 | Home > Technical > How NOT to terminate a steel cable |
 
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| noworries4x4 Member Since: 24 Dec 2010 Location: Newton Abbot Devon Posts: 1195  
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The last one is how GENUINE warn cables are dispatched from the factory i have had mine remade, all bulldog grip terminations are illegal for lifting under loler but for recovery and towing another legislation grey area If everything is under control you are not going fast enough.
Every Day 16 MY Discovery 4 Commercial Workshop and Escort Vehicle Weekends 07MY L322 TDV8 Vogue SE Series 1 80" 3ltr 6cyl with overdrive No Worries 4X4 |
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15th Oct 2011 9:17pm |
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| ken Member Since: 18 Aug 2009 Location: Banging Birds with my bitches !! Posts: 4328 
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First thing I did with the steel cable that came with the ti was skip it
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15th Oct 2011 9:23pm |
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| leeds Member Since: 28 Dec 2009 Location: West Yorkshire Posts: 8578
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Noworries SOME Warn winches come like that, others are CORRECTLY terminated with a thimble and mechanical splice.
I once asked a Warn rep why some were correctly terminated and some not, he did not know! The only reason I can think of is the bean counters have been trying to save a few cents. Many years ago I worked as a test engineer for CCL. CCL made ferrules, dyes, hydraulic crimping presses, rebar connectors, suspension bridge mounting plates for main cables. It was a big NO NO to make an eye in a wire cable WITHOUT supporting the eye with a thimble. Why is it such a big NO NO? On loading an unsupported eye then the wire cable will open up/birds nest. This causes the stress in the wire cables not to be evenly taken by ALL the individual strands. This means that some of the strands will fail early resulting in the cable failing BELOW its design strength. You can see the cable beginning open up on the photos I posted. The worrying thing is that I took those photos on official fire and rescue trucks. I believe that if you identify a possible problem you solve that problem before it actually bites you in the bum so to speak. If your winch rope is terminated like those in my photos my recommendation would be to get it terminated correctly ASAP Brendan |
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15th Oct 2011 10:08pm |
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| bm52 Member Since: 04 Apr 2010 Location: Kent Posts: 2189 
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can you educate me with a pic of a correctly finished steel cable for a winch.
thanks BM52 |
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15th Oct 2011 10:17pm |
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| leeds Member Since: 28 Dec 2009 Location: West Yorkshire Posts: 8578
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Hi bm52, sorry but I have not taken one of a correctly terminated winch cable.
However a quick google and I found this one. OK not of a winch but shows what a proper hard eye looks like. Am sure you can use your imagination now! 
In my opinion the correct way of terminating a winch cable is with a thimble in the eye. Brendan |
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15th Oct 2011 10:45pm |
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| bm52 Member Since: 04 Apr 2010 Location: Kent Posts: 2189
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now it becomes clear and makes sense. i see what you mean if the cable does'nt have an eye it will probably loosen the 'twist' and then start failing.
cheers for the lesson  BM52 |
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15th Oct 2011 11:21pm |
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| leeds Member Since: 28 Dec 2009 Location: West Yorkshire Posts: 8578
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Back in the olden days we used to make our own caving ladders and belays.
Yes it was quickly found out that 6/19 FC (fibre core) wire rope was not a brilliant idea as they could rust from the inside. Not really a good idea so 7/19 3mm (steel core) wire rope was used instead. C links for joining ladders and belays were made by hacksawing a cross through the weld in 5/16 welded chain. If it had been safe not to use a thimble to form a fixed loop we would have saved ourselves a few pennies. However our lives were worth more then a couple of pennies. Now can you imagine what H & S would make of it these days? Home made load bearing, life dependent equipment being made by uncertified (well be might have been certifiable!) personnel on uncertified equipment, without a SWL etc etc. luckily we had access to tensile test machines! Once tested some ankle harnesses for bungee jumping. The wooden 'ankles' we used failed at 1.8 tonnes with no sign of damage to the harness. I decided they were strong enough as 1.8 tonnes applied to your ankles would probably rip your hips apart. No H & S! Those were the days
Ooops sorry gone off on a tangent. Brendan |
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15th Oct 2011 11:41pm |
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| willy eckerslike Member Since: 15 Jun 2009 Location: North yorks Posts: 1789 
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We use hundreds of wire ropes daily that are not terminated with a thimble and are perfectly safe. the difference lies in the winch line on your winch if used in lifting would be rated at 1 ton safe working load, yet we regularly winch about 2 1/2 ton vehicles and generally abuse the wire in doing so, that is why as Brendan says we should take every effort to look after our wires / ropes and use hard eyes in terminations. A good thing to learn is how to yankee splice and use bulldogs, this is a safe and strong way to re-terminate a snapped wqire out in the field. The flat ferrule in the photos is typically American and can still be bought, though they aren't very reliable.
Todays job is to un-reeve our 10 line system from the Drilling block and re-reeve back to 12 lines, 1 3/4" rope 160' between blocks. We are shortly going to run a string of casing that weighs 1,000,000 lb hence the need for extra lines. Original Member Pie n Pea Club. 110 HCPU Tipper |
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16th Oct 2011 8:16am |
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| Paul_1978 Member Since: 08 Nov 2009 Location: South Yorkshire Posts: 384 
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We also have hundreds of wire ropes or strops with no thimble fitted.
These strops come in swl from 1T to 100T, if the strop is pulled like in a winch situation, the thimble would crush flat anyway. Only strops with thimbles are used on dogging hoists to detech lifting tongues from steel slab or blooms, and these use D links as attachments to the lifting equipment. I can appriciate the other examples you have shown being unsafe, but not the latter photo. |
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16th Oct 2011 9:02am |
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| Paul_1978 Member Since: 08 Nov 2009 Location: South Yorkshire Posts: 384
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In life line of fall arreset stiuations the structure you are being attached to must be rated to take a 1T shock load, thats the force which is applied to the system when an average human falls and is held via a harness. So 1.8T with no shock asorbance would probabally kill you, pleanty of shock asorbance in a bungee rope tho. |
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16th Oct 2011 9:05am |
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| party monkey Member Since: 31 Dec 2010 Location: Oxon. Posts: 1311 
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Slightly off the topic of winch lines but same question really with regard to tow ropes ....
Among the small collection of recovery ropes/straps that I have. I've got a tow rope which, from memory, is rated to about 8mt that was supplied with metal thimbles in the loops. I took them out as felt that in the event of a failure on the rope or some other element in the recovery , there was one less bit of metal potentially flying around.... Are they really necessary on a synthetic recovery rope ?...... Jon - 110 td5 [sold]. Currently Defenderless. |
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16th Oct 2011 9:08am |
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| leeds Member Since: 28 Dec 2009 Location: West Yorkshire Posts: 8578
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PM, answer is a sort of yes and a no.
The larger the diameter of a test bollard when testing a strap or rope the larger the apparent strength is! Obviously the physical properties have not changed it is just an artefact of test methods. Other things alter the apparent strength of materials, things like temperature, speed of testing, test 'vibration frequency' etc. In a 'leisure' recovery situation people often do not understand possible forces involved, a read of Billyvista recovery bible is worthwhile reading. Forces involved could well be twice weight of vehicle! The basic rule I work to is that any lump of metal involved should be firmly attached to a vehicle or fixed anchor. Reduce the potential of number of bits of metal flying when things go tits up! When joining straps or ropes together do NOT use shackles. Brendan |
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16th Oct 2011 9:31am |
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| willy eckerslike Member Since: 15 Jun 2009 Location: North yorks Posts: 1789
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You can also use a light piece of wood Original Member Pie n Pea Club. 110 HCPU Tipper |
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16th Oct 2011 9:56am |
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| leeds Member Since: 28 Dec 2009 Location: West Yorkshire Posts: 8578
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Called in at local winch shop yesterday. About 15-20 winches on display with steel wire ropes. All had thimbles in including Warn winches. Sales manager could not remember any steel wire without thimble/fixed loop in.
Our cheap electric hoist/winch (used for lifting roof tents up) also has a thimble/fixed eye in. Brendan |
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21st Oct 2011 11:26pm |
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