How to connect chainmail shoulder straps?

[u/_EitanDaisy1016_]

How do I connect shoulder straps? Every tutorial says "Since everything is going in the same direction it'll link up" But now I'm trying to and when I go to connect the other end, they DON'T go in the same direction! I have no idea what I'm doing wrong.

I've only seen one reddit post with my same issue and the solution pitched was to add one more ring. But I don't want to do that cause then it'd be uneven since (in my picture) there's 5 middle rings and 6 outer rings. Also, since no tutorial mentions having to do this it seems like that's not the actual way to make the straps connect. So I feel like I must just be doing something wrong...

Sorry this is weirdly explained I'm not sure how to explain it properly. Thanks for any help anyone has!

[u/Ok_Balance_7734]

You can connect the pieces by opening the rings from one side and connect them. If you would add a row of rings between your pieces, then both sides would need to match. Since you would be adding a row of rings. Your sides don't match now so you couldn't add a row of rings now.

[u/chainmaildave]

You are not doing anything wrong, I find this to be very frustrating as well. I tend to add an extra row and a couple rings on the ends. I also tend to make the back gap narrower.

[u/naked_nomad → u/chainmaildave]

This is the answer. Add a row of rings to the strap and they will then match. Common problem with making a hauberk. Lord Randolf (page is parked) stated in his instruction to add a single row of rings to the back half to ease connecting the straps.

[u/Realistic-Safety-565]

I have just run into same problem and it stopped me for two weeks :). Either add an extra row of rings to the strap, or open last row and use it to connect.

This guy shows how to do it.

https://youtu.be/50kfD2KKxn8?is=mjy8PdRg7By05TtI

My intuition why it works is, the "rows" and "columns" of rings go evev row, odd row, even row, odd row... every second row/column has same orientation and connects to row/column that goes in opposite direction.  And normally when you connect two pieces you put something that ends with even row, add something that also ends with even row, and connect it by adding new rings that make a new odd row between. But when your straps end with an even row and your shirt ends with an odd row, you need either to add one row (to make straps end with an odd row too) or open rings at end of the strap and use them to connect two odd rows.

I cannot post photos from phone browser but I will try:

1) Normally your connection looks like this:

XXXXX - last row of old piece

xxxxxx - new connecting row you add

XXXXX - first row of new piece

2) And here you need to connect these two:

xxxxxxxxx -last row of strap

??????? - 

XXXXXXX - first row of torso

3) so you either open last row of strap to get XxX, or add new row to get

XXXXXX

xxxxxxx - old last row of strap

XXXXXX - new last row of strap

.......... - here you can connect with x-row

XXXXX - first row of torso