Guide to Chain Links for Gold or Silver Jewelry

Faced with all the existing link models for making chains, used for bracelets, necklaces and anklets, it is normal to feel disoriented when researching a purchase on the internet.

To help you orient yourself, we offer you this guide which brings together all the link models used to make our bracelets, chains and necklaces.

You can also discover our link chain collection here.

Example of a large link chain which is a personalized jewel, the details of its manufacturing are visible here

In the next menu you can click on the model you are interested in to go to the relevant chapter, or consult our summary poster at the end of the article.

1 English shirt

This jewel stitch is directly inspired by the rendering of the English stitch used in knitting.

2 Maille Forçat

The convict’s link is a classic inspired by prisoner chains, the corners of its links can be round or square.

3 Navy shirt

As the name suggests, this type of net is inspired by the design of boat anchor chains. It can vary being round or flattened

4 Maile Jasero

This type of chain is made up of alternating round links and smaller oval links.

Here is an example of a gold roll chain

Example of a belcher chain from our chain collection

5 Venetian Jersey

Venetian mesh is generally used for fine chains. It is an alternation of cubic, small meshes nested inside larger ones. They come in the form of straight chains. When made of gold, Venetian chains can be as small as 0.5mm in diameter, like the ones you can see here.

Example of a machine-made Venetian link bracelet:

Here is another example of a Venetian link with a bracelet made by hand and not by machine, the links are 10 x 6 millimeters with a lobster clasp.

Venetian chain bracelet from our collection

6 Snake Shirt

Snake mesh strongly resembles the coils of a snake, hence its name. A snake chain can be flat or round.

7 stitches on the palm

A palm tree chain is obtained by 3D intertwining multiple gold or silver threads. This type of gold chain is very expensive as it requires a large amount of metal to make it.

During its manufacture, each stitch passes through the penultimate stitch, giving it this very particular design.

Below we can observe the detail of a chain of palm trees, and here a silver palm mesh bracelet.

8 Horse point

Horse link chains have simple, elongated and flattened links. They have a similar design to Figaro stitches.

They can also be alternated, having a long link alternating with a long link.

See how an 18k gold horse link chain is handcrafted

9 Coffee bean mesh

Each of the dots represents a coffee bean. These stitches are generally quite bulky. So, starting from a certain size, they are blank, to lighten the jewelry store and also the budget. This affects both gold and silver.

Here is an example of a chain bracelet with coffee beans, of which you can discover the manufacturing stages through this article here.

Coffee bean mesh bracelet from our chain collection

10 Figaro shirts

The Figaro stitch is very similar to the horse stitch with an alternation of 3 small stitches between each large stitch.

11 Cable stitch

A cable chain can be flat or round. The shirts are then made differently. The flat mesh is made by intertwining very thin metal strips; while the round chain is the result of interlocking rings one inside the other, at an angle, giving the effect of rotation of the chain. When the cable stitch is round, it is called rope stitch (see below)

12 American jersey

13 Mirror network

Also called flat knit.

Mirror link necklaces are flat, wide chains with very fine, polished links to give a mirror finish to the silver or gold that makes up the jewelry.

Example of a flat silver necklace:

14 Mesh rope

Rope work gives a 3D effect similar to a braided chain but is made differently. In this photo you can clearly see the small rings that make up the chain.

15 Bean Point

The shape of the shirt is the origin of its name. It is a rather thick flat chain, relatively heavy and therefore expensive when made of gold.

16 Curb mesh

The curb link chain consists of single, slightly flattened links. This type of airy link allows you to make fairly wide gold chains with a reasonable weight and therefore a reasonable price. That’s why it’s a common pattern.

A variant of this type of chain is the double or triple chain, as demonstrated by this bracelet made up of 3 rows of curb chain.

The manufacturing details of this bracelet can be seen here

17 Polish shirt

The Polish stitch is the result of wrapping a thread around an axis. This thread is oriented first to the right then to the left to give this regular alternation that we observe in the following photo. This wrapping around an axis is why Polish link chains are quite thick and therefore heavy. Therefore, if they are made of gold, they are quite expensive.

Another variant of the Polish mesh is the Milanese mesh, with the winding of the threads all oriented in the same direction, photo of a Milanese mesh bracelet from our collection visible here.

This type of bracelet is much more common than Polish link bracelets.

You can discover the creation of a gold Milanese mesh watch bracelet in our workshop via this article.

18 mesh grain of rice

Small grains of gold are connected to each other by an invisible axis. There are many variations of this knit by varying the size of the beads and their number on a row.

Here is an example of making a rice grain chain bracelet in our workshop:

Check out our collection of channels here

19 Royal Jersey or Byzantine Jersey

Also called Peruvian shirt.

This type of chain is made up of links nested two by two. The complexity of the final design contrasts with the simplicity of the rings used to create it. We invite you to watch this video which shows how this type of chain is made manually.

Here is an example of a real link necklace that we had the opportunity to make (see the report here):

20 Production of chains by machines

Finally, we invite you to discover this video that shows how commercial gold chains are industrially produced. If all machines are content to reproduce what goldsmiths have done manually for centuries, they nevertheless allow the costs of commercial gold chains to be reduced. The video shows how the links of the Veneziana, Figaro, etc. chains are made.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-9VshHnuVNo

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