A daily updated blog typed by someone with painty hands, oil under his fingernails and the smell of solder in his nostrils who likes making all sort of models and miniatures. And fixing things.
Friday, April 18, 2014
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.
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