Chain of fools, metal smithing part 3

This week in jewelry class, we learned how to make jump rings and turn them into chains.  I won’t say how cool I thought that was, because you might think I am a nerd. 
Here is how it works. 

You take a dowel that is the size of the ring you need for your chain links and wrap wire around it until you have approximately as many loops as you need jump rings. 

  

This turns into a big metal spring. You slide it off the dowel, and saw the rings off the coil one by one. If you are lucky, you will manage it without sawing into your fingers.  If you are very lucky, they fall into a catch drawer. Often, they fall on the floor and you crawl around looking for them:

 

Once you have a pile of rings, you start connecting them together and then close all the loops with flat nosed pliers:

     

Then you make a clasp and you end up with a wearable chain!

  

It’s sort of like magic, only with saws, pliers, files and hammers instead of wands and incantations. 

I also learned that the nickname for the Byzantine chain pattern is Idiot’s Delight. I believe it is called that because you’d have to be an idiot to try to make that many jump rings in one night.  Or because attempting it results in idiocy. 

Or both. 

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