Wire Rope Education.

Progress, Volume XV, Issue 2, 1 October 1919, Page 627

Wire Rope Education.

, ' Probably no single article entering into logging operations is as badly misused as wire rope. The subject is particularly vital at this time, as rope costs are heavy, with little likelihood of immediate, reduction. Wire rope is not always the victim of careless or intentional misuse, but it is frequently put to such tests, from sheer ignorance of its construction, that would give its manufacturers the “cold shivers.” Education is the only plan by which men can be taught how to use a piece of rope properly. It is even unnecessary to cite some of the practices in vogue in some camps to make one wonder how wire (rope lasts half its intended life. As a suggestion for wire rope education, it might prove beneficial for the wire rope manufacturers to get together a series of motion pictures showing rope construction, which could be displayed in the larger logging camps. These films should be accompanied by a factory, representative familiar with rope construction and its piroper use. In this way they could demonstrate the right and wrong ways of handling lines. The pictures could well he supplemented with practical demonstrations of proper methods in the woods. Other manufacturers have found these methods productive of excellent results. A very large proportion of the logs produced in the West are handled by wire (rope. If it were possible to effect a saving of five cents per thousand feet in rope costs, by virtue of education, it would aggregate nearly a half million dollars annually. This estimate is made on the normal log production in the West of ten billion feet of logs annually. The education of the logger in the proper care and handling of wire rope would bring to his mind an appreciation of the value of all other tools and materials with which he is entrusted, thus effecting an appreciable saving in other lines as well.