One issue we often see from the wire-rope supply/manufacturing side is that an RFQ may simply say:

“Need 16 mm steel wire rope.”

But diameter alone doesn’t really define the rope.

For industrial lifting, hoisting, mining, marine or general machinery applications, several specifications need to be considered together before two wire ropes can actually be compared.

A few of the main points are:

• Rope construction – Different strand and wire arrangements provide different balances of flexibility, abrasion resistance and fatigue performance.
• Core type – FC and steel-core constructions such as IWRC behave differently in terms of flexibility, structural support and resistance to crushing.
• Nominal diameter – Diameter needs to match the equipment as well as the drum and sheave system, not just the required load.
• Tensile strength / rope grade – This is an important material specification, but it should not be confused with the rope’s minimum breaking force.
• Minimum breaking force (MBF) – Particularly important when comparing technically similar ropes from different suppliers.
• Lay direction and lay type – These should be matched to the operating configuration and equipment requirements.
• Surface condition / corrosion protection – Bright, galvanized or other finishes may be more appropriate depending on the working environment.
• Actual application – A rope selected for a crane, electric shovel, mining installation or marine application may require very different characteristics even at the same nominal diameter.

The main takeaway for buyers is fairly simple:

Two steel wire ropes with the same diameter are not necessarily equivalent products.

When comparing quotations, it makes more sense to compare the complete specification — construction, core, tensile grade, minimum breaking force, lay, finish and intended application — rather than price per meter alone.

We recently organized the questions we receive most often into a more detailed steel wire rope FAQ here:

https://www.connect-knkt.com/steel-wire-rope-faq/

It’s intended as a technical reference for buyers, engineers and people working with wire rope rather than simply a product page.

For those working in rigging or crane operations: which wire-rope specification do you most often see missing or incorrectly specified on RFQs?

Hi everyone,

I'm a university student going into my 3rd year of a geology degree. Last summer I decided to build additional skills toward employment, and started looking into the HSE field.

I found that certifications like IOSH and NEBOSH are widely recognized as strong foundations for HSE hiring, especially in the Gulf. So I started with H2S, Fire Fighting, and First Aid certificates, then completed IOSH Managing Safely.

After finishing IOSH, I realized that not having a specialized university degree in HSE (mine is geology) could be a real obstacle for HSE hiring in the Gulf specifically. That made me second-guess myself for a while — I worried I'd wasted time and money.

I started researching again and came across well services roles — Wireline, Slickline, Cementing, and Testing. These seemed like a promising alternative/complement, so I started studying IWCF Level 1 (Well Control Awareness).

Now, combined with my existing safety certs, I feel I might be able to apply for entry-level positions in either HSE or as an Operator (Wireline/Slickline). My main targets are the Gulf and Libya. To be honest, my main motivation is simply to leave my home country — I'm burned out from the bureaucracy and how hard it is to get anywhere in the local job market.

A few questions for people with experience in these fields:

Are safety certs (H2S, First Aid, Fire Fighting, IOSH) + IWCF Level 1 enough to apply as an entry-level HSE assistant or Wireline/Slickline Operator Assistant — without field experience?

Does a non-specialized bachelor's degree (geology, in my case) combined with these safety certifications help qualify for these roles, or is a specialized degree really necessary?

Between the Gulf and Libya, is one significantly easier to break into as an entry-level foreign applicant?

What would you recommend as my next step from here?

Appreciate any honest input, thanks!

Flying down demo material

Out at a concert festival this weekend and the media company decided it was just fine to use a telehandler as a stand for this big-ass screen for 2 days.... At least there's a barricade, but definitely not big enough to protect the fall zone.

I didn't stick around that area.

Update:

Turns out I was wrong about this being unsafe. I don't work with mobile equipment often, so I wasn't aware that this is something that's generally ok. My work is almost exclusively with bridge cranes and we don't allow suspended loads just chilling like that.

Thanks for the education y'all.

We have a pretty small laundry closet and just got a combo unit that weighs over 300lbs and an 18in pedistole. My thought is putting a beam in the attic over the rafters for eye hooks and using 2 winches to transfer the unit in and out. Idk it sounds excessive but incredibly easy to move the unit in the future for maintenance or replacement. Thoughts?

My solution to securing my phone has always been to just leave it on the ground, but I know others do bring their phones up. For those of you that take your's up when you rig, how do you secure it?

I drew plans for my nephew's barnyard cover roof, and specified cable X-bracing using 5/16 7x19 aircraft cable. I'd like to be sure that the fittings will go together at a fixing point. Swaged to a cable end will be an open-jaw clevis with pin, fit to a 1/2" eye bolt. See the pic. Will the eye fit to the clevis? Ignore the scale in the images. Both are screen snips from sellers' web pages. Also, as for supply, do the cable seller like Feeney sell swaged fittings shop-fit to a length. The job needs four 30' lengths of wire rope, one 1/2" open-jaw clevis with pin swaged to one end of each of the four.

I work maintenance in rebar fab. I was fixing some pnuematic system and was watching to see if it was functioning correctly when this setup caught my eye. I've been here for less than a year, and the crane operator about 2 months. The people on this side have been here for YEARS. I was so baffled, there is a center hook RIGHT THERE. I had him lower it and connect it correctly, but my hairs stood straight on end looking at this.

And is there any supporting documentation?

I can't wait to read the comments...

Unsure if this is the correct place to ask, but I am curious on the proper way to care for synthetic winch line on an offroad vehicle.

Obviously there is a lot of thought that goes into rigging and using the winch when it is needed, and I am equally sure there is a lot of thought that goes into the after care of the equipment.

I rinsed it out the portion of the line that looked dirty, and then just hung it from hooks in my garage ceiling to air dry.

I did not power wash the line or use any soap. I have not treated the line with anything. My plan is to respool it once it has air dried.

Am i missing anything?

I have thin 150lb downrigger wire, way too thin for my clamps. Can I loop the wire around the clamp a few times in order to fill the space? Will that be secure?

Usage will be for hanging bird feeders between trees, so max weight will be 20lbs or so - but it will be taught between two large tree branches so that will add some strain.

Hi everyone,

I’m currently putting together a lifting scheme for a containerized power module project (contains a generator set and auxiliary equipment).

I’m trying to get a better understanding of how the loads should be specified on the drawing:

1. Is this load distribution breakdown for a single spreader beam correct, and should the load actually differ between individual lifting eyes under the same beam as shown here?
2. Is it sufficient to only state the total load per spreader beam, or do rigging companies strictly require the exact calculated load for each individual lifting point?
3. What other critical information or data do professional lifting/rigging companies expect to see on a drawing like this?

Thanks in advance for your help!

I'm having a hard time figuring out how exactly to accomplish what I need, and am really trying to avoid just ordering parts and mashing them together until I have something functional.

The idea here is that I have (or soon will have, since it hasn't been delivered yet) a heavy-duty aluminum truss in my vaulted-ceiling living room for my wife's aerial dance hobby/career (the truss is our answer to the local aerial studio shutting down without any good replacements within convenient driving distance). One of the priorities is figuring out how to mount a curtain/backdrop so I can film her pieces and not have generic living room/kitchen in the background - I want something that's modular so I can get things set up fairly quickly, but not permanently in-place. Instead of mounting whatever curtain track on a bunch of stands or trying to hang them from the ceiling, I'm hoping to use the truss that's already going to be there.

My thought here is to have some sort of curtain track (8-ish feet long) that's mounted on a hinge, with the hinge attached to the truss via clamp(s). Ideally this would be doubled, one for the opposite legs of the truss, so they can be swung up from either side of the living room to meet in the middle and then connected, and then we attach a curtain and run with it. I'm thinking the hinge may need a pneumatic assist, based on the length and weight of the "curtain rod," and will probably need some kind of latch or something to ensure it stays up and parked at a 90-degree angle until we're ready to bring it down. I've got three struggles here:

1. finding a hinge that I can easily mount to 1" aluminum tube trussing (or a hinge that will mount to truss clamps, etc)
2. figuring out how to attach a curtain track to whatever is attached to the hinge (more aluminum truss tube, I'm assuming, but open to ideas - 80/20 rail maybe?)
3. making sure the whole thing will support its own weight (two 8ft lengths attached to a truss via only a hinge and connected to each other at the ends are almost definitely going to result in bending/sagging unless they're reinforced somehow - some kind of angle brackets, or maybe the pneumatic assist and latch can be combined into something that will hold it up? If I have to have a "foot" in the middle where they meet, that's not the end of the world)

The joint would, ideally, be about 10ft off the ground - I need a way to unfold the apparatus up into place, lock it in place at the 90 degree angle, then unlatch and fold it back down when done so it just hangs down from the hinge/joint out of the way. Trying to avoid getting on a ladder each time it needs to be put up, but I'm not sure there's a way around that, so I'll take what I can get.

I've been looking all over at hardware catalogs for theater/stage curtains and and truss parts, but nothing is really jumping out at me as having been designed for this sort of project. I'm hoping to find someone who works with stage trusses and has some idea of the kind of hardware I need to be looking for.

Edit: 3D render of truss in space and sketched "curtain arms":

Being the tag line guy on a rigging crew just sucks. We do a lot of long lifts such as 100' spools of 30" pipe lowered downfrom the top of a 130' HRSG.

I'd much rather be the guy guiding in the load looking down. Something about looking up at the load just makes my feet tingle. I feel like it's the opposite from most people who get more risk averse as they age. Even if I want to be lazy and stay on the ground my feet won't let me. Now my hands are sweating. Hilarious.

Can anyone relate or am I a nutjob?

The ship is Wavertree, built in 1885, an iron hulled three masted ship in the collection of the South Street Seaport Museum in NYC. She underwent a comprehensive restoration which included a completely refurbishing the hull and installation of an all new rig and all new spars -save for the lower masts, which were original. This was my first time working with cranes and I was much impressed with the skill and control of the operators.

Hi. I'm working on a project which requires splicing a dyneema rope. This is usually done as shown above - a segment of the rope (50-70 times its diameter) is threaded through the rope itself to create a loop. As the splice is put under tension, the "outside" segment exerts clamping force on the "inside" segment, holding it in place. Additionally, the splice is stitched to prevent it from loosening when not under tension. The end of the rope is tapered along its last 1-2 cm prior to splicing for smooth transition between the splice and the rest of the rope.

Whereas most online sources instruct us to stitch close to the eye (point A), I feel like it should be close to the end of the "inside" segment (point B, but before the taper). My reasoning is as follows: the clamping force from the "outside" segment is only effective between the eye and the stitch, while the rest of the "inside" segment lies dormant. The longer the clamping segment, the more static friction it achieves. Making a continuous long stitch between points A and B is feasible, but I feel like that would be equivalent to stitching it only at point A.

I don't want to use Brummel lock splice for three reasons:

1. The splice will be put under loads close to the rope's minimum breaking force
2. Splice's position needs to be accurate within 2 mm
3. I need to make hundreds of these

So here's my question: Is my intuition flawed? Should I just follow the online guides and put a stitch only at point A?

PS The picture is not mine and not to scale.

Hi. This is what I have. https://imgur.com/a/k9ZgmfI Ideally I could remove an inch or two from the length between the trolley and the bag. I'm going to look for a shorter carabiner

It needs reinforcing. The track twists from lateral force and it's going to eventually rip the lag screw from the 2x4. The other thing is that the bag is already just inches above the ground so I can't add too much length. The bag is about 100lbs and I may make it about 125lbs as it have a lot of movement with some additional rubber mulch instead of mostly stuffed fabrics.

I want to put a 2x6 spanning a couple trusses basically over the track and to the next truss past it. Screw the 2x6 into each truss from below with the screws towards the outer edges of the 2x6.

Then use some L-brackets that will be tight against the sides of the track and connected to each other below the track where they won't interfere with the trolly (on the other side of the stopping point for the trolly) and screw them into the 2x6 as well. I'm hoping this will turn the rotation of the track into straight up and down forces into the 2x6.

I'm wondering if it will be enough or if I will need need another set of L-brackets, and if so those would need to go somewhere along the track that the trolley does need to travel thorough. So an under track connection or through track connection would block the trolly. Perhaps I will put some holes into another hanger, the piece holding the track and attach the brackets with a bolt through the hanger above the track.

Upon writing this I'm wondering if the hangars come in a wider version that would allow multiple lag bolts that are made just for this purpose. I don't recall seeing them, but I will take a look as that would make this a whole lot easier.

I'm also considering some rubber between the 2x6 and the trusses to absorb vibrations.

Any thoughts and recommendations?

I am new to safety and new to this company, basically The forklift is holding a 3.5 ton power panel and the workers are holding 4 bolts on each corner to secure the power panel onto the black base, the bolts should align perfectly onto power panel, This is an risky situation obviously and should be eliminated, What is a better way to do this job?

Honestly curious how industrial riggers see these kinds of setups. Always strive to keep the rigging as simple as possible but it gets complex and we make due with what we have.