Synthetic rigging vs. Stainless steel

[neilpride]

I do seasons in St Marteen and Spain, after hurricane Irma, I sold my part, now I don't spend the hurricane seasons on the island, enough.

Yes, in France for example they usually make excellent things with SS.

[dlj]

Originally Posted by neilpride

I do seasons in St Marteen and Spain, after hurricane Irma, I sold my part, now I don't spend the hurricane seasons on the island, enough.

Yes, in France for example they usually make excellent things with SS.

France has an excellent stainless industry! I've sourced stainless from France - superb material! Also, Aubert-Duval is making some really innovative stainless alloys - really good stuff!

dj

[The Yacht Rigger]

Originally Posted by dlj

To buy direct you need to buy a lot.... Talking tons of material....

So 20 years ago means you are talking 2003, more or less. The composition of these alloys has not changed from then to now. If you were talking to me about 50 years ago - say 1973 time frame - then I would actually disagree with you strongly as in the 1980's and 1990's there were some advancements made in the production of stainless steel that actually improved the quality.

I'd be interested in real data about the wire you consider working better. But honestly, if you are only thinking anecdotal information, it's not very useful. Said with all due respect. I'm not trying to be confrontational. Simply factual.

Wire rope used in rigging for sailboats is most commonly made from an austenitic stainless steel, and we tend to like specifically 316 stainless steel. There are two major factors affecting the corrosion resistance of this alloy (I'm not talking about different alloys here, I'm sticking to 316):

1) Surface finish
2) Percent reduction of area (cold working)

So feeding into the wire rope construction are the individual wires that have the above two components as a fundamental part of their manufacturing. During wire rope manufacturing, you must maintain a number of variables, including the quality of the surface finish. Wire rope construction is very complicated and is essentially the last step in the process of going from Stainless ingot to final product.

As the end buyer - you have no control over any of this process. But, you can ask for the certs of the material - although if you aren't a large buyer, you probably aren't going to get anywhere. Therefore, if you are looking for a reputable supplier, ask for the certifications, learn what you need to ask for, and reputable buyers will be able to provide you a lot more information than what you are currently getting (or likely asking for).

Unless you are a wire rope buyer at the level where you can mandate controls and certifications, that's the best advice I can give you as to how to find a reputable supplier. I'm not trying to be either elusive or combative here - as an end user wishing to buy wire rope for a boat or two or three - you are a very small player and have no leverage to go much further.

As to the quality of wire rope getting worse - frankly - I have to see real data. hearsay and impressions just don't give the information needed and only seem to "feed the insanity" of "things used to be better". Now, maybe they were, or maybe they really weren't. As time passes, the things that stood the passage of time are still standing. So we tend to look back and say - See? That old stuff is better! But, if you really look at everything that had been done back then, many things didn't make it to today... Our memories are not the best sources of actual data.

dj

Yeah I wish I had metallurgic data, and agree, its purely anecdotal, and really not a huge issue, we just occasionally have boats coming in with 25yo rigging that is still incredibly shiny. Hard to track its original source though. We hear this from a lot of other riggers, but again, nobody has hard data.

In regards to buying in bulk, I offered to place orders with minimum $50k (USD), but got turned down. Bumped it up further, still no luck. Anyway, hopefully eventually. We do a ton of rigging here and supply riggers all over the country, so certainly more than a few month.

[dlj]

Originally Posted by The Yacht Rigger

Yeah I wish I had metallurgic data, and agree, its purely anecdotal, and really not a huge issue, we just occasionally have boats coming in with 25yo rigging that is still incredibly shiny. Hard to track its original source though. We hear this from a lot of other riggers, but again, nobody has hard data.

In regards to buying in bulk, I offered to place orders with minimum $50k (USD), but got turned down. Bumped it up further, still no luck. Anyway, hopefully eventually. We do a ton of rigging here and supply riggers all over the country, so certainly more than a few month.

The metals industry is big money. If you were looking at $50M you'd get peoples attention... (possibly a bit less)

Where are you located?

dj

p.s. they look for yearly contracts - at one off levels, probably not going anywhere...

[The Yacht Rigger]

Originally Posted by dlj

The metals industry is big money. If you were looking at $50M you'd get peoples attention... (possibly a bit less)

Where are you located?

dj

p.s. they look for yearly contracts - at one off levels, probably not going anywhere...

St Pete, Florida. You?

[dlj]

Originally Posted by The Yacht Rigger

St Pete, Florida. You?

It's in my avatar on the side - New York.

dj

[Benz]

Originally Posted by dlj

Here, you are mixing two different topics: good quality stainless, and domestic - or a geographic component that has nothing to do with engineering quality. And you've also now changed your statement from "Stainless" to Stainless wire".

So what do you want? Good quality? Or domestic? And what is domestic for you? Where are you in the world? I have no idea. I'm guessing you are from the US. If that's correct, an excellent US based stainless steel producer is Carpenter Technologies. Is there another country you are interested in? There's Aubert Duval in France, there's lots more in lots more places around the world.

Taiwan by the way, also produces excellent quality stainless. So your rejection of using Taiwan stainless is clearly not one based on engineering.

It seems you are mixing up two different things - production of stainless steel, and the manufacture of stainless steel wire rope. That is commonly two different industries, the stainless production and the wire rope manufacturing.

dj

This thread has drifted far into the weeds, but I'll simply point out that in a thread dealing with standing rigging, it's a bit weird to cavil that I didn't specify "stainless wire rope" What is the thread about, for cryin' out loud?

You have claimed that there's good quality stuff, but admitted that for the small boater it's impossible to trace, and therefore impossible to be assured of the quality.
I can trace each spool of Dyneema by a batch number from the manufacturer, who can trace it back to its source (DSM). I cannot so trace stainless steel wire rope.

[Matt Johnson]

Every time I've rigged my boats I received the manufacturer, location, spool number and testing data. This was easily obtained by asking. Not sure if I got lucky with the companies I worked with, but I thought this was pretty standard practice.

[Jim Cate]

Originally Posted by dlj

Jim,

I've not had a problem buying good wire rope. So I'm at a bit of a loss here as to how to answer your question.

I'm going to flip the question around on you - please tell me explicitly what wire rope are you buying that is inferior and please tell me explicitly - in engineering terms - what's inferior about it?

dj

Umm... I didn't say I was buying inferior wire at all. That is a construct on your part. I simply asked where to purchase the superior wire that you say is readily available.

I'm not a rigger, just a DIY cruiser who has re-rigged my own boats several times over the years, and I'd like to have your input on where to source really good wire... but you keep dodging that question. You seem to have specialized knowledge about the subject, info that neither I nor several of the other CF posters who have asked for such a recommendation have ourselves.

What I have done in the past is to specify DieForm wire (sp?). That used to guarantee the source, since only one firm produced it, and it was of good quality and had superior stretch and strength characteristics. Now as I understand the situation they don't produce wire in sizes appropriate to our rigs. The "compact strand" knock-off that is available is made elsewhere by Hamma (sp?). Local riggers here in Australia say that it is good stuff, and the small quantities that I have used have behaved well so far. I'm not sure what I will do in the future... hence the question.

Is this such an unreasonable request?

Jim

[dlj]

Originally Posted by Matt Johnson

Every time I've rigged my boats I received the manufacturer, location, spool number and testing data.
This was easily obtained by asking. Not sure if I got lucky with the companies I worked with, but I thought this was pretty standard practice.

This is indeed pretty standard practice and by both asking for and receiving this information, you are going to be getting high quality wire.

Originally Posted by Jim Cate

Umm... I didn't say I was buying inferior wire at all. That is a construct on your part.

Apologies - It seems others in the thread are claiming you can't get good wire, at least not easily. My difficulty is understanding that - and keeping track of who feels that way or not.

Most wire rope produced today is excellent quality. I actually don't know where to get poor quality wire rope.

If you follow the posters advice above, you should be in good stead.

Originally Posted by Jim Cate

I simply asked where to purchase the superior wire that you say is readily available.

I'd like to have your input on where to source really good wire... but you keep dodging that question.

Is this such an unreasonable request?

Jim

I feel I answered this in post 89. So I'm not trying to dodge that at all. Perhaps what you are expecting is for me to give you a specific supply house or something of that nature.

Wire rope today is typically of excellent quality. If the supply house you are looking at can provide you the certs - as in the above post - you are going to be getting quality wire rope.

dj

[The Yacht Rigger]

Originally Posted by Jim Cate

Umm... I didn't say I was buying inferior wire at all. That is a construct on your part. I simply asked where to purchase the superior wire that you say is readily available.

I'm not a rigger, just a DIY cruiser who has re-rigged my own boats several times over the years, and I'd like to have your input on where to source really good wire... but you keep dodging that question. You seem to have specialized knowledge about the subject, info that neither I nor several of the other CF posters who have asked for such a recommendation have ourselves.

What I have done in the past is to specify DieForm wire (sp?). That used to guarantee the source, since only one firm produced it, and it was of good quality and had superior stretch and strength characteristics. Now as I understand the situation they don't produce wire in sizes appropriate to our rigs. The "compact strand" knock-off that is available is made elsewhere by Hamma (sp?). Local riggers here in Australia say that it is good stuff, and the small quantities that I have used have behaved well so far. I'm not sure what I will do in the future... hence the question.

Is this such an unreasonable request?

Jim

To be specific. Look for wire from KOS. They offer the highest consistent quality in my (and most other US riggers) opinion.

[dlj]

Originally Posted by The Yacht Rigger

To be specific. Look for wire from KOS. They offer the highest consistent quality in my (and most other US riggers) opinion.

Does KOS produce compact strand/Dyform wire rope? I didn't think they did. Do you know? Sorry, I don't really know...

No matter, they do make good quality standard wire rope..

dj