Rock Island Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1893-1920, 1913-07-21
MAKING A CHAIN,
The Big Ones and the Heavy Ca
hles Are of Wrought Iron.

The great bulk of chains. including
all cable and mooring chains, are sold
by the pound. The price ranges from
3la to IL cents pound, according to
the size. material and quality.
All cables and other very heavy
chains are mnde of wrought iron. and
there are made wrought iron chains Of
all sizes down to and including chains
Of material a quarter of an inch in
diameter, but nowadays most Of the
chain used in comparatively smaller
sizes is made of soft steel. such chain
being made in sizes ranging by six
teenths from three-sixteenths of an
inch to an inch and quarter.
When the size of a chain is referred
to by those familiar with chains. it
always means not the link. but the
material used In It Thus a one inch
chain would be made Of one inch steel
or iron. The completed link would be
about FIVE or six times as long and
about three and a half times as wide
across as the thickness of the material
of which 1t was made.
In other days all chains was hand
made. but the modern chain is of soft
steel and machine made. There is
taken long bar of STEEL which is bent
cold around a mandril that Is oval in
shape. The bar is thus bent into what
looks like spiral spring with its coils
not round. but oblong. This spiral is
cut up cold in a cutting machine. which
cuts 1t into as many parts as there are
coils, each Of these being the material
| for link. and at the same time the
machine spreads each of these sections
apart n little at the opening and cuts
on each of the two free ends a long
scarf or bevel and bends the ends over
within the opening
This bent piece of steel is now in
shape. roughly speaking. like a letter
q with rather long arms and with its
two ends bent over inward. 1t needs
only to have those scarved ends weld
ed together to make it n link of chain.
The chainmaker sits at a foot oper-
ated power hammer, with forge be-
side him, in which he heats the open
links.
He takes from the fire link suitably
heated and hooks it into the chain as
| far as completed and then pinches the
open ends of the new link together un-
der the hammer, and with three or
four quick blows he YIELDS the link to-
gether. When he takes a hot link
from the fire he puts cold one in. and
so he continues to work. 1t is alto.
gether a quick and more economical
process OF manufacture than hand
forging. but it has not vet been adapt
ed to chains of the larger sizes.
There are wrought iron chains OF
some sizes that are machine made. but
all wrought chains OF material above
an inch and a quarter in diameter are
hand forged
OF whatever size the big chain is t.
be the workmen cut up the iron bars
into straight lengths, each suitable t.
be made into a link. This length Of
iron is heated. one end at a time. anC
one after the other the ends are ham
mered down by hand on an anvil Il
shape the scarves or bevels TheI
this straight piece of heavy wrough
iron with scarved ends is swaged int,
link form. and If it is to be a stud o.
bar chain there is placed within tn,
link before it is welded together tn,
stud or bar. This is stout little ba
Of cast iron. with its ends rounded In
concaved TO ft the rounding surfac,
of the link iron. the stud being placed
across the link inside OF ii and mid
way of its length
l Once in place and the link pinchet