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I make my links from telephone cable - the kind used indoors to wire phone sockets. The cable is made-up of a number of pairs of single-stranded wires. The pairs are identified by bands of colour - e.g. an orange wire with white bands is paired with a white wire that has orange bands.
The wire core has a diameter of about 0.5 mm - and it's ideal for making links. Giving it a little stretch will straighten it - and make the insulation easy to slide off. When I make links for my breadboard - I leave the insulation on. And when I make stripboard links - I take the insulation off.
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You can form the links into the correct shape and size by bending the wire over the edge of a piece of stripboard. Count the number of tracks you want to span. Let's say that it's six. Subtract one - leaving five. Insert the wire into the stripboard - five holes from the edge of the board. Then bend it as shown - and you'll have a link that will span six tracks. I use a little "BluTack" to hold the link in place while I solder.
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The breadboard links are reusable. I store mine on a piece of stripboard. To hold them in place - I stuck a double-layer of "BluTack" to the underside of the board. And - to protect the base - I left the bottom sheet of backing-paper in place.
I made the even-spans blue - and the odd-spans white. The idea is to increase the size-difference between links of the same colour. I find the two-track gap is enough to help me recognise the various sizes. But you may prefer to use a more elaborate system of colour-coding.
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