There are innumerable types of chain, and almost as many ways of sorting them into categories, by material, strength, shape, color, corrosion-resistance ability and so on .
The little difference I'll be handling here, is if the chain links are welded or not.
The point, at which this becomes interesting is where you would like to open a chain link, in order to make creative use of that.
Here you see two pictures of a chain, which has welded chain links, where i have
'opened' one of the links, by use of a hack saw.
The problem in doing it like this, is, that you'll not be able to close the
opened link again, in a manner that looks nice..
This, on the contrary, is a chain, which is 'only' made from bend sticks of
steel.
This has a great importance for the strength of the chain, as non-welded links
means, that the chain has far less ability to carry, before 'breaking', but
apart from that, it also offers some interesting opportunities, of which I'll
show you some.
But, first things first, how do I open a chain link, in a manner which will let me close it again, in a way that looks nice..?
The ultimate tool for opening a chain link is a lock ring pliers, as the one you
see me use here..
At these pictures, I'm only working with one single link of chain, but if you're
working on a single link, or the one at the end (or the middle) of a piece of
chain, is absolutely irrelevant.
The point remains, that you position the 'legs' of the pliers inside the chain
link, and apply some force. This will force the chain link to open, as the
pliers 'legs' are forced away from one another.
Now you can use the opening to remove the chain link, from the rest of the
chain, and/or use it, to put into something else, upon which you close the chain
link again, affixing it at the new position.
When you want to close the chain link once again, you put it between the jaws of
i.e. a good universal pliers, like the one I'm using here, and once again, you
apply gentle pressure, until the chain link 'returns' to the closed state. (This
requires a little practise, so do not use a piece of chain, where you will need
all of the chain links).
Now that we've opened and closed the chain link, the obvious question is "What's that good for?" and I'll show you a few options, and let your perverted mind work out the zillion of possibilities this will give you.
Here you have 3 suggestions. The chain link connecting the short chain to the
brass ring, has been in place for a loooong time, and is thus closed, but I've
left the chain link opened, in the pictures of the led-fishing-weight, and the
jinglebell.
The obvious point is, that now you can place them where you want them to be,
upon which you close the chain link, and bingo - the items are connected, in a
way that will force you to use tools, if they are supposed to go anyplace else!
The result might look like this:
Before the led-weight got attached -and after...
You can also use an adequate chain link to assemble other pieces of chain, even if they are of a different type...
-if you've got chain and time enough, you can actually build a complete body-harness, but unless you're used to working with tasks like this, you might get yourself into a case of tenosynovitis, which is absolutely unpleasant..!
-and now, that I mention the complete body-chain-harness, I get to remember,
that I had this one in my wardrobe, so here you get a picture of it...
PS: the harness is made before I found out about the trick of opening chain links, so it's assembled with small key rings...