Forçat chain in 18-karat gold
Forçat chain maille weaves are a classic of jewelry, often worn by men in general, giving a masculine style to 18-karat gold necklace even when they are fine.
They are in great demand for making gold necklaces and bracelets. Although of classic design, we can easily customize them by choosing the size of the links and the length of the chain, in order to adapt them to each one.
This type of chain is relatively easy to manufacture, given the simplicity of the shapes of the convict link.
However, the work of manual manufacturing of a chain will always be laborious, since it is necessary to make the links one by one, to assemble them, to weld them, to polish them ...
Hand-made forçat chain made of 18-karat yellow gold, via our online creation service
And of course mechanization now offers the possibility of manufacturing these chains at a much lower cost than manual manufacturing.
Fortunately, manual manufacturing still offers some advantages, namely :
- a mechanical strength of the links and the upper chain
- the possibility to manufacture custom chains according to the desired size, chains made by machines having standard dimensions (small) and not customizable.
The previous photo shows the oval shape of the links of the chain.
These chains differ from the marine chain by its pattern which is less rectangular and more oval, as seen here.
Comparative of a forçat chain with a marine chain
Here are some other examples of men's 18k gold bracelets :
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How are they made ?
Work begins with the production of a 18-karat yellow gold wire with the right diameter.
Such a yarn is obtained by rolling a small gold bar into a thin, square yarn. Its shape is due to the shape of the rollers of the mill, because it is not known how to roll a round wire.
Our gold wire being rolled
This thread is then passed through a die to give it its round shape and the right diameter.
We can see the wire coming out of the die
We thus obtain a small coil of gold wire to the desired diameter that we will be able to transform into a chain.
Our gold bar became a thin wire with the right diameter to make the links of our chain
The wire is then surrounded around a mandrel which has the desired shape.
The links sizes are adjusted with paper wrapped around the mandrel when the dimensions of the links are close to those of the mandrel.
In some cases, we are obliged to manufacture the customized chuck adapted to our needs for the manufacture of the chain maille.
We see in the photo our yellow gold wire wrapped on paper surrounding the metal mandrel, manufactured for our needs
The spiral of gold wire is then cut in the longitudinal direction and we recover the links of our chain.
Gold links with spiral of gold thread made on our mandrel
The links are then assembled and welded, each weld being tested to judge its strength.
If the weld breaks, we must start again, otherwise it will be resistant to traction.
Each link thus tested thus makes it possible to maximize the resistance of the chain in the end.
The assembled chain before making the T-clasp
The clasp of the collar is of type T-clasp : the male part in the shape of T passes through a circle smaller than the bar of T.
An 18-karat yellow gold wire with the right diameter allows us to cut and shape the elements of the clasp
The ring and the bar of our clasp during manufacture
The latter is then assembled on our chain by soldering.
Forçat chain before finishing polishing
Once the chain polished, we can admire the final result :
Zoom on the chain showing the T-clasp of the gold necklace
For further :