king size wire/cable roller,

[BHD]

I ended up with a bunch of salvage cable from a GUY wire tower, over a mile of it, I estimate by weight,

I need to get rolled up in manageable rolls,

so I built a king size wire roller,

the roller is a modified steel spool and I narrowed it, and made the inside with a taper and made the out side to bolt on with 4 J bolts,
that is welded to a old rim and the drive is from a old combine, and the hydraulic motor I had on the shelf and the power pack was made to drive the log splitter,

a motoring valve and possibly a adjustable hydraulic splitter would beneficial if I was going to use it a lot, but If one is careful the standard log splitter valve is working and the two stage pump has not caused any problems actuly for the size of it it is better when it is on the Lower volume (slower) stage,

yesterday and today in my spare time, I rolled up about 2000 feet of 3/4 inch "bridge" cable, have some where guessing about 5000 feet to still roll may be more, as much of what is left is 1/2 inch.

links to pictures,
general view of roller

with about 500 feet of 3/4 inch cable on it,

with the side off, and getting ready to remove the cable, cable weighs about 500 pounds,

tractor in position to remove cable

cable on tractor to be moved to storage location,

 

[Illini22]

be careful with the tails of the wire when your finished winding it up. Guy wire as you probably know is extremly springy. Many lineman HAVE BEEN SERIUOSLY injured by underestimating the whipping action of guy wire. It needs to be fastened in several places around reel.

 

[BHD]

I stop it abut 20+ feet from the end of the cable and start to wind by hand and tie it off as I go, that is what is nice about the roller is that there is room under the supports to run the tie wire easily, I also tie the end down separately so it does not get away and in the process pulling the last few winds up tight so it is a good rolled coil.

The pictures are of the first coil of wire/cable I rolled up and the coils look a lot better now than the first one,

yes if you do not stop the reel the cable can come up and over the top of the reel in a hurry and one could get hurt really good if not paying attention.

yes the guy cable/wire is much stiffer than cable used for winches, the wire is a high tensile ,some looks it is made up of individual wires of #9 and some of the cables look like about #12 the latter is much more flexible, and easier to work with, most is 3/4" diameter, but that is one of the reasons I made the roller so large, as the cable really does not want to wind much tighter than about a 4 foot circle, and the reel has a center of about 4 and 1/2 feet. The outside size of the reel is what the spool was, I made it out was, and did not want to take the time to try to remake the reel smaller in out side diameter, but who knows what future uses may come up for its use, it would be great to use to roll up poly pipe on, or other large flexible tube or wire type product.