Public Masterclass: Curb Chain (Morning)

Dis­cov­er the repet­it­ive rhythm and sturdy beauty of curb chain mak­ing with jew­eller and chain spe­cial­ist Lucie Gled­hill.

In this mas­ter­class, you’ll explore how chain gains both strength and flex­ib­il­ity as it grows link by link. Begin­ning with a simple piece of cop­per wire, learn how to coil and cut your own links, join­ing them togeth­er using sil­ver solder. Through the meth­od­ic­al repe­ti­tion of clos­ing, sol­der­ing, form­ing and twist­ing, you’ll leave this mas­ter­class hav­ing built your own sec­tion of clas­sic curb chain. 

Lucie Gled­hill is a jew­eller whose prac­tice centres around chain mak­ing. After research­ing repe­ti­tion and med­it­at­ive mak­ing dur­ing her MA at the Roy­al Col­lege of Art, chain mak­ing became cent­ral to her work — with curb chain being the first pat­tern she fell in love with. Obsessed with chains tact­ile pro­cess and the con­cep­tu­al themes embed­ded in their forms, Lucie con­tin­ues to explore the mater­i­als nar­rat­ive and struc­tur­al pos­sib­il­it­ies through ongo­ing work with rope, spiga and trace chain. 

Image cour­tesy of Insti­tute of Making.

Import­ant inform­a­tion about our bal­lot sys­tem for this event:

We are using a ran­dom­ised bal­lot sys­tem for this event. 

Our bal­lot will go live on Monday 28^th Septem­ber at 05:00. To be in with a chance of join­ing us, select as many mas­ter­classes as you are inter­ested in attend­ing and sub­mit your entry before Sunday 11^th Octo­ber at 23:59. Please note: it makes no dif­fer­ence when you sub­mit your entry; enter­ing early does not increase your chances of secur­ing a space. All places will be offered at random.

If suc­cess­ful, you will be emailed a link to book a space on one mas­ter­class from Monday 12^th Octo­ber 2026. Suc­cess­ful applic­ants will have 24 hours to book their slot; how­ever, if you do not book with­in 24 hours, your place will be offered to someone else. Even if you have selec­ted mul­tiple mas­ter­classes on your sub­mis­sion, you will only be able to book one mas­ter­class. This mas­ter­class will be pre-chosen for you at ran­dom from your selection. 

If you are inter­ested in attend­ing our research talk and/​or Mater­i­als Lib­rary tour, this will not affect your chances of gain­ing a slot on a mas­ter­class, and will not count towards your one mas­ter­class booking. 

Once all tick­ets are fully booked by the bal­lot win­ners, we will noti­fy every­one who signed up and offer them the oppor­tun­ity to join our wait­ing list for last-minute dropouts.

This mas­ter­class is suit­able for ages 18+. 

Every­one at UCL is wel­come in our spaces. We strive to make all of our pro­cesses access­ible, includ­ing attend­ing our events and work­shops, and using our web­site and book­ing sys­tems. Please mes­sage us if you have any ques­tions or require­ments, or need assist­ance using our plat­forms. We’ll be happy to help.

We’re always inter­ested in feed­back to help us improve access to our activ­it­ies. Please con­tact events@​instituteofmaking.​org.​uk if you’d like to chat.