Making chain

I needed some chain for a garden railway project earlier this week and the stuff supplied with the kit was far too small.

"No problem", I thought, "I'll quickly make some up."

The technique is simple enough. Wind wire around something round to form a sort of spring. Then cut along the length so it falls apart into individual links. Using pliers, bend these and make them into a chains. If you need oval rather than round links. squeeze them as you link each one up.

My first attempt was with 0.9mm brass wire around a 2.5mm drill bit. This wire was a bit fat and the resulting links were tight when assembled. Bending the wire with pliers was harder than it ought to be too.

0.7mm worked a lot better. The links can flop around properly and manipulating them with 2 pairs of pliers wasn't too hard.

I still wasn't happy with the result and so resorted to some I had in stock. A fatter drill bit or even some Code 100 rail to wind the wire around would produce better links and if I used the rail, they would be the correct shape too.