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Home > Do It Yourself - Tech Tips - Safety Wiring How-To
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| How
To: Safety Wiring so you don't die a horrible skidding bloddy
death |
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Thanks
to Beaner for working up this Safety Wiring how-to
article and posting it on ChopCult.
It is recreated here for your viewing pleasure. Safety
wiring not only keeps you from losing bits off your
bike or having something important fail, such as your
brakes, or having your axle come out, but it also
looks real slick.
OK,
Some of you have it down and some can do by looking
at the pics of other guys safety wiring but Here I
am gonna show you a simple How To... to safeting your
shit so it doesn't come apart into 5,476 pieces while
you're doing 78.457543782905 mph.
Anyway,
the best safety wire to use is .025" steel wire.
you can use .032" and it's sturdier but harder
to use and whatever you safety with .025 will work
just fine unless you're working on propeller aircraft
or Rotorheads of helicopters.
Anyway,
the tools I use are a pair of Snap-on dikes and Snap-on
reversable safety wire pliers. For years I used regular
safety wire pliers but they only come in right hand
twist, you don't always use R/H twist so it's only
1/2 of what you need. When I got out of the Army and
had to buy my own tools I think the Snap-on's are
the cat's meow.
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| OK,
here you cut a piece of wire and thread it thru the
eye of the bolt head and go around as such. Usually
I put 1 R/H twist in it by hand to get it ready for
twisting with the pliers. |
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Now
you take your pliers and clamp on to the wire at a
little beyond the hole your twisting to. The wire
will shrink as you twist but only just a red headed
cunt hair. Once you are used to doing it, it becomes
second nature and you instinctively know where to
grab. The wire pliers have a lock on them that you
use to keep hold of the wires without squeezing. I
can't recall how many times I've been to traders village
flea market at the tool guys shop and dudes will say,
"Hey, that would be a good set of wire pliers
without this wierd thing on it." Well, that's
the lock dumbass. So, you clap and squeeze the wires
in the jaws and set the lock. Now twist.
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The
standard for wire is 6 to 12 turns per inch but I
like anywhere from 8 to 10. That's another instinctive
thing learned over time and experience.
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Then
you take whichever wire you decide makes the best
"taught" fit and thread it thru the hole
of the other bolt. Always remember to saefty where
if one bolt loosens the other will tighten.
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Bring
the other wire around and give it a Left Hand twist
or two by hand and get the pliers back on the wire.
Remember, if you have a reversable set to go into
Left mode.
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| Once
you have your twist set up cut the wire with your dikes
or with your safety wire pliers about anywhere from
1/2 inch to an inch. It's all a matter of taste and
you can usually tell who safeties by where and how they
form their pigtail. |
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The
pigtail is just bent over wire to keep itself from
unravelling. Another safety feature of safetys.
Here
is my ruler to give you an idea of pitch of twist
on a three bolt safety, just at 8 turns per inch.
Anytime you're safeting more than two bolts the rule
still applys, to safety if one bolt wants to loosen
the others will tighten.
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