# Ever seen This Before?



## bobgaggle (Oct 17, 2018)

I asked a union 'rigger' working an install to make a cable for me. This was the result.


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## Amiers (Oct 17, 2018)

He looks strong....


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## Van (Oct 17, 2018)

Ummm...no.


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## BillConnerFASTC (Oct 17, 2018)

Clancy use tp have a scrap book of those photos on line. Looks like the JR Wenger fols did away with that.


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## RonHebbard (Oct 17, 2018)

Amiers said:


> *He looks strong....*


 @Amiers Smell isn't everything. 
Toodleoo! 
Ron Hebbard


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## egilson1 (Oct 17, 2018)

Wow. Not only did he do 2 sleeves which is unnecessary, but he did both wrong. He used the space between sizes in a multi jawed tool to “crimp” the fitting. Oye!


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## Van (Oct 17, 2018)

BillConnerFASTC said:


> Clancy use tp have a scrap book of those photos on line. Looks like the JR Wenger fols did away with that.


This is definitely going up on the frig in the break-room.


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## BillConnerFASTC (Oct 17, 2018)

It would be interesting to see this pull tested.


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## josh88 (Oct 17, 2018)

BillConnerFASTC said:


> Clancy use tp have a scrap book of those photos on line. Looks like the JR Wenger fols did away with that.


Clancy still does it each week on their facebook page.


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## egilson1 (Oct 17, 2018)

@bobgaggle if you want to send that to me, I’ll put it on my distractive bench and destroy it and post the video of what happens.


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## gafftapegreenia (Oct 17, 2018)

Ive seen that a bunch of times, usually with aluminum sleeves.


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## What Rigger? (Oct 17, 2018)

I've seen this before. In China.


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## What Rigger? (Oct 17, 2018)

bobgaggle said:


> I asked a union 'rigger' working an install to make a cable for me. This was the result.
> View attachment 16925


Which means this isn't the first time this "rigger" has hung something over someone's head unsafely.

What was this particular one to be used for, Bob?


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## porkchop (Oct 17, 2018)

BillConnerFASTC said:


> Clancy use tp have a scrap book of those photos on line. Looks like the JR Wenger fols did away with that.


Still exists JR Clancy's Scary Rigging Photo of the Week.

This is definitely a candidate, much better than the one I added to their collection...


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## microstar (Oct 17, 2018)

At least he used a thimble instead of having just a loop of cable!


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## JChenault (Oct 18, 2018)

For the folks among us who have never made one of these, and would never attempt it given our current knowledge base

Can someone explain what’s wrong?

Thanks


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## bobgaggle (Oct 18, 2018)

microstar said:


> At least he used a thimble instead of having just a loop of cable!



I told him to use a thimble before I walked away...

What Rigger? said:


> What was this particular one to be used for, Bob?



This was going to dead hang a custom track/truss for some tracking hard flats... Not even a static load. smh


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## Colin (Oct 18, 2018)

My god did they use their teeth?


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## StradivariusBone (Oct 18, 2018)

JChenault said:


> For the folks among us who have never made one of these, and would never attempt it given our current knowledge base
> 
> Can someone explain what’s wrong?
> 
> Thanks



I'm by no means an expert, but nicopress has a lot of documentation on how to install these. The first thing I noticed was that there are two sleeves. For eye splices you should only ever need one. The other part (and I didn't actually notice this until someone commented on it looked like they used their teeth to crimp it) is that the sleeve does not appear to have been crimped correctly by a nicopress tool. It should look like it was squeezed on the outside all around it, but this one looks like he used some type of punch? I honestly have no idea what he did. Here's a decent video on installing these. 2 or 3 crimps is based on the product being used and the literature for these indicate how many crimps you need. 



Here's a good white paper on using these things in theatre- http://www.jrclancy.com/downloads/Nicopress1.pdf


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## Van (Oct 18, 2018)

StradivariusBone said:


> I'm by no means an expert, but nicopress has a lot of documentation on how to install these. The first thing I noticed was that there are two sleeves. For eye splices you should only ever need one. The other part (and I didn't actually notice this until someone commented on it looked like they used their teeth to crimp it) is that the sleeve does not appear to have been crimped correctly by a nicopress tool. It should look like it was squeezed on the outside all around it, but this one looks like he used some type of punch? I honestly have no idea what he did. Here's a decent video on installing these. 2 or 3 crimps is based on the product being used and the literature for these indicate how many crimps you need...



To me it appears as whomever made this put the center-line of the Nico sleeve in between two of the openings of the Nico press tool. Each opening is is for a separate size of sleeve; you don't crimp with the teeth.
For 1/4" cable three crimps per sleeve are required.
They should be crimped in sequence: top, middle bottom, or bottom , middle, top. 
Only one sleeve is required but two MAY be used if there is any question about the first. 
The tail sticking out the top of the sleeve should not be much longer than one diameter of the cable. 
AND, 
It may just be me but the thimble looks to be the wrong size. 

All that being said, I just cannot believe that unless you were installing in the middle of DumbF#*(-ville there is any way this was made by an actual Card Carrying Union Rigger. No Local is THAT stupid.


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## egilson1 (Oct 18, 2018)

JChenault said:


> For the folks among us who have never made one of these, and would never attempt it given our current knowledge base
> 
> Can someone explain what’s wrong?
> 
> Thanks



Now that I have a few more minutes of time I can go into some more detail.

things done wrong:
1) didn’t use the tool correctly to compress the fitting. As mentioned before it looks like the person didn’t compress the outside, or circumference of the fitting, but rather used the space between two openings of the jaws of the tool to “press” the fitting between the two parts of the wire rope.

The way a swage fitting works is by getting a certain amount of surface area of the fitting into contact with the wire rope at a certain pressure. This is achieved by using the correct size tool to compress the fitting to a pre-determined size, verified by using what is known as a go-nogo guage. This is why one manufacturer might say 4 compressions for a certain size fitting, and another might say 3. Let’s say tool 1 has a jaw .25” wide, tool 2 has a jaw .50” wide, and the fitting requires 1” of compressed surface area along the fitting. Tool 1 would require 4 compressions to get the required 1” of surface area needed, while tool 2 would only need 2 compressions.

2) Using 2 fittings for an eye. A properly used fitting to form an eye is 100% efficient, meaning that it does not reduce the strength of the wire rope at all. That means that a single fitting compressed properly on a wire rope to form an eye using a 5:1 df (the standard for slings, while for running rigging it’s 8:1) will only have a maximum of 20% of its capacity used. Adding a second fitting does not gain you any further capacity or security. Now the minutia. When you form an eye the wire rope is coming out of the fitting at a angle off the centerline of the fitting. This angle adds friction and thus increases the capacity of the fitting. On a lap splice the wire rope is coming out parallel to the centerline of the fitting and there is no inclrease in friction and hence no increase in capacity, which is why you use 2 fittings for a lap splice.

Now back to your regularly scheduled thread.

Regards,
Ethan


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## bobgaggle (Oct 18, 2018)

Correct, used the 'tooth' of the tool to pinch the middle of the sleeve. As a side note, we do a lot of cruise ship installs and I noticed the cables restraining the life boats had swaged eyes that looked a lot like this. And this was 3/4" GAC. I started asking the crew about it and all I got was "Thats how the shipyard does it". Soooo, do ship builders know something we don't?


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## RonHebbard (Oct 20, 2018)

egilson1 said:


> @bobgaggle If you want to send that to me, I’ll put it on my destructive bench, destroy it and post the video of what happens.


 *@bobgaggle @egilson1* I'd _*LOVE*_ to see this being pull-tested to destructive failure. *PLEASE* make it happen.
Toodleoo!
Ron Hebbard


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## bobgaggle (Oct 22, 2018)

@egilson1 its only got about 4" of cable beyond the last sleeve. You could replicate it though...

(I cut off the atrocity and redid the eye myself..)


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## RonHebbard (Oct 24, 2018)

RonHebbard said:


> *@bobgaggle @egilson1* I'd _*LOVE*_ to see this being pull-tested to destructive failure. *PLEASE* make it happen.
> Toodleoo!
> Ron Hebbard


 *@bobgaggle @egilson1* Regardless of the short length, are you still able to make this happen? *PLEASE!! *
Toodleoo! 
Ron Hebbard


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## Chase P. (Oct 26, 2018)

I've seen similar, when I asked an Ace hardware to make me a cable for locking my helmet to my motorcycle. Coating not stripped, wrong size sleeve, pointy tail bits sticking out, looked like it had been pressed with a hammer. Never asked them to do work for me again, and trashed the cable rather than rely on it for even locking purposes.

It's okay if you don't know how to do something. Ask, learn the right way to do it, and be a better stagehand for having learned. If you're lucky, your teacher will even tell you why it's the right way to do it, so you can extrapolate that knowledge into other situations.


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## What Rigger? (Oct 26, 2018)

Chase P. said:


> I've seen similar, when I asked an Ace hardware to make me a cable for locking my helmet to my motorcycle. Coating not stripped, wrong size sleeve, pointy tail bits sticking out, looked like it had been pressed with a hammer. Never asked them to do work for me again, and trashed the cable rather than rely on it for even locking purposes.
> 
> It's okay if you don't know how to do something. Ask, learn the right way to do it, and be a better stagehand for having learned. If you're lucky, your teacher will even tell you why it's the right way to do it, so you can extrapolate that knowledge into other situations.


There are guys like that easily found on YouTube that'll "teach" people all kinds of garbage techniques and application for pressing wire rope. Makes my teeth itch.


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