| If you can't already tell, this isn't a normal coin. This would be a geocoin, associated pretty much exclusively with geocaching. This would be my first geocoin owned, and decided to make a chainmaille wrap for it. It took a bit of experimentation to find out what ring sizes would work to hold such a thick coin (approx. 2mm thick... twice as thick as a typical quarter). I had decided that an HP 3-1 wouldn't hold it tight enough, and didn't want to rely on any kind of adhesive to hold it in. After deciding on a 3/4 full persian (full persian 6-1 with one side removed), I found sizes that worked, and made quick work of the wrap. I was lucky in that it worked out to hold the coin tightly, yet still possible to close the last rings, without requiring smaller/larger ring sizes for the very last connection to close it. All in all, it turned out quite nicely. |
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| Of course, that can only be the first half of the battle. Now that we have a wrapped coin, we need some way to suspend it. Albeit having a chainmail-wrapped coin is interesting in itself, we need some way to hold it other than just in our hands like a regular coin... some way to suspend or dangle it. So I set to work coming up with a nice looking way of attaching a chain to it. I didn't want a straight-on connection, so I decided to use a full persian weave, and split it into two half persian 3-1 chains, which then attach to the coin wrap itself. Then, to have a smaller hanging chain, I tapered down the full persian with smaller rings, and wove a Jens Pind weave off of the taper. Now it looks smooth, flows nicely, and the Jens Pind chain can be made as long as needed or wanted. The wire used was all 18 gauge stainless steel, and the ring sizes used were 3/8", 3/16", 5/32", and 1/8" ID. I'll let you pick out which is where :P |
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| The first geocoin was sent into the wild (geocaching.com) after which, unfortunately, it went missing after a year. The years passed, I still had my personal geotag, but I lacked a cool geocoin to bring to events and stuff. And so one day, in 2026, with the urging of my friend MétisAngel getting me back into geocaching, I decided on a whim to look for ye olde Steve Irwin geocoin again (MétisAngel had sent me a link to some geocoins that looked like dragons, but those weren't for sale, which led me to this search). And one internet search later, Ebay showed me... this geocoin, unactivated... exists! I had to have it, I had to get it, I got it immediately (shipped through my niece in the USA, since the seller only shipped to continental USA). And the second it arrived, of course, it was activated (geocaching.com). And I suppose, since this is so deeply buried in the website, should you find this, you may discover the coin through here ^_^ . And with the coin now in hand... naturally... it needed to be wrapped in chainmaille again. Only this time, I decided that the first iteration was just... just kinda really heavy. So we upgraded to titanium. |
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So this time, since I'm not sure what I was thinking when I didn't state which ring sizes were where, the coin wrap itself is once again 3/4 full persian, in 18ga 1/4" titanium. Now, I attempted to wrap the coin in just 1/4" rings (even trying full persian with one seam split open), but that was just unsuccessful, so we ordered up some rainbow anodized titanium in 9/32", the only size of titanium larger than 1/4" I could find at the time, and I can only find it in rainbow, so it'll be colourful, and we'll see if that works.
It did not (the coin popped out, 9/32" wasn't quite large enough). However, what DID work was that split full persian, which with 9/32" and 1/4" (those side rings are from my 20 year old permy bracelet, which are slightly smaller and thinner than current day 1/4", so they're closer to 19ga 15/64" rings), and this gives it a cool appearance from the side, I really like that. Built that while on the train no less, props to me for making it on a bouncy moving vehicle! |
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| Next up is to attach a dangling mechanism, similar to the original. I had used some 16 gauge rings to tighten the weave around the coin originally, so lacking that gauge in titanium, I added a somewhat dreamcatcher looking design in the middle of the hanger uprights, which pulled the weave nice and tight. Using current 1/4" rings and my bracelet's 15/64" rings, we had the two half sides merge into full persian, and taper down into the eventual chain, which I figured would be fun if it was Magician's Chain, so you can play with the chain itself too! Also, I wanted some gaps between the rings to be able to clasp it anywhere, impossible with the old Jen's Pind. |
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| So, we made a chunk of Magician's Chain out of the 3/16" rings I had, it didn't 'flow' as smooth as I'd like, which I figured might have been due to the matte nature of titanium, so I got some tumbling media, tossed that chunk of finished weave and most of my remaining loose rings into a bottle and began to shake it on and off for an afternoon. After that, the chain flowed well, but creating new chain with the tumbled rings had the same unflowy problem (I suspect the burrs at the ring openings remained on the loose rings), so we made the whole shebang of about 3 feet of chain, hurled that back into tumbling container, and this time invented a doohickey to tumble the rings with our desk fan. And left that for like... 2 days, smoother, shinier, and looser is better in this case, you just have at it for the rest of the weekend, this is like the last step anyway.
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| Soon finished, as soon as I've decided that baby has tumbled long enough.
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