Strawline: Making an Unbreakable Join | Terrain Industries

Strawline: Making an Unbreakable Join

BlogForestryGuideWire Rope
  • Published: 18 December 2020
STRAWLINE BANNER IMAGE

STRAWLINE

Strawline, or haywire in the USA, has been a part of forestry and cable logging since the beginning. Yet we’re seeing frustration over strawline joins coming apart over and over again for our customers. Around 95% of the crews we visit have either their strawlines being produced incorrectly (by other suppliers) or their lines are not being joined effectively. Some crews have gone down the very expensive path of transitioning to a 12 – braid strawline instead of wire rope. Whether you’re pine green; or grey as they come–you won’t be the only one who’s likely frustrated with their strawline joins coming apart.

In the name of helping our customers out, we’re going to cover wire rope strawlines: how to best join them, and why this should interest you. Imagine your lines never coming apart again. Read on as we explain how, or give us a call to find out more.

EDIT (23/12/20): Some crews have told us they’ve been supplied strawlines with PRESSED eyes. Please DISCARD these strawlines. Pressed ferrules are not made to pass through and around sheaves. The lines are at risk of pulling out of the pressed ferrule and need to be considered UNSAFE.

WHAT IS STRAWLINE?

Strawline is defined by Competenz’s Best Practice Guide for Cable Logging as: “Light weight line used to layout or shift working ropes…can be spooled on the strawline drum or be as separate coils for carrying.” The primary use for a strawline is to bring heavier rope around the back-line. The heavier rope takes position using the strawline once the strawline is through the setting. For a more introductory guide on wire-rope have a read of our blog post HERE

At TERRAIN we’ve always made ours to 75 metres of KISWIRE wire rope with a hand spliced eye each end. We include a strawline hook knotted within the eye to enable joining multiple strawlines together and our stock includes 9mm and 10mm wire in bulk. If needed we do make strawlines out of 11mm on request.

 

FLAWS IN PRODUCTION

I know it sounds straight forward but we see strawline eyes and joining flaws throughout the country.  Even new haulers into NZ are shipping with incorrectly setup strawlines. We’ve seen new haulers with eyes that are too small, eyes that are too long, and knots outside of the spliced eye.

If the strawline’s spliced eyes are too small, or too long, the likelihood of the misaligned lines coming apart under tension increases drastically. Naturally, this not only means costly downtime for the crew to reset but any sudden breakages carry a major safety risk.

Another flaw we see, in the strawlines we’re replacing, is incorrect knot and hook placement. TERRAIN’s method includes the hook tied via a knot, within the spliced eye and, by placing the knot within the eye, we can keep the strength to 80-90% of the  of the original cable. Compare this to If this knot is tied outside of the spliced eye, where the strength of the rope drops another 30% compared to a knot within the eye.

 

JOINING METHODS

The best way to join a strawline is always a hard topic to cover because we’re talking with experienced loggers and experts when we’re out in the field . Explaining that the way the majority of crews have been joining strawline for the last 20 years isn’t the best way to do it, goes down about as well as you can imagine. However, it’s TERRAIN’s mission to ensure our customers have access to the best products, and advice, to achieve the best results. It’s important to demonstrate what we mean when we say inefficient or unreliable joining method so we’ll cover what we mean by unreliable first.

The Unreliable Strawline Join (not recommended)

Strawlines joined by bending the lines eye around linking back onto its own strawline hook are very susceptible to coming apart. Even if the eyes are wrapped around the line several times as a backup they’re still susceptible. The downside of this method is clear: should one hook fail, the entire line will fail and come apart as well. Here’s what this join looks like:

Illustratin inefficient strawline join

NOT RECOMMENDED

Consequences of 1 hook coming loose

Now that the join has come loose, any tension immediately results in a loss of connection–there is no backup. Reconnecting the line becomes a costly exercise in downtime and frustration. Thankfully, We’ve got a couple of alternate methods further on that will cover methods to allow a backup.

Inefficient strawline join consequence

Consequences of an unreliable join

THE MOST EFFICIENT STRAWLINE JOINS

Knowing that the above method is prone to coming apart, here are two other methods we’re keen to demonstrate: One from us, and one from Pat O’Sullivan. We’ve referred to Mr. O’Sullivan previouslyas the original founder of Taupo Rigging back in 1983. Working with a logging legend like Mr O’Sullivan meant that there was a lot of valuable expertise passed on. One piece of advice in particular was an alternative method of joining strawlines with a backup, should one hook fail. We’ll start by covering Mr. O’Sullivan’s method.

 

#1: Pat O’Sullivan Strawline Join – Setup

This method is a much better choice than the typical join above, as there is a backup join just in case one comes undone. The key benefit to this method is that it is easy to teach and remember. The setup is also easy, just have one strawline eye lined up next to the other and connect one eye to the hook. They should be laying almost parallel like this:

 

Step #1 of Pat's strawline join method

Pat O’Sullivan Method – Step #1

Final Result

Once the first eye is hooked up, twist the other around to help with the ropes memory and stay together. Next, and join up the remaining eye as well. You can see now why ensuring that the strawline eyes are the same length is so important. Next time you’re ordering a new set of strawlines, insist that the eyes are the sames lengths and the knots are in the same place.

Pat's stawline join completed

Pat O’Sullivan Method – Step #2 (FINAL)

 

#2 The TERRAIN Strawline Join – Setup (Recommended)

At TERRAIN we’ve always been looking for ways to increase performance for our customers. One way we’re doing this has been teaching our strawline join to everyone who’ll listen. The biggest benefit to joining a strawline this way is all in how hardy the joins are. It is immensely unlikely that both hooks will come apart, meaning a near indestructible join. Below we’ve got a step by step guide on how we do our strawlines as well as why this join works so well even when one hook comes loose.

The first step is laying the eyes in parallel next to each other and threading one eye through the other:

TERRAIN strawline join method - Step #1

TERRAIN Method – Step – 1

The TERRAIN Strawline Join step – 2

Now one eye has been threaded through the other the next step is repeat step 1 with the other eye to get the lines intertwined. Once that is finished your strawline should look like this:

TERRAIN strawline method step #2

TERRAIN method step – 2

The TERRAIN Strawline Join – Final

Finally, join the eyes back to their respective hooks. The end result should look something like the below. We’ve coloured the image for a clearer picture of how both eyes are  looped through the other. If one of these hooks came loose now, the other will be able to hold the line together.

TERRAIN strawline join Method Final (coloured)

TERRAIN Method Final (coloured)

TERRAIN Strawline Join – Demonstration (Backup in Action):

Here’s what happens when one of the hooks comes loose using our method. Although it is hard to see in our image as we haven’t got any tension on our rope, but the join still remains in a tight hold.

TERRAIN join holding with 1 hook

TERRAIN join holding with 1 hook

Here’s what the join looks like up close when one of the hooks has come loose. You can see there’s still a tight hold on the line were this out in the field:

TERRAIN METHOD - DEMONSTRATION (CLOSE-UP)

TERRAIN METHOD – DEMONSTRATION (CLOSE-UP)

 

 

IN CONCLUSION

Our aim with everything we do has always been to save our customers time and money. Our vision is to be New Zealand’s most dependable support partner to our industries nationwide.  We hope this blog will prevent at least one crew from requiring the hours needed to reset their setting. We’re happy to chat about strawlines or anything else you can come up with. For expert advise on the bush give us a call on 0800 LOGGER, get in touch via contact us, or email [email protected]. If you’re looking for a demo then drop on by–we’ve been passionately going over this for a while now.

Stay safe out there.

— Dale

 

Banner image courtesy of DOC NZ – Rakiura Track overview