Chainmail jewelry designer Vanessa Walilko has made armor for Broadway, WWE's Cody Rhodes, and a very niche art-fair crowd. In this episode, she shares how one cold DM led to five WrestleManias, why tenacity — not patience — is the real skill behind the work, and what two decades of hand-linking rings has done to her wrists.

In this episode:

• How a college metal-smithing class became an 18-year chainmail career

• The cold DM that led to designing wrestling gear for Cody Rhodes

• Why she works in aluminum instead of steel

• The physical toll of building pieces by hand, ring by ring

• Her advice to her younger, burned-out self