Wire Rope Damage

I have a question if anyone can point me to what would have likely caused this damage. We had the rope replaced 3 days ago, on day 3 this was noticed. It is locked out and waiting for a new wire rope.

I'm curious if installation or manufacturer defect could be an issue?

Thanks for your input,

Is the SWR the correct rotation for the winch?

A few possiblilities come to mind.

#1- if they installed the becket first, and then wound all the cable onto the drum, it would have pushed all the drum cable twist to the becket. They would have had all the cable laying out on the floor, off of the cable spool, to do that when they installed it. I don't know why they would have done it that way, but its possible.

#2- wrong rope for the application- some rotation resistant ropes can't be used in multipart lines. They are meant for drum to a ball only, and the twisting from going through a block will give them core damage at the becket. It will happen in truck cranes over time when running block with a rotation resistant rope that isn't meant for multipart.

#3 they gave the becket 10 or 12 twists before pinning it up, to try to cure cable twisting the block up, but that's usually only necessary on running non rotation resistant rope with a lot of cable on a long boom. Looks like you are a overhead crane without a lot of fall, so I don't know why they would have turned it before installing.

Either way, you've probably got some core damage in that last 6' of cable. If there's extra cable on the drum that you could still get the block to the ground, you could remove 10' of cable and reinstall the becket and see if the problem persists, then you would know if its a installation issue, or the incorrect cable.

It does look like a left lay cable on a right to left feeding drum, so I don't think its the wrong cable lay.

I see Saddle clamps. Very big nono by us, fist grips only. Had a bunch of cables the ubolts cut thru the lays when pulled to capacity. Fist grips are way safer.

crane operator said:

If there's extra cable on the drum that you could still get the block to the ground, you could remove 10' of cable and reinstall the becket and see if the problem persists, then you would know if its a installation issue, or the incorrect cable.

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Before thinking about installing a replacement rope (I assume using the same personnel) this would give you an idea what caused the problem in the current rope and IMO should be done in order to remove any "labour vs material" doubt irrespective of whether or not you intend to attempt to salvage the existing rope.

Unless you get to the bottom of what caused the damage in your photos then you run the risk of having exactly the same happen to the replacement rope.

Does the overhead crane manufacturer's documentation contain details of the correct wire rope specification for this application.?

Elvenhome21 said:

I see Saddle clamps. Very big nono by us, fist grips only. Had a bunch of cables the ubolts cut thru the lays when pulled to capacity. Fist grips are way safer.

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There's no pressure/weight of any kind on the saddle clamps, all the pressure/weight is taken by the becket. Has no bearing on his issues at all.

Just curious, is the dead end brazed over completely? Hard to tell…..

NathanK said:

I have a question if anyone can point me to what would have likely caused this damage. We had the rope replaced 3 days ago, on day 3 this was noticed. It is locked out and waiting for a new wire rope.

I'm curious if installation or manufacturer defect could be an issue?

Thanks for your input,

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I am leaning towards installation error. If the rope was installed by paying directly off a shipping reel, any twist in the rope would remain in the system and work its way back toward the end termination. Often times this kind of twist is observed immediately after the initial run test and the bottom block will twist the parts so severely it cannot be operated. If not too severe, sometimes the twist can be removed by removing the end termination pin and rotating the wedge socket a few turns in the opposite direction of block twist. This can be avoided by first removing a new rope from the shipping reel and laying the entire length of rope out on the floor to remove any twist and allow the rope to relax before installing. If using the old rope to pull the new rope through the reeving, use a swivel connection between the two to avoid transferring any twist from old to new. Finally, always follow manufacturer's procedures for rope break-in.

There is a lot to know about wire rope. That’s about how much I know about it.

Coaldust said:

There is a lot to know about wire rope. That’s about how much I know about it.

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In that case you reallly need one of these. Everything you need to know about wire rope in one easy reference - and no, my copy isn't for sale........
https://onlineshop.oxfam.org.uk/ncb...VhOvtCh3BDQ0rEAQYASABEgLAZfD_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds

In the early days of my career I got a lesson on loading line from a spool onto the drum of a brand new Link-Belt crane. I was working with a guy who was supposed to know his stuff about cranes. We mounted the spool on a pipe that was across saw horses and pulled the wire onto the drum with the power of the machine. Unfortunately we had the line coming off the bottom of the spool onto the top of the drum. We should have had the spool situated so the line came off the top of the spool and onto the top of the drum. Fortunately the new owner came by and saw our mistake when we only had about half the line loaded. We had to pull all the line off the drum by hand and drag all the line off the spool now to get the twist out. A couple of hours reeving the crane now took over four hours.

There is a lot to know in this business and a lot of mistakes can be made.

John C. said:

........ We had to pull all the line off the drum by hand and drag all the line off the spool.....

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I imagine that wire rope is like synthetic rope, it would be frowned on to drag the cable through the dirt??

Back then it wasn't much thought about. As I recall you had a choice of rope. Right lay, left lay and lang lay. You could also get wire rope center or fiber center. The only other variable that I remember was the number of strings per strand and number of strands per rope. I seem to remember there being a lube available but we didn't put it on back then.

I'm thinking that the grit will cause abrasion between the strands.

Maybe ask a logger dragging line out in the brush from a yarder about that.

New line is so tight the only place dirt can stick to it is on the outside of the rope and that is if it has a lube or protectorant applied.

John C. said:

In the early days of my career I got a lesson on loading line from a spool onto the drum of a brand new Link-Belt crane. I was working with a guy who was supposed to know his stuff about cranes. We mounted the spool on a pipe that was across saw horses and pulled the wire onto the drum with the power of the machine. Unfortunately we had the line coming off the bottom of the spool onto the top of the drum. We should have had the spool situated so the line came off the top of the spool and onto the top of the drum. Fortunately the new owner came by and saw our mistake when we only had about half the line loaded. We had to pull all the line off the drum by hand and drag all the line off the spool now to get the twist out. A couple of hours reeving the crane now took over four hours.

There is a lot to know in this business and a lot of mistakes can be made.

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I have seen that same mistake made respooling drums on tow/recovery vehicles.
When I bought the 3/4 for the tow truck I bought from Oregon Rigging, he automatically asked which
side of drum was anchored and rotation. Personally I don't trust anything that isn't swaged with zero kinks.
I witnessed a 5/8 in flight once, don't want to see that again.

doublewide said:

I'm thinking that the grit will cause abrasion between the strands.

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Most cable pans back in the day carried 2 spools of rope partly for this reason. The idea was when the rope needed replacing all that was required was take the rope out of the Becket and pull a section threw using the winch, cut the unwanted length off the winch, reconnect and get back to work.

John C. said:

Back then it wasn't much thought about. As I recall you had a choice of rope. Right lay, left lay and lang lay. You could also get wire rope center or fiber center. The only other variable that I remember was the number of strings per strand and number of strands per rope. I seem to remember there being a lube available but we didn't put it on back then.

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You forgot one lay, ordinary lay.

Ordinary lay is also known as regular lay

Isn't regular lay the goal of all of us?