VOLUME 4         

Conduit Lubrication Helps on Tough Cable Pulls

Directly applying lubricant to a cable as it enters the conduit is a common lubrication technique. This method relies on the cable to carry the lubricant to all points of rub. Even with the best lubricants, such direct lubrication can result in insufficient lubricant toward the end of a long run. The pulling tension will be higher than it would be with adequate lubrication.

One way to avoid this problem is to coat the conduit wall with a film of lubricant so that the cable is always entering a well-lubricated area. A lubricant coating can be conveniently applied as the cable is pulled. A quantity of Polywater® gel lubricant is placed in the conduit ahead of the cable. The lubricant is spread with a spreading mandral or other device as the cable is pulled.

American Polywater's Front End Packs™ offer a popular way to pre-lubricate. These bags of lubricant are attached to the winch line and cut open as they enter the conduit at the beginning of the pull. They ooze lubricant in front of the cable throughout the pull. While not a precision metering system, the Front End Packs™ have proven quite effective on difficult pulls.

If you are interested in seeing a video or narrated photos showing Front End Pack™ use, there are two new multi-media clips available:

Video Clip -- (2.3 MB)

Narrated Photos -- (150 KB each).

Please be aware that files containing video and/or sound are large files and may take several minutes to load on slower Internet connections.

Visit the list of all SpeedRead issues.