Necklace Repair

Necklace

My wife brings me this necklace, telling me that the chain is screwed up. I look at it but I can't find anything wrong, so she explains that the pendant is supposed to slide on the chain, but somehow it has gotten hooked onto one particular link and doesn't slide anymore. So I look a little closer.

The ring that connects the pendant to the chain  (shown edge on in the above picture) is not solid, there is a tiny break in it that is held closed only by the strength of the ring. This break has widened just enough to let one side of one of the flat links slide through, which has effectively trapped the ring on that link. The cure is to slide that one side of the link back through the gap and then squeeze the ring a bit to close the gap. However, slide the other side of the link through the gap and it will come completely off the chain. A little topological puzzle that had me scratching my head for a couple of minutes. Of course, it didn't help that everything involved is so frigging tiny and my eyes aren't as good as they used to be. I need some magnifying lenses if I am going to do any more of this kind of work.

The three colors of stones in the picture were a complete surprise. In real life they are all the same color as the center stone. I suppose the having the flash go off right three inches in front of it might be the reason for the colors showing differently. It's only costume jewelry. If was made of real gemstones the ring would have been solid and there would not have been a problem.