Untangling a knotted chain, and other small repairs

Two things account for nearly every chain that stops being worn: a knot that seemed impossible, and a clasp that started opening on its own. Both are fixable at home in under ten minutes, and both get made permanent by the instinctive response, which is to pull.

The knot

A chain knot is not tight. It looks tight because the links are small, but there is almost always slack inside it — the links are simply interleaved rather than compressed. Pulling removes that slack and turns a loose tangle into an actual knot, which is the point at which it becomes unfixable.

1. 1Lay the chain flat on a hard, light-coloured surface. A dinner plate is ideal — the rim stops the chain sliding off and the pale surface makes the links visible.
2. 2Put one drop of baby oil, olive oil or even hand lotion on the knot. This is the step people skip and it does most of the work.
3. 3Take two straight pins, or two needles. Fingers are far too big for this.
4. 4Find the loosest loop at the edge of the knot and widen it with one pin while holding the chain steady with the other. Work from the outside in, one loop at a time.
5. 5When the knot loosens, do not pull the chain through — walk the loose end back out the way it went in.
6. 6Wash with warm water and a drop of dish soap to remove the oil, then dry completely.

The clasp that opens on its own

A clasp does not fail suddenly. It gives at least a few weeks of warning, and the warning is that the chain has started turning so that the clasp sits at the front. That happens because the spring has weakened and the clasp is now the heaviest, loosest part of the loop.

A replacement lobster clasp costs almost nothing and a jeweller will fit one in a few minutes. It is the cheapest insurance in jewellery — the clasp is a small fraction of the value of the chain and one hundred per cent of the risk of losing it.

Closing an open jump ring

The small ring that connects a clasp or a pendant to a chain is the second most common failure. If it has opened, it can be closed properly, and there is a right way that most people get wrong.

• Use two pairs of small pliers, one on each side of the gap.
• Twist the ends past each other sideways, in opposite directions. Do not pull them apart and squeeze them back together — that flattens the ring and weakens it.
• Bring them back together the same way, until the ends meet with no gap you can catch a fingernail on.
• If the ring has already been opened and closed a few times, replace it. Metal fatigues, and a jump ring that has been worked twice will fail a third time.

What not to attempt yourself

1. 1Soldering a broken link. Heat changes the temper of the metal either side of the join and, on plated pieces, burns the finish off around it.
2. 2Resizing a ring. It needs cutting, adding or removing metal, and re-rounding on a mandrel. Every home attempt ends as an oval.
3. 3Re-setting a loose stone. Glue fails, and glue in a setting makes a proper repair much harder later.
4. 4Straightening a kinked box or snake chain. The plates are deformed. It cannot be undone and trying will break it.
5. 5Polishing anything plated. Polishing removes material, and on a plated piece the material is the plating.

For all of these, a competent local jeweller charges very little — most of these repairs are ten-minute jobs for someone with the right tools. The cost of a bad home attempt is usually the piece. A clasp that keeps failing is often a sign the chain was built down to a price.

Every chain broken at home was broken by someone pulling it. Nothing in jewellery is fixed by pulling.