Polycarbonate - Tumblr Posts

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I'm excited about these clear polycarbonate scales that the chainmail supply company I get materials from just started making. Here's a bracelet that I put together as a first test of the material.

For quite some time I'd wanted to laser-cut acrylic scales, but was kind of hesitant, because acrylic tends to be more brittle than I would necessarily trust for this sort of thing. But polycarbonate is more durable. (Or, more precisely, I don't know the relative hardnesses of the materials, but when abused, polycarbonate will deform and bend where acrylic will chip and crack. So things made of polycarbonate tend to last longer.)

The clear does give an interesting effect. It'll catch the eye with reflections, but from other angles it can be hard to see the scales at all. The transparency lets you see through to the network of rings that holds the scales together, but where multiple scales overlap it obscures it enough to make it difficult for the eye to make out what is underneath.

A number of my friends have said that they prefer the normal metal scales to these plastic ones. Which I can see. But I think it kind of misses the point. I think these are interesting enough that I'll definitely stock them and make pieces with them. I will also look into cutting my own acrylic scales, because these aren't being produced in different colors, nor are they available in the large size.

Oh, and for the curious, I posted this up for ordering through my Etsy page.

Here's a combination of wood and clear plastic scales. This particular one I think didn't work out super well. The first shot shows the plastic scales with nice reflections, which makes them look nice, but when you don't have the reflections it kind of looks like just two disconnected lines of wooden scales.

Also, I suspect nobody else would, but I can tell in this one that I slightly missed the right sizing of the holes for the wooden scales. They're a little too big I think, and the inner rings bump up against each other a bit where they link through the clear scales. Though if the holes are too big, that's confusing, because it seems to require a couple more wooden than normal scales to cover the same distance. So if the holes are too big, that seems backwards. Oh well, I'll make some variants with slightly different sizes and I'll figure it out.

This one I'm not putting up for sale right away actually (since I didn't think it worked very well). So instead this is the one that I'll be wearing around for a while and seeing how much abuse I can put it through before it breaks. So far it's holding up pretty well to blunt impacts and to forceful pulls.

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