DIY Chain Link Fence

I was looking for some tools on the classifieds here and came across these home made machines for making chain link fence. One makes fence with 4cm (1.75") openings, the other 5cm (2"). If you're really pressed for cash, and really need chain link fencing for something making one of these machines could, I guess be useful, assuming you can buy galvanized wire for less than pre-made fence.

Wow that's cool! Never knew these existed. I figured it had always done by machine.

I suspect that at some point under communism here, chainlink fencing was hard to come by, but wire was plentiful. I don't know how it is with the younger generation here, but the older generation, at least in the countryside, seemed pretty resourceful. One of my cousin-in-laws is a woodworker-- half of his power tools he made himself.

I ran across this video today of someone making one of these things, only in TINY form. I'm not good at this kind of building, but maybe the video has enough info for someone to scale it up to make a normal-sized chainlink fence?

Note: Turn the closed-captioning on! Sadly the video doesn't have any vocal narration, but there are subtitles in the closed captioning.

Wow, this is such a useful post.  I recently discovered the artist John Ruppert and his large scale chain link fence sculptures.  

I keep thinking this artistic use of chain link fence could have many practical uses as well.  

If anyone has worked with chain link fencing, is it's nature to roll up in one direction but not in the opposite direction?  Is that how some of these sculptures stand on their own I wonder?  

(Google "John Ruppert chain link sculpture" to be inspired)

Lynne Cim wrote:

If anyone has worked with chain link fencing, is it's nature to roll up in one direction but not in the opposite direction?  Is that how some of these sculptures stand on their own I wonder?  

(Google "John Ruppert chain link sculpture" to be inspired)

Thanks for the recommendation. Very cool!
Chain link, by it's nature, flexes at each joint, so no, it has no urge to roll any one way.
Looking at the sculptures, they stand up because he has pulled the bottom part of each "link" (not sure of word for each zig zag wire) straighter, tightening the angle of the whole thing, then fastening it into a tube.  
I sew, and the words I'd use is he has curved it in by doing something like pleating the bottom to decrease the bottom width, only by straightening the "links."  

He does pretty work.

There are a selection of hand operated chain link machines on the web in www.newdawnengineering.com

Look are the half-pipe channel that accepts the piece being made and the pins that hold the previous one.

There are downloadable instructions and a section on costing.

There is a completely different method of hand making the same product I have seen in Africa. Essentially you wind a wire around a short flat plate with the width matching the diagonal of the diamond. Then the flat coil is pulled off and stretched to take the shape of a "piece". These are hand wound into the end of the roll being assembled.

If someone wants to manufacture the New Dawn Eng design, contact me.

Crispin Pemberton-Pigott

Amazing stuff on that New Dawn Engineering site, including the FSP paraffin stove designed by a certain C P-P. There’s much food for thought on that product list. An excellent resource, thanks for sharing it, Crispin.

Funny that this post is filed under "frugality."
If I had the money to buy all those machining tools, the materials to make a chain link maker and the spools of wire, then the free time to fabricate the machine, bend the wire and link it all together like that by hand, I could afford to buy premade chain link.