I4-1 Dragonscale

Weave Background
I4-1 Dragonscale is a weave by Dr. T. It takes the basic structure of Interwoven 4-1 and shifts the interwoven sheet over by one row. The result is that the rows line up in such a way as to give the same 'scale' effect as Dragonscale. It's useful to have some familiarity with regular Interwoven 4-1 before trying I4-1 Dragonscale, since this one is trickier to make.

Aspect Ratio & Ring Sizes
I4-1 Dragonscale can be made with 16swg 5/16" rings. That's what I used for my test patch and it was quite loose; if anyone tries it with a tighter AR, let me know and I'll update it.

Metric sizes - approximately 1.6mm wire/8mm ID.

Tutorial Color Scheme
Steel rings are old rings, gold rings are being added in the current step. I refer to the rings that pass through the plane of the patch as 'interwoven rings;' the rings that produce the scale effect are 'scale rings.' I'm seriously going all out with the whole naming thing.

Step 1: Make a patch of E4-1 at least 7 rows wide and a wee bit longer than you want the final patch to be. Note that the patch has an odd shape; this is to make the final patch be even. The 'interwoven' rows will be the odd-numbered rows (counting from the top 1, 3, 5 and 7) and the 'scale' rows will be the even-numbered rows (2, 4 and 6).

Step 2: Attach 2 rings in I4-1 fashion. Pass one through the top row and the other through the third row.

Step 3: Attach a ring to the rings you added in Step 2, putting it between the first and second rings of the fourth row of the original E4-1 patch. Make sure it lays in the same orientation as the row directly below it. It may flop around until you add more rings to the row; this is ok as long as it's in the correct orientation when you finish the row.

Step 4: Add 2 more interwoven rings, keeping them to the outside of the first set of interwoven rings.

Step 5: Add a ring that connects all 4 interwoven rings. It should have the same slant as the rings directly beneath it.

Step 6: Repeat Steps 4 & 5 to the end of the row. The last pair of interwoven rings will only go through 1 E4-1 ring.

Step 7: Flip the patch over. You should see one row of interwoven rings sticking through the E4-1 patch. Since this row is already done, we only need to add one more row of interwoven rings. So, connect a ring to the edge ring of row 5.

Step 8: Continue adding interwoven and scale rings all the way across the row.

Step 9: Continue flipping over, adding interwoven and scale rings til you get to the end of the patch.