A few years back my Norwegian wife taught me how to weave this beautiful Viking Knit Chain and I use it regularly to create awesome pendants with my agate cabochons.
Normally I use 24G copper wire but when I want a challenge, I'll use 22G. The wire is "woven" around a wood or metal dowel.
As you can see, at this stage it's pretty irregular and doesn't look like much. After I have a length of about 8 inches, I'll take it off the dowel. By this time I will have used over 50 feet of wire. The diameter is the same as the dowel.
I have made myself a draw plate out of oak and this is what I use to "stretch" the chain.
Starting with the largest diameter, I draw the chain through successive holes until I get to a diameter of 7/32 inch. Now the chain will look like this.
As you can see, the weave has become much tighter and the chain has a little more than doubled in length. To make sure it doesn't unravel and to enable the addition of a clasp, I have to make end caps. These can be bought but I prefer to make my own out of 16G copper wire.
I then attach sliding copper bails to the stone so it can be hung on the chain. Some I make but the filigree ones are commercial.
Then the piece is completed with a hand made copper clasp.
The chain can also be used to make bracelets.
Every once in a while I make the chain out of sterling silver wire and then I use a spectacular sterling silver sliding bail.
It takes me about 4 hours to weave the chain and another 1.5 hours to do the finishing but it's a lot of fun and the finished product is well worth it.
