From: muratlanne@gmail.com   
      
   "Bob La Londe"  wrote in message news:10hf6vf$2eqsr$1@dont-email.me...   
      
   Its pretty easy to make a short very light duty chain with an   
   appropriate bender.  I have a few.  Purchased and shop made.  Its   
   adequate for decorative work, or even something like a light fixture,   
   but I'd like to be able to weld the links.  I've seen a process (don't   
   recall where) that looks like they get the ends hot and stick them   
   together, but the logistics don't make sense to me.  Electricity don't   
   flow the right way for that to happen in my mind.   
   Bob La Londe   
   CNC Molds N Stuff   
   -----------------------------------------   
      
   I mostly use chain for fairly short logging slings and buy everything that   
   will be heavily loaded in tension. Dealers in logging and rigging equipment   
   have a much better and wider selection of chain sizes and strengths and   
   connecting fittings than hardware stores. Sellers Crane Service in Yuma may   
   know a local source.   
      
   Grades up through 70 may be carbon steel which can snap without warning when   
   overloaded, the higher grades rated for overhead lifting are alloy steel   
   that deforms and stretches first.   
      
   A county fair blacksmith showed me how to forge weld traditional chain for   
   ox pulls, quite quickly. The 3/8" rod is bent hot into a U on a simple jig,   
   cut or sheared from the rod and then the ends tapered to up and down wedge   
   shapes with convex contact surfaces from a skilled hammer twist, and bent   
   inward to a V, overlapping and nearly touching.   
      
   When fluxed with borax and heated white hot the ends are hammered together   
   to join the link and quickly rounded on the anvil horn. As the convex   
   surfaces are forced together they hopefully squeeze the flux out as the weld   
   contact area expands without trapping any.   
      
   Since he was making only one link there was a delay while reheating, several   
   could be waiting in the fire to speed the process.   
      
   The jig which fit onto the anvil face was a flat with the U in the middle   
   and one raised side to restrain the end while hot bending the rod around the   
   U.   
      
   He had customized tongs for the task. I think standard farrier (horse   
   shoeing) tongs with two spoon-shaped jaws spaced apart by the thickness of   
   the blank would do. The spoon edges give width to firmly grasp curved shapes   
   held at angles like horse shoes, or chain links.   
      
   I made long sidewall links for custom snow/mud chains for my tractor by   
   overlapping and welding the joints. T'weren't purty but the mud didn't mind.   
      
   Way down on my to-do list is a set of grooved spotwelding tips to weld   
   chainmail links.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)