How Cuban Link Chains Are Made

The chain you wear starts as casting grain or a bar. The gold is melted with the alloy metals that set the karat. For 10K, that mix is 41.7 percent gold. For 14K it is 58.3 percent, and for 18K it is 75 percent. The alloy is not filler in the shady sense. It is what keeps the chain from bending shut the first month you wear it. Pure gold is too soft for this job.

The molten metal is poured and then squeezed. It goes through rollers until it is a rod, then through a drawplate, or a drawing machine, until it is wire of a set diameter. That diameter is one of the quiet decisions. A thicker wire makes a heavier link. A thinner wire makes the light chain people later call "a 5 mm" when they only measured the outside.

Every Cuban we list is made in 10K. We are not going to describe a 14K melt we do not sell. If you want a different karat, that is a custom Cuban: a design and an exact price first, and nothing is made until you agree. The percentages themselves are in the gold karat guide.

The wire is wound around a mandrel, which is a steel rod shaped to the oval the link should be. The coil is cut along its length. Each loop is now a single open link, like a tiny oval jump ring with a gap.

Those open links are woven through each other. This is the step that decides whether the chain will look like a Cuban or like a loose curb. The links have to be the same size, and they have to sit in the same direction. One oversized link shows up forever, because the eye reads the rhythm of a Cuban the way it reads a brick wall. A single long brick ruins it.

Wikipedia's production summary matches this order: melt, roll, draw into wire, coil on a rod, cut, align, then solder. The twist that makes a curb lie flat happens as the links are set. Each link is rotated so its face, not its edge, points outward. Skip the twist and you have a cable of ovals. Do the twist and press the row tight, and you have the Cuban silhouette.

An open link is not a finished link. The gap is soldered shut so the chain cannot pull apart when someone leans on it. Solder has to flow at a temperature that closes the seam without melting the link itself. Too little solder and the seam opens a year later. Too much and you see a blob that polish never quite hides. On a good Cuban the seam disappears into the polish.

After the links are closed, the chain is tightened and faced. Links are pressed or hammered so they sit in one plane, then the faces are ground and polished until the row looks like a single bright band. "Flat Miami Cuban" on our site is this idea taken further. The Flat Miami Cuban Chain 5mm at $1,880 is the pressed, lower profile. The Miami Cuban Chain 5mm at $4,260 keeps a rounder solid link. Same family, different amount of gold left in the link after the shaping.

Hollow chains take a different path to the same outline. The link is formed as a tube or a shell, so the outside millimeter can be large while the grams stay low. Our Hollow Cuban Chain 6mm is $2,090, within thirty dollars of the flat 5.8 mm. The shell is the reason. You can see the trade in solid vs hollow. A hollow link still gets soldered. Hollow does not mean "the links were never closed." It means the interior is empty, so a crush has nothing behind the wall.

Both methods are real, and both can be honest gold.

• Handmade: a goldsmith forms, weaves, and solders the links in small batches. It is slow. The payoff is control over a weird width, a specific length, or a clasp that has to match a heavy chain. It also costs more, because you are paying hours.
• Machine-made: a chain machine spits out a consistent curb, and a finisher presses, solders where the machine left gaps, and polishes. Consistency is the advantage. A 3.7 mm chain and the next 3.7 mm chain can match. That is what you want when a style is sold in 16, 18, 20, 22, and 24 inches at one price, which is how our flat Cubans are listed.

We are not going to claim which of our eight Cubans came off which bench. The product pages do not say, and a guessed "handmade" stamp would be a lie. What we can say is the result you can check: links the same size, seams you cannot snag with a fingernail, and a chain that lies flat on a table. If you need a width we do not list, the custom path is the handmade conversation, and it starts with a price, not with a promise about days.

Stones go on after the gold chain exists. You do not pave a link that has not been soldered and faced, because the setting would be ground off in the polish. On a diamond Cuban, small diamonds sit in the face of each link. The usual holds are pavé, where beads of gold grip the edge of each stone, or small prongs, or a channel along the face. The more stones, the more places a stone can loosen if the bead was thin.

We do not list a diamond Cuban. The eight chains are plain 10K gold, $495 to $4,870. Setting stones is a separate quote: how many, what size, lab-grown or natural, and the gold weight under them. The FTC requires the lab-grown disclosure. GIA's clarity notes matter here in a practical way. On melee this small, a VS grade is already cleaner than the eye can see across a room. Paying for VVS on a 1.5 mm stone in a chain is a choice, not a requirement. The diamond Cuban guide stays on that question.

The clasp is made or fitted at the end. A lobster clasp is a spring hook, common on chains and mentioned often in write-ups of this style. A box clasp sits flush with wide links and should carry a safety latch so the tongue cannot back out. Our listings do not name the clasp, so look at the one on the chain you are buying instead of assuming a house standard. The comparison is lobster vs box clasp.

Polish is the last loud step. A Cuban is judged by shoppers almost entirely on polish, which is why plated chains survive in photos. In the hand, polish cannot hide a light hollow chain, a seam that catches, or a clasp that is a cheaper metal than the links. The stamp, 10K or 417 on our pieces, should be on the clasp or an end link.

Then someone checks length with the clasp closed, checks that the links have not twisted during polish, and checks the color. Yellow, white, and rose are different alloys from the start of this process, not a coating added at the end. White gold is whitened by the alloy metals, and rhodium plating is a separate topic we will not hang on these listings, because the pages do not promise a rhodium coat.

You do not need to watch the drawplate. You need to know which steps got skipped, because skipped steps are how a cheap chain is cheap.

• Wire too thin for the millimeter claimed. The outside was stretched, not built. Weight gives it away. See the weight chart.
• Links not soldered, or soldered on every other link. The chain snags and opens. Run a finger down the back.
• Hollow sold as solid. Our hollow chains say so. A seller who will not write the word is skipping the only step you can check on paper.
• Stones set into a chain that was never meant to hold them. Beads of metal too thin, stones sitting proud, a clasp too small for the new weight.

The chains you can buy today without commissioning any of this are the eight in Cuban link chains. The buying guide puts them in order. Orders ship insured. If a manufacturing defect shows up, you have 7 days to report it. Sales are final. The bench is not a spectator sport, and we are not going to invent a day count for work we have not quoted. Call 954-504-5640 if you want a finished chain in your hand at 7900 NW 27th Ave, Unit 506, instead of a process story.