Rigging wire cutters

Adonnante said:
Adonnante, the pliers and hacksaw were the most effective in a real situation so why no confidence?




These questions are requiring me to consider the issue in more detail than I had previously, a good thing. If a stay is laying across the deck and largely motionless a hacksaw would be a good solution, hanging down the side of the boat and swinging with the best part of 350kg rig on it I doubt if it would be feasible. Removing a 20mm clevis pin would involve the removal of an equally chunky split pin which would be cut and bent to ensure the ends were not exposed to cause damage or injury. The clevis pin would be easy to pull out if unloaded but near impossible with the rig hanging on it. There is no space between the end of the clevis pin and the coachroof to enable a drift to be used, I guess mole grips would be better than pliers. With the forestay the only option would be to remove the clevis pin due to the roller reefing gear or cut it with a disc grinder.

Peter.
Click to expand...

If the rig is hanging on it sufficiently to make the clevis pin impossible to move then the hacksaw will work because there will be tension and very little movement on deck. If there is no load then the pliers and nail pincers will have the clevis pin out in a jiffy. While all this is going on you have one hand for the boat and one to work while bolt croppers will require two hands for at least some of the time.

I've never done any of these by the way, and I only have pliers on my boat but mine is small enough that the GRP would rip out with any load so it's not a concern :)
 
Btw - i've used bolt cutters in a real situation and we also tried a couple of the other option mentioned above. Also, if the article mentioned is the one i think it is, very little was mentioned about the hydraulic cutters. Did they use any in that test?
 
npf1 said:
Btw - i've used bolt cutters in a real situation and we also tried a couple of the other option mentioned above. Also, if the article mentioned is the one i think it is, very little was mentioned about the hydraulic cutters. Did they use any in that test?
Click to expand...

They did, yes. They were on the list I posted and I think they lost out mainly due to the huge cost.
 
I have a set of hydraulic crimpers for battery cables. Not sure exactly what pressure they produce, but I bet it's enough to cut moderate sized wire. If only someone made a set of blades that could fit in place of the crimp dies, but I've never seen such a thing.

Anyone know about the feasibility of making some? Machining them out of ordinary steel would be fairly straightforward, but to be any good for cutting they'd need to be harder than that. How do you mill tool steel with a steel tool? :)

Pete
 
Does anyone have a sample of 10mm 1 x 19 anywhere near Portsmouth or the Hamble?

I tried our local rigger but he tidies up rather quick after re-rigging jobs so has nothing to hand.. [For ISAF compliance] I need to try out both our Felco and Baudat cutters to prove they work.. If not I guess I'll be looking into 12v angle grinders (with <1mm disc) as a backup plan..

prv - I would guess (but it's only a guess) that the pressure needed for a medium sized crimp is a lot less than to cut 10mm 1 x 19 stainless wire which appears to be incredibly tough.
 
prv said:
I have a set of hydraulic crimpers for battery cables. Not sure exactly what pressure they produce, but I bet it's enough to cut moderate sized wire. If only someone made a set of blades that could fit in place of the crimp dies, but I've never seen such a thing.

Anyone know about the feasibility of making some? Machining them out of ordinary steel would be fairly straightforward, but to be any good for cutting they'd need to be harder than that. How do you mill tool steel with a steel tool? :)

Pete
Click to expand...

An alternative approach if you want to try some DIY would be to machine the blades out of mild steel then raise the carbon content of the outer layer by case hardening (heating in a container also containing carbon rich material like leather off cuts or commercial case hardening compound) which could then be hardened and tempered like tool steel.
 
Martin_J said:
prv - I would guess (but it's only a guess) that the pressure needed for a medium sized crimp is a lot less than to cut 10mm 1 x 19 stainless wire which appears to be incredibly tough.
Click to expand...

The hydraulic crimpers cold-weld the lug material to the wire - they don't just give it a bit of a squeeze. If anyone (even a fit young rigger) could cut the wire with non-hydraulic bolt croppers, then I'd expect it to succumb to a decent pair of blades mounted in the crimper.

Just a pity that nobody makes them :)

Pete
 
Thinking aloud, why pull the clevis pin when you could remove the split pin the use a screwdriver and hammer to push it out?

No practice experience, just mulling.
 
PhillM said:
Thinking aloud, why pull the clevis pin when you could remove the split pin the use a screwdriver and hammer to push it out?

No practice experience, just mulling.
Click to expand...
It might work, under load you'd need a screwdriver or something to help it through which may be harder than the nail pincers. I'd imagine it wasn't on their list because they didn't think of it though.
 
onesea said:
350 kg dry weight. Which will be less when afloat?

Also 20mm Clevis pins and 350 kg for mast? Its some rig or have I got my scales wrong?
Click to expand...


Mast section is the Sailspar F590C section, 138mm x 300mm, photo attached (I hope). The 350kg figure includes the spinnaker and KTM snuffer, not being flown at the time the photo was taken.

Peter.Marys photo edit 3 NX2.jpg
 

In the crash test vid (previously posted by lustyd) you can see how we got on. We did find out I a previous test we did there is a definate technique to using the felcos. If you open the jaws, close them slowly onto the cable, the. Put your weight on them, you're going nowhere fast, however if you put the cable at the back of the jaws with them open, then give the a quick firm slice, they will go through the cable with ease. They seemed to benefit from a bit of momentum befor hitting the cable.

Anyway watch the video the. Get yourself some hacksaw blades. If you use the forum search and look for hacksaw, and in the author box type snooks, I'be written about this quite a few times :)
 
snooks said:

In the crash test vid (previously posted by lustyd) you can see how we got on. We did find out I a previous test we did there is a definate technique to using the felcos. If you open the jaws, close them slowly onto the cable, the. Put your weight on them, you're going nowhere fast, however if you put the cable at the back of the jaws with them open, then give the a quick firm slice, they will go through the cable with ease. They seemed to benefit from a bit of momentum befor hitting the cable.

Anyway watch the video the. Get yourself some hacksaw blades. If you use the forum search and look for hacksaw, and in the author box type snooks, I'be written about this quite a few times :)
Click to expand...


Thanks Snooks, the technique for using the felcos is exactly how Adrian at Eurospars showed me. He was able to cut the 10mm wire but I failed badly, only able to slice through a couple of strands. At sea I have no prospect of successfully using them, a hack saw is cheap and effective providing one has a supply of good quality blades, the disc grinder may be the answer for the last stay which is likely to be swinging about over the side and under tension. The disc grinder is also a useful tool for preparing epoxy tape repair.

Excellent video, and the sea conditions were more moderate that one would experience out in the Channel.

Peter.
 
Thinking about worst case scenario here, rough weather torrential rain, etc, the last thing I would want to do is take out a battery operated tool with water flying about. That's before I get started and find out it's lacking in juice.

The hacksaw worked well with a load of pressure on it, and it has the advantage it can be used single handed :) - compared to bolt croppers etc
 
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