Stupid cabling idea

[Merle Nelson]

For modest size cabling Rope Jack is a light weight consideration.

 

[jed1124]

Okay! There's a thought. How do you configure it to pull the cable taut when there's no anchor besides the one you're bolted through? I'm assuming that you're tensioning your cable with that cable puller and wrapping it under tension.

We use the Havens grip when installing cables with Rig Guy’s. They need to have some pre tension.
With conventional cable install using eye bolts we would take a measurement aloft, have the cable cut to size on the ground, then tension by snugging the eye bolts (if you have the proper size eye bolt and a good measurement, tension isn’t a problem).
All that being said I’m not a fan of installing cables with a lot of tension. Your trying to prevent the canopy from spreading beyond breaking the crotch your supporting, and not necessarily holding it together. Continuing to have some dynamic load on the crotch is important to the tree putting on reaction wood to help stabilize itself.

 

[Daniel]

exactly Jed, which makes measuring and pre-cutting cable a total waste of time. Install one side, move to the other side, pull hand tight and wrap it with the grips. Short sweet, easy and enough to keep the tree from splitting.

 

[KevinS]

I was just sitting here bullshitting on a long drive to a job, and I thought about using a come-along instead of cable for static cabling.
It would take out the step of tensioning the leads before setting your cable, and it would eliminate the hassle of fighting that stiff ass cable and cutting it and dealing with the cable grip wrap things.
The cable could be replaced with coated dyneema for longevity over rust-prone light cable.
I think that the reduced hassle would cover the expense difference (not to mention time savings) but how do I ensure that the components will hold up? I've never used one for prolonged periods, and don't know how strong they are.
Should I abandon this line of thinking entirely, or spend more up front to get stronger components?

Do you mean click in a come along pull and just leave it there forever kinda thing?

 

[KevinS]

Okay! That is something!

It looks like it's low and in big wood. It sucks we couldn't see the result with some proper hardware.

@JeffGu
That had crossed my mind, and if webbing is economical enough, you can just plan on changing it. We sell them on inspections anyway.

Depending on your tree and weight and size I know we have an old fashioned harness shop locally. They carry all sorts of webbing and roping and they stitch strong enough for a working hitch of draft horses. Sometimes outside the box works. I know Redtree has dug a lot into this if you find his stuff.

 

[JeffGu]

Very excellent info... they have the machines for the job. I won't mention the names of harness OEMs who actually started out making draft animal products, but the products are so similar that they use nearly identical materials and construction techniques, stitching, etc.

Thanks for bringing it up. I haven't been to such a shop in years, and had forgotten about that resource. They are also very much used to doing custom work.