Chain mail with shields

This design was inspired by the NASA shielded chainmail and the "makeanything" Youtube video describing several versions of chainmail. I wanted to see if the chainmail https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2611564 could be made into a shielded version.

It turned out the natural shield shape that fit on the links was a triangle in a certain orientation. The problem was that this triangle did not line up with the pads it needed to mount on. I ended up distorting the triangles to get them to line up and it came out with this interesting Escher-like pattern.

I wanted to make something useful out of this so I included the flexible coaster. The edges are closed so there are no dangling loops.

If you want to use the OpenSCAD program to make your own pattern... copy the SCAD file, shield_plate_dec.stl, and side_plate_dec.stl into a folder on your computer. You can make patterns with any number of links in several different shapes.

Be sure to print this with the shield surface down