answer:You could probably tie the two end balls together with some heavy duty thread. You might even be able to approximate the spacing between any two balls on the chain, too, so that it feeds through the mechanism properly. On the other hand… you’ll have to watch it pretty closely for wear, because if the thread breaks while the chain is in the mechanism (where it’s most likely to break anyway), then you probably won’t be able to re-feed a new chain very easily.