Cable hardware question

[ATH]

I think it's readily apparent how Rigguys stay together, but the Endz seem to be held together by friction alone, which I don't understand. What happens when things get shaken around in the wind? If the two stems don't maintain enough pull on eachother at every moment, I could see that little pin shaking out.

I'm guessing the steel forms the softer aluminum so it's a pretty permanent set.

However I also thought galvanized steel and aluminum lead to galvanic corrosion...

 

[Maplegeddon213]

How did you determine it was a "bad batch"? Just clarifying: did you replace all the wedge grips you had ever done?

Any pics of what they look like when they failed?

Did you install them or others on your crew? (IOW, How confident are you that they were installed correctly)?

I'm not doubting your experience... Just looking for details. I have seen relatively few negative comments. You can find bed reviews about anything online. I know there are major utility contractors using them as well who would not be doing so if they had an unacceptable failure rate.

Mostly, I guess, if there is a bad batch, I'm wondering how to avoid those. Is there something to inspect on the device or was it a manufacturing date?

Thanks

We replaced all of the wedge grips we had ever done, we only purchased them once and started to experience the failures pretty quickly. I doubt that they were installed incorrectly but I wasn't the one installing them. The people who were installing them are smart, experienced cablers but also human and new hardware to them. I joined the company as the failures started happening and we switched back to Rig Guy.

My reasoning for it not being the different climbers who installed the Wedge Grips fault is that the interior cone shaped component were all sheared in a similar way. It is a possibility, but after going to Tree Stuff and reading the reviews it seemed clear to me that every 6 or 7 reviews was another company experiencing the same story. Tree Stuff no longer sells them and so I can't see all the testimonials anymore.

This was 4 or 5 failures for around 20 cables within 6 months, compared to the 2 years of installing 30+ Rig Guy cables/year I've seen one of ours fail, it being on a massive silver maple that it probably didn't have much of a chance with. A few Norway maple failures where the branches broke out just above the cable after 50 year wind events.

I'm sorry I can't really help with being more detailed and concise with batch numbers or dates beyond winter-spring of 2024. To me this seems to be an issue for a niche service that is just infrequent enough to not throw up red flags.

 

[southsoundtree]

New products to installers with some working and some not makes me wonder if the are correctly sized/ positioned/ tightened.


I had trouble with having 5/16" cable and 3/8s WG. Took the correct size to grip. Not a easy to get to bite, all the same.


The variable of tightness is a problem. Oil filters go on 3/4 if a turn after contact. Easy.

WG are a guess.