Chain Manufacturing: From Anvil Links to ABB Robots

Chain manufacturing is an old metalworking trade that still involves heavy, hot and repetitive work. A chain looks like a simple part, yet a drive chain on a conveyor or a ship's anchor cable has to survive millions of load cycles. On 13 October 2026 a market report on drive chains tied expected growth to industrial automation, farm mechanization and power transmission. This post covers how chains were forged by hand, how the roller chain appeared in 1880, and where ABB robots could weld, handle and inspect chain today.

A coil of roller chain, the type Hans Renold patented in 1880. Photo: Knightrider1uk / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)

Hand-forged links and the first roller chain

For centuries a chain meant a smith, a fire and a hammer. Each link was heated, bent round, closed and welded by hand. The Black Country town of Cradley Heath became world famous for this hand-hammered work, much of it done by women in forges behind their homes. Wikipedia notes that chain and nail making grew into the town's two main industries after machine nail making began around 1830. Large chain for ship anchors came from factories, while smaller chain for farms and mines often came from the outworkers.

Hand chain making: a smith hammers hot metal at the anvil with sparks flying. Photo: Tony Hisgett / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.0)

The work was hard and badly paid. In 1910 about 1,000 women chain makers in Cradley Heath went on a ten week strike, organised by Mary Macarthur of the National Federation of Women Workers. They won the minimum rate set by the Chain Trade Board, which effectively doubled their wages, and the dispute ended on 22 October 1910. Machines were arriving in the same years. In 1903 Samuel Woodhouse and Sons at the Eagle Works became the first British maker of electrically welded chain. Even so, by 1934 the town had 68 chain works and chain shops.

Chain makers of Cradley Heath, from The White Slaves of England, 1896. Photo: Harold Piffard / Wikimedia Commons (public domain)

Power transmission needed a different chain. Leonardo da Vinci sketched a chain with rollers in the sixteenth century, and James Fussell patented a roller chain in 1800 while developing a balance lock. The design that lasted came from Hans Renold, who moved to Manchester in 1873, bought a small textile chain business in Salford in 1879 and patented the bush roller chain in 1880. Rollers replaced sliding wear with rolling contact, which cut wear on both chain and sprocket. Demand grew from 1885 as the safety bicycle spread.

Tools for jointing a Renold roller chain, from a 1912 engineering book. Illustration: Rankin Kennedy C.E. via Wikimedia Commons (public domain)

Chain plants, orders and robot cells

A modern roller chain is a stack of parts made in huge numbers: plates stamped with pitch holes, pins, bushes and rollers, pressed together and then heat treated. Wikipedia notes that heat treatment and pitch hole quality affect fatigue strength, and that some chains get internal lubricant applied by vacuum during riveting. Every step moves small steel parts between presses, furnaces, washers and assembly machines. The drive chain market report names industrial automation as a demand driver, and the plants that make chain are automating too.

Roller chains and a sprocket on show at a trade stand in Japan. Photo: Ohgud.kibn7ewyu2 / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)

Welded link chain is a separate product, used in marine, mining and lifting work. A link is formed from bar and then welded. Heat, flash, noise and weight make the job a good match for robots, and the repetition suits fixtures that hold each link the same way. One example of automation in the trade is a Renold plant in Melbourne, Australia, where a partner built a robotic machine tending cell so a machine that ran eight hours a day could run around the clock. That cell uses a FANUC robot, so it is not an ABB example, and the source gives no date.

Anchor chain running into the water from the ship Raincoast Maiden, 2011. Photo: Roy Luck / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.0)

Where do ABB robots fit? I found no source describing an ABB chain making project, so this is a possibility. ABB arc welding robots with positioners turn and weld heavy parts, and the same approach could close links or weld tabs and brackets onto attachment chain. The ABB GoFa CRB 15000 can load a press or a machine with chain parts in a small shop, while larger arms such as the IRB 6700 take heavier loads. Programs for cells like this are built and checked first in RobotStudio. Chain drives matter in other trades too, as our post on bicycle making shows.

An ABB arc welding robot with a positioner that turns heavy parts. Photo: Ana 2016 / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)

Where chain making goes from here

Inspection is a likely next place for automation. A chain that fails can drop a load or stop a line, so makers measure pitch, check welds and test proof loads. ABB's 3D Quality Inspection cell scans metal parts with a robot and compares them to a model, the kind of check a link or a roller could receive. Vision guided robots could also pick loose pins and rollers from bins and feed assembly machines. I found no chain maker reporting this exact use yet, so read it as a direction and not a result.

An ABB GoFa cobot loading parts into a machine at a small factory. Photo: ABB

Cost, variety and skills are the open problems. Chain makers build many sizes and pitches in short runs, so a robot cell has to change over quickly. Collaborative arms are easier to move between jobs, which is one reason small shops look at them. Safety is a second issue: hot links, swarf and heavy parts need guarding and clear rules for where people may stand. The skills gap comes third, because the people who understand chain wear and heat treatment must now also understand cells and programs.

ABB's 3D Quality Inspection (3DQI) cell scanning a metal part. Photo: ABB

At home, chain mostly means bicycles, garage doors and garden tools, and robots will reach those only through factories. The forges of Cradley Heath are now museum demonstrations, and the factories that replaced them run presses, furnaces and welders that robots can serve. The likely pattern is robot cells at the heavy, dull steps, with people checking quality, setting up and maintaining the lines. For more ways robots are used across industry, see our list of ABB robot use cases.

An ABB IRB 660 palletizing robot stacking boxed products at the end of a line. Photo: ABB

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