HOW DO YOU GET KINKS OUT OF HERRINGBONE CHAINS?

Flat chains used to be all the rage.

Herringbone chains, which are flat wide chains, sold like hot cakes in the 80’s and 90’s.

People couldn’t get enough of them.

But herringbone chains had one HUGE defect…

They kinked easily.

And when I say kinked easily, I mean it. It didn’t take much to get those flat interlocking links to kink. Anytime you got the chain caught or pulled it would kink up. Anytime you slept with it on, it would bend or kink.

Why do herringbone’s kink?

The biggest reason why herringbone chains kinked is because people always hung charms or pendants on them.

And trust me…

You can’t do that!

Flat chains are meant to be worn by themselves so they can lay perfectly flat. They aren’t meant to hold charms, period.

So don’t even try it.

Charms and pendants have a bail on them that slides over round chains (My favorite chain for a pendant is the wheat chain). The charms twist and turn and if it’s on a flat chain, that spells trouble. Plus the weight of the charm would pull down in the center of the chain, causing a herringbone chain to stretch and twist and kink up. In other words, it ruins the chain.

And once it’s kinked…

Once you kink a herringbone chain, it’s pretty much toast. It’ll never be the same again.

Even if you work out the kink and get it flat again, the chain will always be weaker and more fragile in that spot. It’ll just keep kinking and bending and eventually break.

There’s no way around this…

You can have the kink cut out of the chain (if it’s kinked too much). But you’ll always see where they soldered the chain back together again. And then, once it’s soldered, it’ll be stiff in that soldered area which will cause the chain on either side of the solder to bend and kink as well.

It’s a no-win situation.

There’s not much you can do to save a herringbone chain once it’s kinked. Jewelers can do a nifty trick to get it flatter… laying the chain flat and rolling the kink out with a round object like a pen or a mandrel (like a rolling pin over dough). Rolling the chain out will help flatten the chain as much as possible, but it will always be weak in that area.

So wear it with caution:

I usually recommend 3 things to customers who have kinked herringbone chains:

1. Twist it carefully to work the kink out and just keep wearing it until it gets worse
2. Cut the chain up into a couple of bracelets from the good portions left
3. Scrap it and buy a rope chain or link chain that won’t kink

Bottom line:

Ditch the herringbone chains for good and buy a blinging pendant instead.

You can never go wrong with diamonds.

Cheers! :)