Chainmail Iron man glove

For this project, I didn't really intend to make such a complicated build at the start. It started out with me just wanting a to make sheet of chainmail and sort of snowballed from there. I had done some research into making chainmail before I started and was originally going to make the rings as many others do but I found a bunch of spring washers which seemed to look the part. So I just started making a sheet of chainmail without a plan of what to do with it. Then I decided to make the glove:

Firstly, The sort of chainmail I am making is 4 in 1 chainmail which basically means each ring is connected to 4 other rings. I'm not going to be going into too much detail as to how to link the rings as there are many tutorials out there. This one Here is quite useful. Also you can make your own rings but the easier and inexpensive method is to get spring washers. The ones I used were M6 spring washers I got 3000 for around £30 which is plenty for this project. Now onto the glove.

I started by making a short and wide sheet to cover the palm and back of the hand. This was wrapped into a cylinder and secured the ends together with more rings.

The fingers were all made with a long and thin sheet of chainmail wrapped into a cylinder that could fit the fingers. At the tops of the fingers there was just a column of rings that goes over the fingertip and attaches to the opposite side of the cylinder and the other sections filled with rings to secure it in place. The photo above shows the columns of the chainmail running up and down the hand as I thought this would be the best option. The fingers were attached directly to the palm as a continuation of the columns around the base of the finger.

The other fingers were done in the same method as the index finger and attached to the palm. They were also attached to each other using some extra rings. This was quite tricky and each glove will be different so I won't really be able to explain it, as long as they attach securely without hindering movement it shouldn't need that much securing. The thumb piece was the hardest to attach as it required an angled piece to be added to the cylinder to make it attach. This will require a bit of planning beforehand to make sure everything fits together and as I mentioned above every hand is different so i won't be able to explain it well. With the planning it should come together eventually.

The wrist and forearm piece were attached to the hand piece in the same method as the fingers. I would advise making the wrist and forearm piece as a separate sheet from the hand instead of just attaching the new rows to the hand as it would be a lot easier to work with just the sheet. Just count out the number of columns you need for the sheet and make a sheet the same size

Here I attached a leather bracelet to the glove to hold it in place. It was attached to the glove using thread and stitching it into place. The thread was pushed through preexisting holes in the bracelet. If the thread is pulled tight to the rings there should be no problems it holding the glove securely.

It was only as an after thought that I decided to make it into a sort of chainmail iron man glove so here is how I tried to turn that into a reality. Here is a leather palm piece meant for holding the batteries and light for the palm repulsor (I know electronics not really fitting for this era but its gonna look awesome).

I used card to measure the profile of the leather piece and the angles at which the attach. (There needed to be a cut out for the thumb but that's not really visible) The holes were drilled into the leather and a strip of suede leather cord was threaded trough it. I didn't use knots to secure it as I just pushed the free end through the loop before it. I think it looks a lot better this way but it unlikely that you'll ever see it.

Here I made a light for the palm repulsor. I don't have many progress photos of it but this was made from a spare piece of PVC pipe, 46mm outside diameter, and three LEDs soldered into a ring with the LEDs pointing towards the side walls. These side walls of the PVC pipe were covered in aluminium foil to reflect some of the light and one end covered with a thin piece of plastic coated with some aluminium foil glued into place. I used epoxy for most of the glue in the rest of this project because of its strength.  The same was done with the battery box to attach it to the back of the hand.the wires were held in place with small ribbons of leather that were cut through the strap and stitched together on the other side to create a loop. The switch was just glued to the side of the battery box.

After all of the lights were tested and glued into place on the back plastic the palm repulsor can be secured to the leather strap. I did this using epoxy glue and then drilling screws through the inside of the leather and into the plastic backplate. A spare piece of the leather cord used for the stitching was wrapped around the base of the palm repulsor to cover any glue or light leaks. A second, thicker piece of plastic cut to the inside diameter of the PVC and sanded down to disperse the light more evenly out. If the plastic cover is just the same size as the hole it should slot into place and hold without the need for glue which might ruin the look of it.

Now onto the back plate of the glove. This started out as a model made from card drawn by hand and taped together. They went through many different shapes before I settled on this one which looked pretty accurate to the Mark 6 armor. This was then cut out from 4mm plastic, which I found awhile ago and I believe is polycarbonate but I'm not sure. 

The edges on these pieces came out very rough so they were sanded smooth and then bent into shape with a heat gun and glued into place. The glue was sanded down smooth and the shape was refined even further with sand paper. This whole process took a lot of sanding, the plastic was also very tough to sand, so be warned.

This was then cut in half with a dremel and these edges were sanded smooth also.

To make the hinge, just a thin, flexible piece of plastic was used and glued securely into place.

Attaching it to the leather strap took a lot of work. I decided to go for small blocks with screws through them which were glued to the back plate to act as axles and receiving blocks with holes attached to the battery box to act as the corresponding mounting point on hand. These should be allowed hinged slightly to allow the hand to move with relative ease. 

This was then sanded down with a 180 grit sandpaper and primed with two coats. This was sanded smooth with a 1200 grit sandpaper and spray painted the iconic red colour.

Here it is finished. Hope you like it. Leave any comments/queries you have below. Thanks