How To Select Wire Rope Sleeve
Swaging sleeves for steel cable assemblies is one of the most commonly performed rigging functions for lighter duty applications.
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We’re often asked whether it is better to make an eye with hour glass sleeves or with wire rope clips.
Swaged hour glass sleeves are stronger, more cost effective, and do not require future maintenance or re-torquing of nuts. They are also more streamline than wire rope clips.
Where rigging products are concerned, swaging refers to the process of using a tool or machine to apply force to a sleeve or ferrule. Through this process, the sleeve becomes compressed onto and around a portion of cable.
Cable Construction
When forming swaged cable assemblies, there are primarily two types of wire rope that are used: 7×7 and 7×19 strand cable.
The shape of the cable is not perfectly round and is made of several strands of wires.
Shown here is ¼” 7×19 hot dip galvanized cable.
7×19 refers to the cable having six outer strands surrounding the center core strand that counts as the seventh. Each strand is composed of 19 smaller wires.
If you look closely, you can see the v-shaped area between the strands. This is referred to as a “valley.”
Most commonly, aluminum hour glass sleeves are used with hot dip galvanized cable to form cable assemblies.
The aluminum is soft. When compressed by the swaging tool, it will be forced into the valleys of the cable, locking the aluminum sleeve into place.
