hand swage standing rigging?

[stone_love]

Rebuilt the boat from the keel up so why not take a stab at making my own standing rigging?


A rigger suggested only use a machine to swage and never hand tools but I've heard ill be ok to double swage each eye

So do I DIY with hand swage or send off my rigging

[FinallySailing]

I think for the size of the rigging hand swage should be ok as long as you use the correct tools/swags. Alternatively, use swagless fittings, just like I did when I had to replace the headstay on "Rockhopper". See my pics on this thread:

http://www.macgregorsailors.com/forum/v ... 10&t=20328

[Catigale]

I hand swaged my lifelines and spare rigging with the tool from Defender...not as convenient to use as the 'bolt cutter' types but fits in the sailing toolbox and ergo now is part of the cruising gear.

[Catigale]

Stone...see thread here......


http://www.macgregorsailors.com/forum/v ... ol#p231928

[Steve K]

Built forestays for both boats and double backstay riggs for several friends. I've also field repaired broken rigging......all using the hand tool.

Always use a thimble in an eye end.... always double swage and only use copper/zinc swages... Always put three crimps in each swage and it's fine. Some people say they are better, because it's easy to spot corrosion problems on them. The machine swages always look fine, but what you can't see is that your wire will completely corrode down inside them. They look fine and all of the sudden " SNAP"

BB,
SK

[mastreb]

While I've not yet done any of my own swaging, I have bought a complete swaging kit to have on board and a 50' length of cable. I'm a big believer in having the ability to perform basic injury rigging at sea. Sail tape, needle & thread, hank-on jib (which can double as an extra mainsail in an emergency), two topped off fuel tanks, dinghy motor mounted on a jackplate, and blow-up dingy in the v-berth are part of my plan to get the boat prepped for coming back home in an emergency. I don't believe in going way overboard especially on these coastal boats, but I don't ever plan to call sea-tow either.

As an aside, when I was in the Navy we once went dead in the water while transiting from Hawaii to Hongkong. We were about 600nm from nearest land, and this (25 year old) 500 foot cruiser went completely dark (except the emergency battery lighting). We'd apparently left Hawaii with both Main genset #2 and Aux #1 offline. When Main #1 went down, it bus transferred to Aux #2, which couldn't handle the full load and immediately went offline, leaving the emergency genset the ship's entire 11Mw load, which it handled for an astonishing 15 seconds before it went offline.

It took three days in 145 degree sweltering head, but the electrician's mates, hull technicians, and boiler techs got the ship back online and running. As a twidget (electronic warfare technician) my only job was to sleep on deck, drink no water, eat as little as possible, and stay completely out of the way. We were on refridgerated food only, and I honestly thought we'd be two weeks awaiting tow and another two weeks to get to Singapore for repairs, but with the spares and talent on board, they got us back up and we made for Hongkong.

Chief Engineer was escorted off as soon as we made port, however. Don't know the politics behind it.

[133bhp]

I Saw no reason not to hand swage light rigging, but probabaly not studs. I made my own swager, basically the former part, welded to a bracket to compress in a large vice. For my forestay I used a hi mod stud on the bottom that fits in the furler drum, as I would'my quite trust a home swaged stud. I well understand its not for everyone so I wont go into it, except to stay, its been on there a while. I test cut open a couple of swages to check intergity. I have a spare stay etc. also can be done in the field at a pinch which is half the reaosn for me.

ps. sharp bolt cutters made a clean snap/break every time on 3mm 1/19, no tape. no loose strands.

[robbarnes1965]

I remembered seeing Larry Pardey explain his preference for hand spliced rigging. It's in their Storm Tactics video. They have some notes on their website. http://www.landlpardey.com/guide-to-spl ... -wire.html Hey considers it stronger and more reliable than swage or nico press. But he does find Nico press a good second as it's more gentle on the wires.

[robbarnes1965]

Just found this too. Looks easy enough http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u07iftUnnL4

[gyroplanes]

I hope I can help here a little.
I have produced many a cable for aviation and sailing.

I have the genuine Nicopress swaging tool (blot cutter like tool) and have used the tighten-bolts-to-compress tool as well. I very much prefer the bolt cutter style.

I buy my non-aircraft cable from McMaster-Carr and my aircraft stuff from Aircraft Spruce and Specialty (big, good company)

Home depot or Menards (or some other big box store) sells a very low priced knockoff copy of the genuine, bolt cutter type, nicropress tool. I have seen and used this inexpensive squeezer and strongly suggest buying and using it.

Triple crimp the nicro sleeve and you will have an FAA approved crimp stlye crimp you can count on. We never double crimp a connection in aviation (I haven't run into one in 35 yrs) so it should hold up well for our needs.

If you do want the double crimp redundancy, I have see it accomplished with a second sleeve a couple inches from the primary crimp. Most leave a slight bow in one side of the cable between the splices. If the primary sleeve should slip, the bow will be taken out and the cables will become parallel.

Another tip. Slide several pieces of heat shrink tubing of two sizes on the cable before you crimp it. You can slip the larger heat shrink over the sleeve and shrink it, slide the second smaller piece up to and over the first, and shrink it as well. No splayed wires to poke and maim the unsuspecting hand (foot, sail, raft, etc)

[heinzir]

I may be wrong about this but are not aircraft cables made of the more flexible 7 X 7 or 7 X 19 wire rather than the stiffer 1 X 19 used for standing rigging? I believe the recommendations I have read say to use one sleeve for flexible wire and two for 1 X 19.

Henry

[Catigale]

Gyro.to clarify, in aviation do you use single swages, triple crimped ...whereas the usual path in marine rigging is two swages , each double crimped?

That shoud start some bar fights....

[FinallySailing]

Here's a pdf by Ormiston (as of the hand crimping tool), to show how to hand swage. It doesn't look that difficult, though a bit time consuming.

http://www.ormiston-wire.co.uk/download ... ctions.pdf

[Ixneigh]

I crimp my sleeves four times and in the past have only used one. Never saw any slip or failure. I now favor the oem Mac rigging style of two sleeves, each crimped three times. The sleeves in this size are cheap.
I've been buying my rigging spares from blue water anyway. It's a fair price and the quality of the cable seems fine.

[stone_love]

got all new rigging made up for my boat last week.

all T316 1/8 1x19 SS from rigging supply in Georgia.

got about 250 ft for less than $100 bucks. The salesman says they supply many of the east coasts marine rigging supplies.

I got the sink/copper crimps along with 1/8 thimbles and then ordered some norsman swagless forks for the top ends

made all connections with two crimps each crimped 3 times.

Pretty easy job and much cheaper than what West Marine quoted me.

I made new outer stays, for stay and backstay. Inner stays were still in excellent condion (spreaders were added later on my W/21)