The Mad Strangler Rides Again, or How to attach a chain end to a rhinestone chain

Occasionally - we get asked - just what do you do with rhinestone chain - so that you can actually USE it! I mean - it's sparkly and all - but how do you attach it so something? After all - the bling don't mean a thing if it ain't got a ring - to hing it from. ;-) That's what these little doo-hickeys are for - rhinestone chain ends.

Alrighty - you say - but how do you attach them!


Picture the chain end with the loop as the mad strangler. He sneaks up behind the innocent and unsuspecting rhinestone chain - and grabs him with his short, stubby, metal arms.

In order to actually strangle the defenseless rhinestone chain, you have to help the mad strangler by taking a set of pliers with narrow tips and squeeeeezing those stubby arms shut around the rhinestone chain's neck. Sorry - that part I don't have a picture of. It's just too gruesome. And I don't have any more chain or ends here to re-enact the crime.

Now the two are forever locked together.



(This last photo is colour-enhanced for teaching purposes.)

The mad strangler - magenta with his efforts, lies wheezing, hanging onto the poor rhinestone chain by the neck. The rhinestone chain, now blue with hypoxia (lack of oxygen) dangles defenselessly from his clutches. They are forever locked together.

It is hard to see from this angle for the forensic jewelry scientist, but the cross-shaped arms of the chain end are now folded toward the centre of the first metal shank of the chain, over the metal bar - holding them together in a death grip. (At red arrows.)

The problem in doing this, of course, is that the rhinestones links do move about - so sneaking up on the chain can be tricky.

If all else fails and you are out of rhinestone chain ends, you could always do a wrapped loop and then twist the wire around the chain - in the same place that you attach the chain end, and attach a loop that way.