I need to put new cables on my scraper. What is the best way to attach the new cables to the old ones and pull the new ones through all the pulleys?
Yair . . . Don K. We used to unlay a few inches of each string, nest them and melt them together with the oxy. It doesn't take much, if you keep easing slack on the down side you can pull them through by hand or maybe carefully with a pickup. I always carried a full spool on the scraper and fed a few feet through every week. Cheers.
We would unravel about a foot from the end of each rope, cut off a couple of stands from each and then weave the two ends together in the form of a crude splice. Wrap the joint in electrical tape to stop any stray wires getting caught in the sheaves and to help protect your hands. Wear gloves!
Yeh, if there was a "hint" of flattening of the braids I would weld the new wire on and pull It through. Saved a lot of time and unnecessary work waiting for the cable to break. We totaled a scraper by not changing the cable soon enough and with a 26 yd scraper pulled by a DW 20 at about 40 mph when the hoist cable goes and the bowl drops it really stretched the neck of the scraper out to unusable condition. Would have paid to have changed that hoist cable much sooner. Some operators were always 2 blocking the cables which hastened the failure rate of the cable. Just my 2 cents worth. SeaBee Mal
To bad they didn't get a video to see the ride down the hill they were smoking down out of control to get that DW 20 to 40 MPH. They and mine still does only 24 MPH flat out. Cutting a few feet of cable off the winch drum and pulling it off the spool as said above to keep the wear spots moving will add a lot of life to the cable.
Thanks for the reply Old Iron!! Yeh, We were rolling down 10,000 ft of Runway we were building - - 4 DW 20 and 4 MRS 200 pulling 26 yd Pans. Thanks again for your post!!
Ive done this and its by far the easiest to pull through. Cut about a foot back on the inside strands and a foot back on the outside strands and weave them back together. Works like a chinese finger torture toy.
Everybody has given good solutions; we used to just put a good tack stick welding the two together, and the after the new cable was pulled through cut the joint and weld up the butt end to keep from unraveling. Don't weld much bigger that the circumference of the cable though or you will have a heck of a time getting through the swedge on the drum.
Thanks for all the good information. Will give it a try.
Yair . . . Of course "back in the day" we always had a hammer driven cable cutter in the toolbox to keep the ends of cables neat . . . wrap them in insulation and cut right through the tape. Cheers.
I actually have one.
Yair . . . . Don k. Good one! They do a far better cut than bruising it off across a grouser or the draw bar. Cheers.
I have a few also. In different sizes.
We used to just butt weld the joint with a cutting torch and a cable strand for rod. Try to keep the weld about the same diameter as the cable as mentioned above.
Got one of them changed today. Squared up ends of old and new and welded together with the arc welder. Hooked on to the old one with the kubota and pulled the new one through. Work on the other cable tomorrow. Hope it goes as well as this one.
Brings back a bad memory Scrub. Many years ago I was threading a new cable on a Cleveland 300 trencher. I had the cable cutter on the track of the 300. I didn't have any safety glasses on when I was cutting the cable and hit the peg with a sledge hammer. A chip flew off of it and and completely punctured my left eye. The fluid in my eye ran out of it like a broken balloon full of water. The eye doctor told me later that if the puncture was 1 mm closer to the pupil I would have lost part or all of my vision in it. I guess I was sort of lucky because the eye healed up and now 45 years later I still have 20/20 vision in it.
Yair . . . Gotcha Tinkerer . I guess we have all taken risks, done things we shouldn't and mostly we survived. It's good you got a lucky break with your eye . . . I bet the bugger didn't half smart though, I'm a real wuss when it comes to foreign objects in eyes. I believe sledge hammers are not allowed on many sites these days . . . they were an essential part of the track repair kit back then. Bolt together masters were just out when I quit the game and started messing around with prawn trawlers and work boats. Cheers.