Noisy Wire-Guide Rigging

Hi Folks

We recently replaced some of our ancient wire-guide linesets with modern ones, and have noticed that they are much noisier. The old ones had the wire-guides go through a block of wood, which kept them really quiet:



But the new ones just have the guides go right through the steel:



The guides rub against the steel and make a fair amount of noise as they move. There's a good bit of room in the holes for the guides, so I'm wondering if there are any standard tricks to quiet this down? Maybe a thin plastic insert, or wax, or tape, or something (that would obviously have to be replaced every few years as it wears down)?

Taniith said:

Hi Folks

We recently replaced some of our ancient wire-guide linesets with modern ones, and have noticed that they are much noisier. The old ones had the wire-guides go through a block of wood, which kept them really quiet:

View attachment 19179

But the new ones just have the guides go right through the steel:

View attachment 19180

The guides rub against the steel and make a fair amount of noise as they move. There's a good bit of room in the holes for the guides, so I'm wondering if there are any standard tricks to quiet this down? Maybe a thin plastic insert, or wax, or tape, or something (that would obviously have to be replaced every few years as it wears down)?

Click to expand...

@Taniith With the holes through the steel being slightly on the large side, have you considered adding a layer of Oak (or some other durable wood OR, better yet, UHMW) with a somewhat smaller diameter hole over the top of the metal?

If UHMW, you could drill a hole then run it through a band saw with a fine tooth metal cutting blade to cut it in two along its centre-line.
Clamp the two halves together to maintain alignment and drill two holes across both halves on either side of your first hole. (or run a pilot sized bit clean through prior to cutting the block in half) Draw a line across to ensure correct mating when you reassemble the two drilled and tapped halves.

These last two holes could be enlarged for clearance on one half and drilled with a pilot-size bit. Tapping the piloted hole would permit you to securely bolt both halves together with your UHMW guides captive on you guide wires.

Last step: Conjure a means of securing the UHMU guides in place on the top (Gravity is your friend) side of your metal guides.
Optimistically conjure something better than gaffer's tape, chewing gum or Gorilla glue to hold you new guides in place.

Cutting, drilling and tapping UHMW 'd be a bit of work but if you fabricated a few dozen assembly line style in your shop it shouldn't go too badly,

UHMW 's commonly available in white and only slightly more difficult to source in black. Buying it in sheets of appropriate thickness would speed your project considerably.
Perhaps fabricate a prototype before going wild.
Toodleoo!
Ron Hebbard

I believe H&H arbors are standard with UMHW bushings and they are an option from Wenger. I'm not recognizing this arbor but maybe I Weiss?

What Ron said but not sure you can get them to work reliably without removing guide wires and modifying arbors. Just seems a UMHW block will wear to allow the cables to rub steel again.

You should name who specified this to warn others.

I'd be concerned about the longevity of the wire rope guides if you have steel rubbing against it constantly.

Yeah, it's all IWeiss equipment. There were a number of issues with the install due to the way the IWeiss stuff was made. I plan to ask our rigging contractor to quote Clancy stuff when we find the money to replace the rest of our lines.

What Ron suggested was kind of what I was thinking, yeah. But if they make bushings for this sort of thing, maybe I could cut them in half and... glue them into the holes?

danTt said:

I'd be concerned about the longevity of the wire rope guides if you have steel rubbing against it constantly.

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Yeah, that was also a concern of mine.

Think of two "U" shaped pieces of UMHW for each hole each arbor, opposing opening on opposite sides (top and bottom) of plate. Drill a small hole either side of existing, for a no 8 or 10 machine screw, then clamp and drill UMHW pieces. A lot of work but less than reterminating guide cables IMHO.

Get something done ASAP about that rubbing. Remember, wire rope is a saw, and it will do what you've already recognized it's doing: cutting through and removing material from that arbor. Eventually these components will essentially eat themselves.
I'm surprised/not surprised this happened.

What Rigger? said:

Get something done ASAP about that rubbing. Remember, wire rope is a saw, and it will do what you've already recognized it's doing: cutting through and removing material from that arbor. Eventually these components will essentially eat themselves.
I'm surprised/not surprised this happened.

Click to expand...

Ok, seems like I should give the installers a call and see if they can do something about it, since it's sounding like this could be considered an incomplete install.

I worked on a stage in Jr. High which had wire-guided arbors. The arbors had wood bushings which looked like wood "sewing thread spools." They were in pretty good shape when I was there something like 25 years after they were installed. The guide wires were about 8 gauge solid, not stranded, however.

I think the abrasion and "sawing" will be very slow, since there is very little if any pressure, and never enough to cut through to edge of plates or even close. It's simply a way to make the arbor cheaper and is primarily the noise issue.

Too bad you couldn't go to rigid guided (t or j bar for example).

Its hard to work with, but you could change the wire to a 1/8 single strand. Terminating the ends is a pain. Nico's don't work. Bending it through conduit sleeves or bending it and securing it with cable clips mostly works.

Whether you use single strand, or 3/16" 1 x 7 as we do, or if you stick with 7 x 19, which is not a good choice for arbor guides, you should get some drill bushings and bore out the holes in the arbor heads and bottoms to fit them. The drill bushings are hardened, press in fittings with chamfered entries. If you use 1/8 wire, use 3/16 or 1/4 drill bushings. If you use 3/16 1 x 7 use 5/16 bushings. Use 5/16 bushings for 3/16 7 x 19.

I'm also in favor of using 3/8 thick UHMW for guide bushings. In your case, that will entail replacing the cable guides you have in order to install them.

Ultimately, no matter what the catalogs say, wire guides are a bad solution. Even if the travel is 15/20'. And especially bad if you use 7 x 19 cable instead of wire. They do call it wire guided for a reason.

Hard guiding works better and is much safer. Wire guided arbors are dropped counterweights waiting to happen. Plus, they are noisy with wire sing and arbors hitting each other. I don't even like wire guided clews on hand winches. (Then again, I don't like hand winches with single haul lines either. Just saying.)

Follow up to give credit where it's due. Someone at IWeiss saw this thread back in January and they manufactured (on their own dime) new arbors with inserts to cut down the noise. Which we very much appreciate.