Repairing The Hollow Rope Chain
Repairing the hollow rope chain used to be one of the more difficult repair processes to cross my bench. Until I learned the trick of heat control on hollow objects.

The first thing I had to learn is hollow forms work like small radiators: they tend to radiate heat about as fast as you try to heat them. The trick is to heat a larger area with a softer flame, to slow down the cooling time in the area you want to solder. Think of the heating process as a soaking process. You want to soak the area to be soldered with heat until it allows the solder to flow. I have found the best technique is to hold the torch a few inches away from the area to be soldered, and move it in small circles around the joint.

As always, protect the chain from oxidation with a boric acid and alcohol solution. I prefer to use paste flux instead of liquid flux for rope chain to keep it from siphoning through extra links. It is best to apply the solder separately from the flux, because as the flux dries it will move the solder which may attach and flow where you don’t want it to. If you ball up your solder and place it with a pair of tweezers, you will have a greater amount of control.

After the flux has dried and melted, lay the solder in the joint and begin to heat the chain in a localized area. I have found it best to use a small neutral flame about 5mm long, and an on-off heating method. Put the flame on the chain for about a second, then off for a second, on for a second, off for a second. After the third or fourth time, the solder attaches to both surfaces of the joint; stop heating and remove the excess solder. Turn the chain over and repeat the same process on the other side.

A word of warning: The solder pick works as a heat sink when repairing hollow rope chains. This causes the chain to overheat, and when the solder pick is removed the solder flows farther than you intended.

After you have removed the excess solder and pickled the chain, polish the area either by hand, or with a flex-shaft and bristle brush. Be sure that the chain is tight against something that will keep it from being caught by the brush. For example, you can wrap the chain around a ring buff to keep it tight while you polish it.

When you remove the end links to fit the chain back together, be aware that most of the standard ways to cut a chain will collapse and distort a hollow rope. Here is an idea from one of our readers we all can use to prevent that problem.

By dressing down a separating disc using a large diamond drill, you can obtain a very sharp and very thin edge. With a precisely ground pair of tweezers I can hold and open the links of the finest chains.

I have tried this technique and it works well; however I do have some recommendations to help you to shape your separating discs without breaking them.

First, reduce the diameter of the disc to about a half inch or less. Next, thin only the depth you need to pass through the thickness of one link. If you try to reduce the thickness of the entire disc, you will break it almost every time.

Run the flex-shaft at a medium-fast speed, use very little side pressure, and try to thin the disc from one side only. If you want to produce a chisel point, dress it from both sides. Not only is this good for cutting fine chains, but it also works well in cleaning excess solder from tight corners.