Home Depot Stainless Rope?????

Hermit Scott · Dec 30, 2008

I saw that today while I was there buying some cable for something else. It said it's 316 stainless for .45 a foot. I thought of life lines when I saw it also. I think it's new there because I buy cable there pretty often and I haven't seen it before.
The cleanest way I have found to cut wire is a thiin (1/8") fiber grinding wheel on a 4 1/2" grinder. Trying to cut it with wire cutters makes it a mess in a hurry.
By the way if you use the method I am talking about do not hold the wire in your hand while cutting the wire with the grinder with your other hand. If the wire gets hung up at all it can pull your fingers into the grinding wheel. I have the scars to prove this.

I have to add this I may be wrong about it being 316. 3/16 was the diameter, I am not sure about the grade.

Ross · Dec 30, 2008

I used my old shrouds for my new lifelines. 7/32 inch ss wire rope. I opened some 3/4 inch poly rope and wrapped the wire with that and parcelled and served over that.

Ray T · Dec 30, 2008

re: lifeline replacement

sailormanbigd said:
Hi, I need to replace my lifelines on the OD25, the plastic coating was nasty so i cut it off but the stainless rope had alot of broken strands. So I either spend $140 for 40ft of 1/8in with plastic cover plus extra fittings for the lower line and buy two sets or?????? i was at home depot and spied stainless wire at 3/16 in and $70 for 125 feet. Has anyone used this stuff and do the fittings available-crimp or swage work with this stuff? How do you cut this rope clean? Thanks, Patrick

If I were doing this job I would use Nicro Press fittings and a Dremal with a cutoff wheel. Pull the wire through the nicro press fitting, crimp the fitting with the nicro press tool and then trim the cable flush with the fitting. The hardest thing in doing the job this way is finding a nicro press tool you can use. Ray T

Benny · Dec 30, 2008

Not all wire ropes have the same breaking strength. As lifelines are for your safety make sure that what you get is up to the job.

Roger Long · Dec 30, 2008

Use plain rigging wire for your lifelines. I did. It looks great and I have never missed the plastic coating. The bare wire actually feels better to my hands than the smarmy plastic did. Plastic coated wire for lifelines is dangerous. They don't use as good an alloy (in most cases) and the plastic hides what is going on underneath. You also have to worry about nicking or damaging it.

If you must have plastic in some spots, use the split plastic tubing sold for shrouds. I don't have any on my shrouds or turnbuckle boots either and have had no problems with chafe or dirt on the sails.

Plain S.S. 1 x 19 wire is quite smooth and pleasant on the hands.

Ross · Dec 30, 2008

sailormanbigd said:
thanks all! Hey Ross...what? I get that you used your old shrouds (mine are good still where they are) but what did you do with the 3/4 poly? I have'nt a clew what "parcelling the rope" is. My guess is you somehow serve this rope to your ss line then you probably use a truckers hitch to attache and tighten this pairing to the mounting loops/eyes on your boat? Just a guess. Pat

3/4 inch poly propolene rope is that yellow horrid rope that sells for about 45 cent a foot. I hobo'd mine from a crew running a power line near here. Parceling is just a matter of winding canvas strips around the rope. serving is hitch line over the parceling. I will post a pix soon. To open the rope twist the three strand rope to open the lay and force the strand inside . Play with a piece and try it.

Nereussailor · Dec 30, 2008

Hey Benny,
I was looking at breaking strengths for 3/16 " Stainless "rope" I understand that different grades of stainless probably have different breaking strengths, but the 920 stainless rope that I was looking at had a breaking strength of 3700lbs. my question is: don't you think the stanchions, pulpits, and fittings would give out long before the stainless rope?

Ross · Dec 30, 2008

Makingthyme, safe working loads are generally one fifth or less of breaking strength. This is a case of "you bet you life". Tear the stanchions off but as long as the line is intact you have something to hang onto that is better than the end of a pencil size piece of wire rope.

Hermit Scott · Dec 30, 2008

I get cables swaged (I don't even know how to say that word) They charged like $30 and they provide the fitting. A sta-lock end will cost you around $40-$45 but they are reusable and removable in case you didn't get the dimensions exactly right or something like that typically happens to me.
I like the look of bare ss lifelines. I want to replace mine like that but it is WAY down the list.

Ron20324 · Dec 30, 2008

If you are doing the whole lifeline replacement, buying the long pliers-like crimping tool for lifeline fittings is worth the money. It's a different tool than the Nicropress tool. You can do it all right on the boat so you know it's right. Then the folks in the next slip will want theirs done, too.

sailingdog · Dec 30, 2008

Ross—

I wouldn't recommend encasing stainless steel wire in rope for the same reasons that I wouldn't recommend the vinyl covered stuff... it tends to trap water against the stainless steel, promote crevice corrosion and make the stuff much harder to inspect.

As for synthetic lifelines—Amsteel, Dyneema or Vectran or some of the other high-tech, low-stretch lines would work nicely...

I don't know what kind of stainless steel rope is available at HD... and its composition—1x19, 7x19, 7x7, etc—will determine if you can get mechanical fittings that will work on it.

The lifeline kits are a fairly reasonable alternative, and allow you to customize the lifelines fairly easily.

Hermit Scott · Dec 30, 2008

I have a crimper tool to crimp aluminum ferrals and buttons, but a real steel swage fitting takes like 30,000 lbs of force. The force is so great on those machines the guy put a rag in there flat and pressed it and that section was simply gone like a magic trick. When they swage on ss fittings it looks much better and is much stronger.
If any one has a pic of the results of the hand crimpers you are talking about I would like to see it or if there's possibly a link. Are they for crimping steel or just aluminim?

Saildog I think the HD ss cable was 1x19. The 19 means 19 strands right? What does the 1 mean?

sailingdog · Dec 31, 2008

Hermit Scott said:
I have a crimper tool to crimp aluminum ferrals and buttons, but a real steel swage fitting takes like 30,000 lbs of force. The force is so great on those machines the guy put a rag in there flat and pressed it and that section was simply gone like a magic trick. When they swage on ss fittings it looks much better and is much stronger.

Yes, hydraulic swagers have a lot of force behind them.

If any one has a pic of the results of the hand crimpers you are talking about I would like to see it or if there's possibly a link. Are they for crimping steel or just aluminim?

You can't generally hand crimp 1x19 stainless steel rope since it really isn't that flexible above say 3/16" or so—and can't be bent safely to use a crimp terminal to form an eye. If you're going to be hand crimping the wire rope, using nicopress terminals, you'd be much better off with 7x19 or 7x7, which is more flexible. However, I think you're far better off either getting the terminals swaged or using mechanical terminals, like the Hayn HiMod, Norseman or StaLock.

Saildog I think the HD ss cable was 1x19. The 19 means 19 strands right? What does the 1 mean?

1x19 cable is 1 strand made up of 19 wires.
7x7 cable is made up of 7 smaller strands consisting of 7 wires each.
7x19 cable is made up of 7 smaller strands consisting of 19 wires each.

These are the most common for wire rope on boats, but you may sometimes see 6x7, 6x19, or some other combination. IIRC, the more strands and the more wires per strand, generally the more fatigue resistant and flexible the cable is, to a point. However, IIRC, the finer the individual wires are, the more likely it is to meathook, since the individual wires are weaker.

Life's a bitch that way.

Then there is Dyform cable, which is technically a 1x19 cable, but the individual strands are shaped to create a wire rope that has less "air space" in it, and the wires are not uniform in size or shape. Dyform cable is heavier, stronger and stiffer than regular 1x19 due to this.

Basically, the first number is the number of strands per cable, and the second number is the number of individual wires per strand.

I hope this helps.

Bill Roosa · Dec 31, 2008

Plan old rope

I'm interested to hear why I'd not just want to use a high tech rope in place of the SS wire rope. Strength is certainly not an issue as I cant see breaking anything over 1/4 with my body that will not result in it actually being the thing that is breaking my body. Chafe is an issue but that is always with us even with the wire rope.

Your thoughts?

bobtigar · Dec 31, 2008

Before you do it get a quote from Rigging Only. They do good work and quickly at a very resonable cost Bob

Ross · Dec 31, 2008

Dog, I considered that and figured that if water can get in then so can oxygen. I first saw the method on the Pride II of Baltimore. It makes a very nice man rope.

Patrick, The cheap rope is just padding for the wire rope core and has no structrual demands. It is hitched over with Nylon which won't last forever either but when it goes bad I will change it.