ring into the connection in order to get your pliers in a position to close them properly.
>pic is not the same piece as the tutorial
>I gave that one away before I remembered to take a picture
No.23
The geometric shape of this orb is a truncated icosahedron. Other objects with the same shape include soccer balls and Buckminsterfullerene. There are [12] 5-ring units and [20] 6-ring units.
This is the most difficult chain mail piece to build properly that I know of in terms of connection complexity and visualization. It might be helpful to practice the sheet version of this weave in
>>3 before attempting this variant.
No.28