I have a young co-worker who’s a bit of a geek. He got a light saber for Christmas, along with some kind of special gaming mouse, he carries a Star Wars key ring, and he went to see Eragon on the day it opened. He really does fit the whole stereotype.
He wants to make a mail shirt out of pop can rings (pop tops). Don’t worry, I’m not asking for that kind of help. I don’t want boxes of pop tops coming in from all over. He has friends helping him out with that part, and collection cans set up in the high school band room.
What I would like, though, is suggestions for putting them together without much expense or too much use of tools. I haven’t gotten the impression that he’s particularly handy that way. Computer stuff, yeah, but real tools, not so much. And he’s a poor high school kid who’s saving for college, so anything that costs too much is right out. He’s thinking about some kind of ribbon or thin drawstring type trim to fasten the rings together, but it’s going to take a lot of it. Even with his employee discount it’ll be a bit pricey. I thought about plain string that might be dyed or maybe dipped in ink or something like that, but it might be too thick, so too obtrusive.
I know that this smart, imaginative, creative group will be able to come up with something great, and I’ll pass the brilliance right along to him. (Was that enough sucking up? Will that get you to think about it? Please?)
How about filament (fishing line)? Cheap, tough, flexible (i.e., easy to work with), almost invisible and inexpensive.
Oh, yeah… ‘cheap’ and ‘inexpensive’ are pretty much the same thing so I guess you could omit one or the other from my post without doing too much damage. 
Chain mail is a lot of individual connections to make a flexible fabric out of inflexible pieces. There are no shortcuts. You might be able to use cheap materials, but it’s still gonna be a lot of work. I make silver chainmail, in smaller pieces–chokers, armbands, etc.–and you’re going to have to devote some hours to it.
Can you spraypaint a coarsely-knitted sweater silver? I have the impression that is done in the theatre to look okay from a distance, but it might not stand up to close inspection.
I have a chainmail shirt made of half-inch or three-quarter-inch keyrings. They’re probably pretty cheap in bulk.
You can buy cut rings, and they’re relatively cheap, but not super-cheap. Mr. Lissar made his own links when he was making chainmail, out of fencing wire. It was less expensive but a lot more strenuous.
Making chainmail isn’t difficult, and doesn’t require a lot of coordination or dexterity. It does take a lot of time. I’d think real chainmail would be better than pop tabs. They’d be scratchy as hell, and the bits would probably be constantly untying.
I know the theatrical shortcut to chain mail is industrial strength pot scubbers. They’re nothing more than interlocking iron rings, and they come in sheets.
If your friend has their heart set on pop-tops, I think the fishing line suggestion is probably the best.
If on the other hand, if he wants to make chain mail from scratch, I saw a guy making some at a ren fair.
He bought aluminum wire (for chain link fence installations) from the Home Depot. He wound it around a mandrel (a pipe of the correct diameter). He then cut the rings off the mandrel, and had a pile of rings. With pliers, he joined all the rings into chain mail.
Now because he was doing this in a production / ren fair environment, he had his mandrel set up with foot power to wind the wire. You could also do this by hand, or with an electric hand drill.
It would not take much $ to do this, but would take a commitment of time.
I recall some guy making mail out of pennies & dimes.
I have a friend who has made himself almost an entire suit of chainmail (hood, shirt, pants, arm-thingys, and I think he’s working on gloves) using the method Rick mentioned. Wire wound around a rod (my friend does his by hand) and then snipped into rings with wire cutters, then connected with pliers. Very time consuming, but looks very good if you can get the hang of it.
You might consider those small, thick dental rubber bands as the connective part. I got a small bracelet made from titanium rings and black dental bands that’s kinda neat and stretchy. You could certainly make some sexy chain mail tops with that!
Thanks for the ideas. I’ll pass them along. I don’t think the time that could be involved is a problem. In fact I’d guess he’s kind of looking forward to doing the thing from scratch. I really think the tight money is probably more of an issue. Anything that will look good without causing him to spend too much of the college fund will be a possibility.
He’s also talking about making a tux for prom, if this works out right. He’s a bit goofy, but a good kid.
Point him to American Science and Surplus. It might not have what he needs for his chain mail, but I’ll bet that he’ll be happy to browse the catalog.
I remember wanting to make a set of chain mail from pop tops…but that’s back when they actually did pop off.
Firemountain Gems sells a wide variety of craft wires and threads, many of them very strong, at wholesale prices and in quantity. For example, they have Kevlar thread by the 50-foot spool, as well as parachute cord, silk, and nylon. It couldn’t hurt to check them out - their pricing is very reasonable.