Cable splicing

[mikerice]

Re: Cable splicing

Thank you Mark Julicher for the photo of the cable splice. I have added it to the course.

I have also added Andrew Kings remarks into the appropriate pages. I deleted the reference to heating, annealing and then cutting the cable with a hammer and chisel. I added a reference to cable cutters instead.

This should be pretty close to a usable course, although it might make sense to add printable pdf files for handouts that can be taken to the workshop.

Online cable spicing course

[Mark Julicher]

Re: Cable splicing

From a 1947 Taylorcraft...

[mikerice]

Re: Cable splicing

Hi Andrew-
Thank you for the many excellent comments on the cable splicing course. I will incorporate your comments into the course in the next week. Do you have a photo of your red/yellow mallet, and a good shot of a completed splice that I could use in the course?

I like the illustrations, but a nice photo would make the opening page better.

I wondered about the discussion regarding cutting a cable with a cold chisel.... I would just pull out the cable cutters! I will shoot a photo of the cable cutters and add that to the course too.

[baldeagle27]

Re: Cable splicing

Here's some opinions/comments, for what it's worth:

--I use one of those Craftsman plastic mallets, with a red side and a yellow side, instead of the rawhide mallet, to hammer down the splice. Start with the red end and finish with the harder yellow end.

--When measuring the cable length, after the first end is spliced, for the second end, I mark the desired cable length with a Sharpie, then make another mark 6" short of the first. Then, when the cable end is fixed in the splicing clamp I can measure from the second mark to the inside of the thimble with a 6" steel rule and get a more precise measurement of the proper length.

--They must not have had good cable cutters available when this method was published, no need for the torch, chisel etc.

--There are different ways to do the taper tucks 4 and 5. I don't do half then half, in a 19 strand cable I remove 6 of 19 strands for tuck 4 and 6 of 13 for tuck 5, roughly dividing it in thirds. Otherwise the strands for tuck 5 seem awful small. More often than that I use the taper method found in textbooks from the Stinson School of Aeronautics: tuck 4 is a full tuck, done just like tucks 2 and 3, then 3 alternating strands are cut, and for tuck 5 the remaining three are tucked over one and under two.
Spanish Bucker Jungmanns didn't use any taper, just six tucks, then all strands cut off.

--I don't hammer the splice after each tuck, it seems to work just as well to hammer the whole thing after it's done, but that may depend on splicing technique. On the last two tucks, don't cut off the free strands before hammering, I leave about an inch sticking out until everything's hammered down, then cut them flush with diagonal cutters. If you cut flush and then hammer down the splice the strands might suck back in and undo themselves. Hammer, then cut flush, them maybe hammer a little more to smooth out the cut ends.

--You used to be able to get waxed linen cord from Aircraft Spruce, but I don't think they have it anymore. I guess I'll figure out where to get more when I run out. Modern dacron cord would probably work OK. I buy a spray can of Minwax polyurethane varnish and spray two coats on the finished splice. Incidentally, American and British aircraft used linen cord to wrap the splices- German, French, and Spanish splices are wrapped with brass or copper wire.

--If you're doing a Piper pre-war product, the correct splice is a Roebling Roll Splice (the standard AN five-tuck splice is a box splice). In the AN splice illustrated, in the first tuck, steps 6 and 7 are roll tucks instead of box tucks, you can see the difference. In a Roebling Roll Splice the first tuck is exactly the same as the first tuck of an AN box splice. After that each strand is tucked like steps 6 and 7 of the first box splice, instead of over one and under one it's around one and out the same opening where the strand started. Piper used a six tuck roll splice, three full tucks, then two adjacent strands cut, the remaining four roll tucked, then two more adjacent strands cut, then the last two strands roll tucked. Piper used cord wrapping, which was color coded, painted instead of varnished or shellacked: red for rudder cables, yellow for elevator, blue for ailerons, and black for the parking brake cable on a J-4. If you're really a stickler for authenticity Piper started wrapping the cord from the thimble end, wrapping over a free end which trailed out past the taper of the tuck, and finished with five half hitches at the end of the splice taper.

Anyway, some splicing tidbits, everybody who tries it will develope some of their own techniques to accomplish the same things....

Also, an interesting web site, with cable splicing (without a clamp) included: http://thevintageaviator.co.nz/reference/cable-splicing




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[jdoran]

Re: Cable splicing

3 sizes of beavers?

[mikerice]

Re: Cable splicing

The illustrations and text are from an old manual - I think 1940's vintage. I thought the illustrations came out nicely, considering they were copied and then scanned. I used Fireworks to cut and resize each illustration.

VictorBravo is correct about the one illustration for Second Tuck. The original manual uses it for steps 1, 2 and 3, but does not provide an illustration for Step 4, 5, and 6. After reviewing the original document, I found a little more text to add to Second tuck, Step 6, and I deleted the drawings from Steps 4,5,6 as it is confusing.

It is time consuming to build online courses, but this is a good example of 2008 technology reviving a 1930's procedure.

Other feedback on the online Cable Splicing course is welcomed.

[VictorBravo]

Re: Cable splicing

That is a really excellent online course on the dreaded five tuck cable splice... congratulations and thanks to Mike Rice and Buell Powell.

Looking through it on a quick once-thru, it seems that one of the illustrations was re-used on a few steps. The strand numbers in the instruction text copy changed but the drawing was the same as the previous steps showing the previous strands. Is this an oversight or did the original splicing manual not have a separate drawing for each step of each tuck?

Once again that is a truly excellent resource. What a fantastic thing it would be to develop and make available similar illustrated how-to's on other Taylorcraft related projects !

[mikerice]

Re: Cable splicing

Buell-

Thanks for the nice illustrations from your cable splicing manual.

I have sliced and diced it and built an online course from the material.

I added it as a link on the Taylorcraft.com Home Page, but it might be better served from another location in the future.

You can review the course at http://www.taylorcraft.com/Cable/player.html

It really could use a nice color photo of a spliced cable end as a splash page, but I don't have a photo. Maybe someone else can send me one, and I will add it to the course.

[Buell Powell]

Re: Cable splicing

Mike,
Sounds like a great idea-I can get some copys made the next time my wife goes to San Marcos in a day or so-send me a PM for the address to mail them. Hank, if you would like some copys also let me know and the address and I would be glad to send them. Just thought I should add that I have the drawings but haven't done any splices yet .May be someone that is already making some splices now anyway might be willing to make some for a video.
Buell

[Hank Jarrett]

Re: Cable splicing

What would be REALLY great would be an on line instruction WITH a set of vid clips of the process! I would LOVE to put splices back in my 45 like it had originally.
Hank
Originally there were spliced cables WITHOUT the blood!

[mikerice]

Re: Cable splicing

Hi Buell,
I would be willing to put a cable splicing course together on Aerolearn if you have enough drawings to use. Of course I don't know jack about how to do cable splicing, but I do know how to do a course on line if we have sufficient material.

I am interested in the drawings you have. I checked all my A&P text books and AC43.13 and AC65-15A, but they all show Nico Press and swaged fittings, no splice how-to.

[Buell Powell]

Re: Cable splicing

I have a set of 1941 AVIATION(American Technical Society) books that has a some detailed illustrations and descriptions of the Five- Tuck Splice and the Clamp. If anyone is interested I can make some copys and mail them.
Buell

[SteveR]

Re: Cable splicing

Someone should make a video recording of the sacred and storied "rope trick" for cleaning out a stuck exhaust valve and dressing the stem without removing the cylinder. I watched an old guy do it on my T-craft once and my jaw hit the floor. That maneuver really needs to be recorded, along with the proper use of all the tools, which reamer, how to work the valve stem around inside the cylinder, etc.

Alright, now you've piqued my curiosity. Where can I read a description of this procedure, or can you give us a run down?

[3Dreaming]

Re: Cable splicing

I think when I learned to do them I used a Northrup Aeronautical Manual from the 20's or 30's. It had the best instructions along with pictures. If your are trying to use a copy of AC 43, or a CAM 18 then good luck. Tom

[Hank Jarrett]

Re: Cable splicing

@#(*&%)*(&@#%$!
Just LOOKING at the pictures of the vice I can see why I am such a BLOODY MESS (not in the English use of the word, .....well maybe even that use!).
I was trying to do the splice like you would a rope splice using only a thin Marlin Spike in my lap (it's a miricle I am not maimed!). Being able to clamp the loop tight on the thimble then having a screw to tension the wire would make all the difference.
NONE of the books I had showed any vice or tensioning device. I have to try this again!
Hank