How to Make Silver Chains for Jewelry
Chain making is one of the most fundamental parts of creating jewelry. Chains can be used in almost any jewelry type, including necklaces and bracelets, and they can serve to decorate rings, brooches and hair pieces. The actual process of creating chains is not difficult in terms of technique; in fact, the difficulty is instead often found in the complexity of the chain pattern. You can start with a simple beginner's chain.
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Things You'll Need
- Silver wire Wire clippers Needle-nose pliers Jewelry files and sandpaper Flux Ring mandrel Mallet Silver solder Fire bricks Soldering clamps Soldering torch Tongs Pickle pot Polishing cloth
Instructions
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1
Cut 12 pieces of silver wire 1 inch long, using the wire cutters. Try to make as even a cut as possible, and file the cut edges on each piece completely flat. Sand the filed edges smooth, then paint them with a tiny amount of flux.
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2
Curl each piece of silver wire into a loop, using the needle-nosed pliers, until the cut edges meet completely. Slip the loops one by one onto the ring mandrel and bang them into a perfect circular shape with the mallet, making sure that the edges still match up.
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3
Take one loop of silver wire and affix it to one of the soldering clamps, over the fire bricks. Cut a tiny piece of solder and stick it over the "seam" of the loop, so that some of the flux touches the solder. Heat up the torch to a low flame and apply the flame to the solder until it melts, flowing into the seam. Turn the torch off and remove the loop from the clamps using the tongs, not your fingers. Drop the loop into the pickle pot to cool.
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4
Remove the loop from the pickle pot, then file and sand off any excess solder until the seam disappears. Take one of the other loops, holding each side with a separate pair of pliers, and twist the ends apart just enough to slide this loop onto the finished loop. Make sure to twist sideways and not pull the loop apart, or you will not be able to keep the circular shape. Twist the ends back together. Repeat this step on another loop, so that your first loop has two other loops in it.
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5
Solder the seams of the second set of loops. You should now have a single loop with two loops inside. Attach one loop to each of these two loops in the same manner, so that you have five interconnecting loops. Attach another loop to each of the outside loops, and continue on until you have run out of free loops and have a chain of 12 interconnecting loops. Perform any last-minute sanding, and polish each of the loops with a polishing cloth.
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Tips & Warnings
You can make chains in almost any type of pattern, or even use loops that are not circular in shape, so long as they are identical.
