Make vs. Buy Revisited

New Rings! Woo!

A short post before I get into the various weaves, I got my new rings in yesterday and I'm excited to get into the nitty gritty, but to tide you over while I get ready for my next long post, here's some more information about the make vs. buy argument.





In my first couple posts, I wrote briefly about the pros and cons of making rings as opposed to buying them. In that initial consideration, there are some important points which I failed to address.

First, let me flesh out the cost aspect of making rings. In my second post about rings I wrote that in the long run it is more cost-effective to make rings rather than buy them. In essence this is still true, but there is more to "the long run" than I may have made it out to seem.

This article gives a very detailed and concise explanation of the concept of opportunity cost as it relates to making chainmaille rings. Basically, in addition to the cost of constructing an apparatus to wind coils and buying the wire itself, one also has to incorporate the amount of time spent in making the rings themselves into cost calculations. In many cases, the loss in time will far exceed the cost savings of buying raw materials outright. Depending on how much your time is worth (how much you could be making at your job, for instance) the break-even point will vary. But one should expect to lose about $6.50-$8.00 per hour making rings instead of purchasing them. The article makes several assumptions and estimations in the speed of making the rings, and I feel that these estimates are very conservative. In reality, the loss in time is probably much greater than what he estimates.

The other argument for buying instead of purchasing relates to quality and consistency. When making your own rings, you have much more freedom in ring sizes, but you are at the mercy of the quality and material availability of your local suppliers. There are several materials which cannot be purchased locally, or become prohibitively expensive to purchase without going through a specialty store. The best example I can think of is titanium, which has several unique properties making it a fascinating addition to chainmaille, but it is difficult to procure, varies greatly from batch to batch, and is staggeringly expensive($100+ per pound).

Anodized titanium from The Ring Lord. So pretty, so expensive.

That said, there will be a point at which making your own rings will eventually be cost effective; and of course if you make chainmaille for a living then the time cost is simply incorporated into your pricing. If you plan to build armor, making rings is probably still your best bet unless you want to use unique materials, in which case you would not see any cost savings by making your own versus buying the rings online.

There are other considerations, of course, dependent on the individual chainmailler and what they make/why the make it. The mailler who is looking to historical accuracy will no doubt have strong opinions on where he/she gets his/her rings, just as a jeweler will be very concerned about the quality and rarity of materials.

In the end, the decision of make vs. buy is up to the individual, but from the cost standpoint it is not nearly so cut and dried as "making rings is cheaper". I still stand buy the statement that beginners should probably buy rings initially, if only to get a taste for mailling. In the future I may coil my own rings just to see what it's like, but I don't foresee giving up ordering online anytime soon.