Poorboy chain breaker

Here is a simple tool to help you make and break the chain Rufus thought it up the other night while we were cleaning out his litter box of all things. Well sort of.

I'm using 1"x1" angle about 5" long for the tool

here is what we got to do measure out the pins on the chain and drill either 11/64" holes or 3/16" holes and deburr both side. You don't want to poke your fingers on sharp burrs. I layed the chain on the metal and eyeballed the spacing of the holes.

Center punching the marks

Holes drilled and deburring the holes on both sides

here the reason for the holes. Clamp the chain down with vice grips


you might have to play with the holes so your chain will fit flat on the iron as its the back up so you can drive out the pins. I'm pointing out the chain that is sitting flat and that is what you want.

I high lighted the part of the chain that we are going to take apart

I tried a finish nail to make a punch but its to soft. I resorted to a punch to drive out the pins make sure the punch is smaller than the pins in diameter. I recommend a small vice grip to hold your punch the vice grips can take a lot more beatings than your hands or fingers


I just drove the pin almost out and stopped

Here is the plate free and the chain will now come apart. Notice no black and blue fingernails. The vice grips sure come in handy to hold the chain but you can do it with out the vice grips. But the cussing will make the neighbors up set.

I'm puting the chain back together and using the ball peen hammer to put the pins in place. Notice one pin is still out a little to far and the pin I'm pointing to is drove in a little to far.


now I'm putting the link plate on and using a socket to tap the link plate over the pins. If you can use a small piece of tubing and not your socket. I'm lazy that is why I'm using the socket but I'm not hitting the socket hard enough to hurt it light taps is all it takes on the china made chain.

Now the chain is out of the holding tool or the vice grips are not being used here. Light taps with the ball peen hammer will get the pins where you want them. . Then I peen the pins very lightly on the angle iron tool but not with the pins over the holes. This is the poorboy way to work on your chain and you will not need to grind off the pins to do this. Using some yankee enginnering you can modify this to work just like a chain breaker by making a pin pushing tool to mount on the angle iron. But I'll leave that up to you unless you all want me to make one and show you all how to do it. The nice thing is if you make your own tools when it breaks you can repair it and you won't have to run to the store for a replacement. Thats it. Have fun let me know how this works for you.
Norman