[Jewelry making - Article 00245] - Re: [Orchid] Byzantine chain patterns

[James Miller]

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Hello Helen,

    Regarding hand made chains. I have made hundreds in my early years, I
    started my work life in the trade making regalia, which of course
    included many chain sections for Mayoral regalia. One of the longest
    chains I made was for the "Doorkeeper's Regalia" of the Houses of
    parliament, these silver chains are each about 60 inches long with
    oval links. The links were turned onto an oval spit, for oval link
    chains the method is to file a brass oval spit, about four inches
    long, or if making small link chains, oval nails from B&Q make
    perfect spits.Then I would wind a layer of wet tissue paper around
    the spit, like a bandage, on top of this paper I would wind the
    annealed silver wire making about 5O links. The links are tight on
    the spit so you then heat the whole lot, burning off the paper,
    which loosens the length of links and they slide off the spit. After
    turning the required amount of links you are left with lengths that
    need cutting.After annealing each length, I used a piercing saw to
    cut off each link. Then I would close 50% of the links and solder
    them with hard solder, the next step was to join two soldered links
    into a length of three and solder the centre joining link, then you
    had to join two lengths of three into lengths of seven and so on
    until you reach the required length. I hope this makes sense, as
    this is how we made chains back in the 1960s. When you mentioned a
    squaring off of the links, this is usually a machine made chain
    which has been cut. It is sold as diamond cut trace chain by my
    suppliers "Cookson" In my apprentice days I did try pulling a chain
    through a drawplate, which was a disaster as unless every link is
    perfectly soldered and perfectly annealed, the chain will either
    break or stretch unevenly. I hope this all makes sense. 

Regards James Miller
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