<>Pete Geurds" <raleighpro@dejazzd.com> Is inch pitch "skip link" chain the same as the roller chain you refer to? +++++++++++++ This question came up also on Wayne Bingham's DC area vintage ride this morning (cold, blustery, slight drizzle, and 6 brave folks; thanks, Wayne & MJ! The new place is great, even if half way to outer Mongolia and 90% of the way to West Virginia; take your choice).
1) I didn't recognize the term, "skip link." The way I have always heard it is "skip tooth," which is synonymous with "inch pitch."
2) If you take the chainwheel's perspective, you look like a regular, even-numbered, 1/2 chainring, but with half your teeth knocked out and the rest made thicker (usually 3/16" instead of 1/8"). Maybe more like a rip saw blade than a cross-cut saw blade.
3) Now, how do you build a chain that does this? Well, one way is with replacing the rollers and inner plates with a "block" of shaped steel, each end of which has a hole and a bushing. String those together and you have a block chain, which I would bet was the earlier variety. Later, when you learn to make rollers cheaply, you turn this sort of around, so you have two rollers separated by 3/8" inch and held in place by the inner plates, and these connect with outer plates. So, it looks like So, roller chain has double rollers, and block chain has no rollers, and it averages out....:-)
At least, that's my understanding, even if it doesn't answer the
question about "skip-link" chain.
harvey sachs
mcLean va.