halliard cutters

[roger]

My nice friendly sail makers took my old unreliable furling gear away with them to make sure I got the right length forestay with the new one. To do so they cut through the foil then used great big cable cutters on the 8mm. forestay. The guy doing the job was 50 or less and looked in good condition. He was working on dry land and had a hell of a job cutting just one wire. I dont fancy my chances of cutting through all eight rigging wires, half of which are 9mm.. on a wildly rolling and pitching boat with few handholds. Whats your solution?

<hr width=100% size=1>Roger

 

[roger]

Re:Shroud cutters

Sorry I should have referred to shroud or "standing rigging" cutters not halliard cutters - its a case of the Alzhiemers

<hr width=100% size=1>Roger

 

[JMM]

Get a device called "Shootit", I believe the importers are in the Hamble area. It uses a Hilti gun cartridge to fire a cutter through the wire, up to about 12mm.

<hr width=100% size=1>Jon M.

 

[AndyL]

Hydraulic shroud cutters are good

but expensive if you are not in the rigging business.

Look here : <A target="_blank" HREF=http://www.s3i.co.uk/htm/HC20.htm>http://www.s3i.co.uk/htm/HC20.htm</A>

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[Magic_Sailor]

Re:Shroud cutters

What is that? I forgot!

Magic

<hr width=100% size=1><A target="_blank" HREF=http://hometown.aol.co.uk/geoffwestgarth/myhomepage/travelwriting.html>Click for website!</A>

 

[oldsaltoz]

G'day Roger,

Very large parrot beak (ends close first) bolt cutters work just fine, but they must be large, The cutters closing at the tip prevents the wire slipping out under pressure.

Hope this helps

Andavagoodweekend. Old Salt Oz /forums/images/icons/cool.gif

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[tom52]

Undo bottle screws?
Slower, perhaps, depending on your strength and size of bolt croppers, but surer.
Hacksaw.....?

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[qsiv]

I rely on a hacksaw (well I have 4 frames and about 50 blades).

None of the commercially available cutters will touch my rigging.

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[vyv_cox]

I know two people who have suffered dismasting. In both cases they found it quite impossible to either unscrew bottle screws or to knock out the clevis pins, due to bending of all metal parts and high degrees of force on the shrouds. In one case the skipper dropped his bolt croppers over the side due to the extreme and violent rolling that resulted when the mast went. His view was that use of a hacksaw would have been quite impossible, although the weather was not extreme.

I have a relatively small pair of bolt croppers, 24 inch I think, and tested their ability on my old lowers when they were replaced. I didn't experience any difficulty at all. Following my friend's experience I have a leash permanently attached to them.

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[roger]

Re: Hydraulic shroud cutters are good

Many thanks for the ideas folks. I reckon the Shootit system is the most likely to work but pricey. Incidentally some of the better cutting systems are even more expensive.
I've recently tried cutting my battery cables short with a hacksaw - that was an appalling pain; the hacksaw jammed on each forward stroke so I doubt if a hacksaw is gooing to work reliably - many thanks

<hr width=100% size=1>Roger

 

[vyv_cox]

Re: Hydraulic shroud cutters are good

Battery cables are pure copper. Pure metals are often very difficult to saw and I can fully sympathise with your efforts to do so. In the past I have wound electric furnaces with water-cooled copper electrodes and each one, about 1 inch by 1/2 inch, took best part of an hour to cut through. Cutting stainless steel fittings and cable would be difficult, but not that difficult.

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[snooks]

YM test

When we did the test for them - YM Nov 2002 - we were surprised and alarmed by some of the results

Hacksaws, forget it, even the worse pair of bolt croppers cut the cable in a shorter time, we found you'd need 1 blade / shroud and preferably a new person on each shroud! ;-) it was hard work and if the rig was under tension the cable could spring away as it's cut

Bolt/cable cutters, there were some that needed a "knack" putting the cable near the jaws and slaming the handles together...very quick, but not too easy...we were in an office, not bouncing up and down on a foredeck being hit by waves and spray.
There were some lovely "geared" cutters, one pair with a cam, one with a ratchet, both worked really well, but were in excess of £140 but they took so much effort out of cutting the cables, one pair could be done with one hand

The calmest was a the Hydraulic cutters but at over £760 were too expensive, great if you make your living out of cutting cables and had a captive jaw and were a joy to use

Shootit was by far the quickest and easist to use...it was also the loudest!!...averaged 15 secs per shroud....If I could get all the shrouds and rig off my deck in minutes instead of hours I'd pay the £250...it could be the best money I spent...never did fancy the idea of a rig punching a hole in mi hull!! :-/

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