On Tue, 17 Mar 2009 21:23:48 -0700, in rec.crafts.jewelry "FC..."
wrote:


I honestly have no idea if that would work or not, but I'm going to
uh, "go out on a limb here"... and say that Abrasha does NOT think it
will work !' Heh, heh...
Just curious but if you had the time (say a year or three) could it
physically be done ? Could one actually 'stretch' 14K that way even
if you did it piece by piece ? With the length needed, wouldn't that
chain become like 28 Gauge wire or something.... ?

/FC...

With a curb link, if you just pull it to stretch, it won't stay flat any more.
Additional twisting sort of fixes that, but the fit of the links together would
be wrong. And that's with just a small bit of stretch. You couldn't likely get
more than that before links would start breaking instead of stretching. Some
chains, usually things like square box or foxtail, etc, can even stand a bit of
rolling through a wire rolling mill or more, drawing down through a drawplate.
But the result doesn't end up limp and flexible and similar to the original. And
actually doubling the length, well, you'd destroy it. You might get a loop in
loop (sometimes called etruscan) type to draw down a bit more, but not double.
Some chains turn into visually interesting things when run through a flat
rolling mill. But don't expect that result to be a usable chain for a necklace.

However, with unlimited time, making the chain longer is easy. You melt it down
to a wire ingot, roll and draw it down to a smaller diameter wire than the
original chain, the needed guage determined mathematically by how much wire of a
given guage you need to make a desired length of whatever design of chain you
now proceed to make with your new wire. Curb link, or cable link style chains
are not actually that hard to make, especially heavier guage wire sizes. Now,
this didn't start out all that heavy, so it would be more practical to make a
simpler cable link (just the classic oval link chain style, rather than twisted
to flat like a curb link). Doing that, getting an 18 inch chain would be pretty
routine, other than the time needed to make it. You don't even need unlimited
time. Just enough to do the job. And then you end up with a new handmade chain
with your old gold.

Peter