sta lok wire rope terminal free sample

It was an absolute pleasure dealing with James at Sta-Lok, he offered multiple solutions that were sensibly priced, delivery was much quicker than I expected and the quality couldn’t be beaten. I will certainly use these guys again. The system that we used was chosen for its simplicity, I didn’t want a massive turnbuckle and Sta-Lok had a solution

Over 48 years since its inception, Sta-Lok self-fit terminals are used around the world and have gained worldwide recognition for high quality and reliability.

The Sta-Lok self-fit terminal will work under constant loading and variable shock loading. The termination is stronger than the rated breaking load of the wire rope. In all situations, the Sta-Lok terminal has proven to be totally reliable and re-usable*.

Technical Editor Ralph Naranjo’s market survey of mechanical rigging terminals in the June 2015 issue of Practical Sailor demonstrated just how long these terminals can last if they are installed correctly. That report came close on the heels of the late great rigger Brion Toss’s photo essay on what can go wrong if they are not assembled correctly, or assembled without any sealant. My previous blog post “Tricks and Tips to Forming Do-it-Yourself Rigging Terminals” rigging terminals highlights a number of important details, including the use of caulk, that Naranjo delved into in the 2015 report.

What is interesting is that some of the makers of mechanical terminals do not make it entirely clear on where they stand with regards to sealants. Some recommend using a caulk or sealant, but don’t specify the type-and as we know from our previous sealant tests, there are many.

One company, Hi-Mod, advises that installers use Loctite 262 or a similar thread-locking compound to prevent galling. Hi-Mod makes no mention of using a sealant in the installation guide. StaLok, on the other hand, advises that the terminals be sealed, and Sailing Services, a Miami Rigging company who has consulted PS in the past, suggests Life Calk. The Sailing Services website offers a detailed description of the StaLok installation procedure.

If you need more details on how and where you apply the sealant and the thread-lock during installation, Naranjo describes the process in a step-by-step description of installing a mechanical terminal for wire rope accompanying his market survey in the May issue.

Currently, we don’t have much data on how well a sealant-free Hi-Mod installation will hold up in the marine environment (some riggers add sealant anyway). Why advise against a sealant? One concern we’ve heard is that a strong adhesive sealant will make it hard to disassemble for inspection. We have not found that to be case—except with 3M 5200 (which interestingly does not adhere well to stainless steel).

There is no question that a thread-treatment such as Loctite 262, Loctite 242 is necessary. This is good protection against galling, a common affliction for any stainless fitting that is under load. As far as the use of a sealant goes: in our view, a sealant (used correctly) offers good insurance against water intrusion in a saltwater environment. We would recommend it regardless of brand of terminal you use.

The swageless terminal can be fitted by using hand tools, unlike a swage terminal which requires a special press, roller die or rotary hammer machine to crimp it onto a wire. This makes them very useful if the wire assembly must be made-up on site. A swageless terminal will work under constant loading and variable shock loading, making it stronger than the wire rope.

Regardless of manufacturer the basic principle of operation is the same. The cable has its outer layers wrapped around a metal cone, with the rope"s core running through a hole in the middle of the cone. The assembly sits inside a conical outer body. When the cable is in tension, the action is such that the cone and wire are drawn further into the conical bore of the outer body resulting in a large reaction load. This load grips the wire and prevents further movement.

As with swage terminals, swageless terminals are available with a variety of different attachment methods; fixed clevis forks, toggling clevis forks, eyes and threaded studs (for insertion in a turnbuckle barrel).

A swageless terminal can be removed and re-used, unlike a swaged terminal. This makes them very popular in the marine industry as they enable a quick repair to be made to a damaged cable while out at sea. Removing them from the wire end also allows anything which the cable has been threaded through (headstay furler) to be removed for servicing, re-threaded and the fitting re-attached.

“… stainless steel fatigues.No, this is not an all-metal army uniform. It refers to the characteristic of alloyed steels of hardening and becoming brittle and age. The more heavily a piece of alloy is stressed relative to its ultimate strength, the faster it will fatigue. Therefore, you’d survey lightly rigged race boats for fatigue more carefully and sooner than heavily rigged cruisers. Also, the warmer the climate, the faster stainless will fatigue, as the contribution of salt is enlarged.

“Fatigue reveals itself with cracks. Sometimes small, “Gee-I’m-glad-I-spotted-that” cracks; sometimes “Oh-my-God-I-could-drive-a-truck-into-that-thing-and-it’s-holding-up-the-jibstay” cracks. Sometimes the cracks have a zigzag pattern, caused by what is called stress corrosion. This can come from a combination of sources, including salt, heat, loading and from internal, literally built-in stresses like bad tempering or uneven cold-working.

“Sometimes the cracks are vertical, or radiate out from a single point. These are usually caused by simple overloading. Vertical cracks on swages are a common example of this; wire rope inside the swage expands with corrosion from moisture, pressing outwards on the walls of the swage until it cracks. Some sailors try to prevent this problem by pouring oil or hot wax down their lower swages. It doesn’t seem to make any difference, since water will migrate past anything but an adhesive put in under pressure, as one gets with Sta-Lok-type terminals. But at least the attempt at pouring something in makes more sense than another fix I’ve seen: tightening a hose clamp around a cracked swage, to hold it together. Not clear on the concept.

“Obviously it pays to invest in high-quality stainless and to make it plenty heavy, to delay the onset of fatigue. Bronze is nearly impervious to fatigue, which is why it is so often used in toggles, turn-buckles, tangs, and chainplates. Galvanized steel is likewise just about fatigue-proof, so if you can keep it from rusting, it will outlast stainless. If your survey reveals broken yarns in a halyard wire, and the sheave is adequate-sized and the wire is fairly new, consider using a galvanized wire halyard. It will require only period oiling (Marvel Mystery Oil is great), is stronger than stainless and stretches less. Alternatively, you can increase the size of the stainless wire, but this will also involve increasing the sheave size. Can of worms.

“When rigging wire fatigues, its strands will begin breaking. Note that a single broken yarn in 1 x 19 wire reduces strength by more than 5 percent. Wires will usually break first at the lower ends of standing rigging, where corrosion and fatigue work together. But check both ends and all the wire between, just in case. Fatigue can be reduced by increasing wire size, but again this is not always practicable, especially for racers, as it increases weight aloft. It’s usually better to use an appropriately sized wire (see “Selection Wire”, Chapter 5) and to employ other fatigue-reducing strategies. The easiest one is the addition of toggles. Put one at either end of each turnbuckle or buy turnbuckles with built-in toggles. Add another toggle at the wire’s upper end, particularly on stays with sails hanked to them, as these are most heavily worked. And keep your rigging snugly tuned so that sailing motions won’t cause your mast to bank around, shock-loading your wires". (Bo"sun Notes:Toggles are a great investment to prolong the life of your rigging. Click here for our Rigging Toggles; Closed Body Turnbuckles: Toggle/Toggle, Swage/Toggle .

“Rigs with swaged terminals are among the most susceptible to failures; frequent inspections are necessary to ensure their integrity. If the strands of a wire rope do not lead fairly into a swaged terminal; if there is evidence of corrosion, especially at the top of the terminal; or if the terminal is cracked or warped, no matter how slightly, it is of uncertain integrity and should be replaced at once. Swages are the overwhelmingly favorite choice for sailboat terminals because of their low cost, neat, compact appearance and high initial tensile strength. But they are not to be trusted.

"Minimizing Halyard Fatigue: To avoid accelerated wire fatigue, never let a splice Nicopress sleeve, or other terminal get within 2 inches of a sheave or fairlead".

“When swages fatigue, they’ll crack, too. Again, this can also be caused by internal corrosion-the corroded wire expands, trying to split the swage apart (Figure 7-28). Cracked swages can survive for years or days. Replace any wire that has a cracked swage on it immediately, unless you enjoy that sort of gamble. A horizontal crack is always more dangerous than a vertical one. Use a magnifying glass or dye penetrant to spot fine cracks. Check the eye as well as the barrel of the fitting. To maximize swage and wire life, consider inverting each wire when you figure it has reached its half-life, before cracks appear. That way each end will spend some time in the clean air aloft. And when swages are new, seal them against corrosion by melting wax down into the terminal.

“Sta-Lok and Norseman fittings are the best mechanical terminals-right up there with splices in terms of trustworthiness. They’re screwed onto the wire, which means there are no hammer-or die-induced stresses. And they’re reusable, so when you re-rig you only need to buy wire, not terminals.”

"Hacksawing Wire Rope: The slowest, most frustrating way to cut wire rope is with a hacksaw-unless you tape firmly on either side of the cut mark, then clamp the wire in a vise. Then hacksawing is fast, and leaves a far cleaner edge than shears do. A clean edge isn’t important if you’re splicing or swaging, but it makes a lot of difference when you’re assembling Sta-Loks or similar terminals".

“The above is by no means a complete list of things to look for, but it gives you an idea of how free-ranging and inclusive a survey mentality must be. To give you an idea of how this might translate into reality, a sample survey follows. It’s a bit of a flaw collage, excerpted from several vessels. If the number and severity of flaws seem high, bear two points in mind: (1) A moderately run-down rig and one in good condition will have roughly the same number of notations; as you fix big problems, you start noting smaller ones. (2) Assuming the mast is still standing, the list of things that are okay is always longer still".

When talking about wire standing rigging for sailboats, there are two primary ways to secure a fitting to the end of the cable, the swage fitting and the mechanical fitting. One requires a specialized, expensive machine (pictured below) that is used to essentially squeeze or hammer the fitting onto the wire, this is called the swage fitting. The other simply requires the use of some wrenches (a vise is a great tool here too), some thread locker, a bit of patience, and some experience wouldn’t hurt either ;0). The latter is referred to as the mechanical or swageless fitting.

Our favorite high quality mechanical or swageless terminal manufacturers are: Hayn Hi-mod and Stalok. Let us not forget Noresman (Navtec), one of the more popular fitting manufacturers on the market up until recently, as they have since shut down production. A mechanical fitting is typically a three part fitting (sometimes four). This type of fitting does take a bit longer to execute than the swage fitting, even by the most experienced of rigging technicians. The real bonus here is it does not require a ridiculously expensive machine. Which makes it a very appealing product for the DIY project.

There does appear to be some controversy about which type of fitting is better, so I’ll try to clear things up a bit. Let’s take a moment to talk about the pros and cons regarding these two styles of wire terminals. Swage fittings require one of these expensive machines, so you will likely have to pay someone to do it for you. Whereas Mechanical fittings can be the perfect solution for the DIY sailor. Swage fittings are substantially less expensive than mechanical fittings. For example, a swage stud for 1/4″ wire with 1/2″ thread retails for around $25 and the comparable mechanical fitting retails around $75. Multiply that times the amount of fittings you’ll need and it can make quite a difference in price when replacing an entire rigging set.

Having said all of that, a properly made swage fitting will last about 7-20 years or roughly 25,000 nautical miles, depending on geographical region and use before replacement is recommended. Regular inspection, regardless of fitting choice, is always recommended with service intervals around every 3-5 years.

There are also hybrid sets made, utilizing both types of fittings, with Swage fittings at the top of the stay and mechanical fittings at the bottom. This is the meet in the middle solution when price becomes a factor. Also this method is commonly practiced when building new masts.

TRC has had great success with the longevity of our swage fittings over the years {knocking on wood}. I’d say this is attributed to the use of high quality fittings, wire, the right machines, as well as proper execution. We end up selling mostly complete rigging sets using swage fittings. When discussing options with our customers we can really only justify the additional cost of mechanical fittings when the boat is going to endeavor on high mileage journeys. This way the wire can be replaced, the fittings inspected, and re-used with new cones (wedges). One of the other big benefits of mechanical fittings is/was at sea repairs. As the sailor could use wrenches and some Loctite to terminate a new cable at sea if needed, but not without the purchase of some good quality wire cutters (not cheap). With developments in synthetics we think that this problem can be much easier overcome with the use of Dyneema or Vectran. We offer a TRC Spare Stay Kit specifically for this purpose…no tools required!

Either fitting, if not made properly, will have issues and can cause failures. Conversely, when done properly, either of these fittings will provide the boat and its crew with many years of trouble free service. With either fitting, given that they were executed properly, age, geographical location, and wear are the biggest enemies for standing rigging longevity.

First, when choosing a mechanical fitting ensure that it is for the correct wire type being used, i.e. 1×19, 7×19, and Dyform/compact strand.You’ll need to disassemble the mechanical fitting (with Sta lok you can leave the former inside of the fitting) and then read the directions which should be included (or can be found online). The general gist for any mechanical fitting (regardless of manufacturer) goes as follows: start with a nicely cut end of wire. Then the socket portion of the fitting gets slipped onto the wire.

Once screwed down completely we recommend that the fitting be unscrewed again before the Loctite activates (so hurry depending on temp) and checked for proper forming of the cover (outside) strands. Lastly, if all looks to be fine, we coat the threads with more red Loctite and then screw it back together tight!

Our in-depth rig check includes:Assessment of your boat"s current rigging systems - including aloft, running rigging, standing rigging, masts, mast head, mast step, spreaders, stays, sheets, halyards, reefing, furling, chainplates & deck equipment

They are a good choice if the wire needs a plain end to be fed through holes, as in handrail posts. They can also be used when the exact length of the wire can not be pre-determined.

The choice of fittings is huge, we list only a small sample selection to suit small 1x19 construction stainless steel wires, please contact us for a wider selection.