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Having injured the tendons in my hand and a resulting slow recovery this little job is now even more problematic than normal, surely there's a gap here for someone to engineer a tool for the job?
Old gear / brake cable wrapped around a couple of links, couple of cloths to save the fingers, a quick pull and 9 times out of 10 pain free.
The tenth one gets cut in half with the cable cutters.
Squeeze gently, push pins together
GT85 helps
Oh, & there is a tool
Cheers, I'll give that a go.
Found this thread but no real advice on the elusive 'knack'!
[url=http://] http://www.singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/splitting-sram-chains-and-powerlinks-enlighten-me-further-peeps [/url]
Try to pinch the plates together with your left hand - thumb and index [if you're RH]
that's finger ends squeezing, just the plates
With your RH push the adjacent link towards the one you're pinching
I find it helps to think about taking it off when you decide which way around to fit it. (no use now unless you have a time machine)but I find it easier to push away with the right thumb and pull towards with the left before sliding them towards each other.
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Before i got the specific tool, i just used a pair of groove lock pliers and press alternate corners of the powerlink, worked 100% of the time
What I find helps is not using such a rubbish product in the first place.
Try Connex powerlinks. Stupidly easy to get undone with just your fingers. Even with gloves on.
We've got the KMC one recommended above (just sold by Fat Spanner,and probably cheaper)in the workshop, well worth having.