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chain construction

Posted: 14 Aug 2019, 2:51pm
by mig
has it changed much in ,say, the last 50 years?

or is a chain a chain?

Re: chain construction

Posted: 14 Aug 2019, 3:48pm
by Brucey
three big and obvious things;

1) bushingless construction; first seen in the Sedisport chain I think. Every inch of chain has eight parts; two pins, two rollers and four side plates, instead of ten as in fully bushed chains.

2) better materials. Modern chains are made of stronger steel; they have to be, because the side plates are thinner and wouldn't be strong enough otherwise.

3) Pin swaging; narrow chains (7,8,9s) have swaged pins that don't come out as easily as in traditional 1/8" chains. But you can break and join them with a chain tool reasonably well. 10s and higher, plus some 9s chains are swaged differently; e.g. bullseye riveting. These chains can (only with difficulty) be broken using a chain tool but should be rejoined using a 'special pin' or a quicklink.

There are lots of other smaller changes but these are not obvious and vary from one maker to another.

cheers