Technical The Lost Art Of Lacing Cable

Neat stuff. I don’t have the patience for that though. I just stuff mine in woven loom. Easy to get a wire out or add one if you need to. Probably boring compared to stitching, but I never was the life of the party anyway…..

 

Or cut them with a pair of flush cuts

 

I used lacing on mine. Individual ties though rather than a continuous run.
Zip ties look like ass.

 

So other then this looking like art .

and with cloth wrapped wiring I could take a wiring harness done like this ito bed and have it be the little spoon .

what are the advantages over split loom
, correctly cut zip ties etc .?
Why is it still used in certain applications ?


Trust me I’m not criticizing, I think this is art in a utilitarian form , it’s beautiful. But why is it still relevant as most folks ‘ain’t “ touched like us” and see beauty in this kinda stuff .

 

Yep. I still have a roll of lacing twine from my USAF days in the 70s. It was an art when done correctly. Did many telephone central office and PBX installs using this method to make the cables perfectly aligned.

 

That’s pretty cool looking. But zip ties are good enough for junk I work on. I’ll bookmark this thread for if I ever build something nice.

 

This was originally used as a kind of strain relief. Race cars, boats, planes, industrial equipment, any place vibration could be present. By tying the wires together, the increased mass of the combined wires reduced its susceptibility to certain vibration frequencies, plus where there's multiple terminals, the stress is spread out between them.

 

This ^^^^, then roll the cable tie around so the "knob" is on the backside which besides looking better helps hold the loom off the surface a little.

 

like the look! I wish I had the paitence to do it, if your good at it I would think your a wiring
machine, a real tradesman. I had friends that would get girls to braid the wiring on choppers back in the day. hippie type chicks. I miss the 70's

 

I have always admired attention to detail. I’ve spent many years in QC critiquing parts, assembles and such.
I can recall as a youngster spending many hours modeling and drawing.
It’s amazing how we change as our life’s priories dictate.
My grandmother never stopped having this trait. I think it was her way to relax.
Those wire looms and lacing remind me of these given to us as a young couple 50 yrs ago. Made by her.
Hell I struggle tieing fishing knots.
Great post Ryan thanks.

 

I was an aircraft electrician in the Navy and then worked for Mcdonnel Aircraft, Mcdonnel_Douglas, Then Boeing. I must have tied a million ties on wire bundles. If string works on F15s its good enough for hot rods. When building wire bundles if the wires are all parallel it is difficult to bend. If you want a flexible wire bundle twist it instead of having the wires parallel. Hope that helps, but on cars the wires are usually routed and shaped as you go.

 

Great post and lost art. I learned as a machine apprentice when wiring up new machinery . We also used it on pneumatics lines for air valves and micro switches .

 

It's so relevant.

 

I've posted elsewhere about my first job working in an aircraft salvage where everything was WW II or earlier. It was explained to me by some of the older aircraft mechanics that lacing wire looms was necessary to control wire chafing from vibration. You don't want a bunch of birds nest wiring in your reciprocating engine powered aircraft, with the built-in vibrations, causing your aircraft to burn up.

 

During my time (1968-1972) as a 2nd class Aviation Electrician Petty officer in the US Navy I had many experiences using the waxed string to secure wire bundles on S2G aircraft. Our method employed the single tie spaced out as necessary not the "cabling method" . We had to rewire a complete main junction box and the shop supervisor was anal on how we spaced the ties and would reject our work if he felt the spacing was not uniform! I still have a roll of the black waxed string but do not use it for securing wire bundles as it is time consuming and difficult to do especially under a dash.
It does look impressive if done correctly

 

As vehicle wiring became more flexible, lacing became less practical.

Compare aircraft wire to the same AWG automotive and you'll see what I mean.

For stiffer wire, lacing is an excellent way to secure. For flexible where you don't need it to flex or spaghetti, loom tape. Plus loom tape can be spooled on by a machine easily, and to a lesser degree takes less skill and returns more uniform results if your workforce has varying experience and capability.

 

Love this post and the following comments. Ryan, question: Is there a similar tutorial on wrapping steering wheels? The look of a wrapped wheel is so neat. Thanks.

 

There is a tutorial on wrapping steering wheels on WikiHow. https://www.bing.com/ck/a?!&&p=f43f...dC4lMjAuLi4lMjBNb3JlJTIwaXRlbXMuLi4lMjA&ntb=1

 

I remember way back in the day, Matt ( @HotRodDrummer ) posted up some of his wire lacing.

It's neat stuff.

 

That stuff looks and works fantastic; did it a lot on aircraft. Hated trying to trace it, 'specially when all the wire was white and it hadn't been marked when it was replaced. Just start cutting ties...

 

I started work with United Telephone in 75 as a Combination man.
We learned how to lace cable in Vo Tech. My buddy here on the HAMB Ebbsspeed worked for the same phone company as a CO installer. He is a pro at lacing cable. We used to call the thin stuff Cat Gut. As time went by they went to a round waxed string that wasn't as easy to use. I have a couple spools of Cat Gut left. Ebbsspeed is building a flathead cad powered model A
I hope he laces the wiring harness.

 

Do it every day for a paycheck only color used is white with black speckle's called salt and pepper is flat more like shoe strings stuff is tuff impossible to break and hard on your fingers

 

My Mom said those were SP, Doilies.

 

Laced cable reminds me of safety-wired fasteners. Probably not needed as much in a modern world of zip-ties and Nord Locks, but when run with patience and care both are truly beautiful to look at. Makes you step back and appreciate the craftsmanship that went into the task.

Cheers,
Harv

 

Where I worked our workmanship standards prohibited continuous lacing. It made repairs harder. We had some electronics in from Rockwell or Boeing, I forget which. That was continuous-laced. We opened it up, fixed what we had to and laced it back up our way.

I had one of our buyers forward a call from a harness vendor. The vendor said that their lacing wouldn't stay laced it, it was coming loose. I cut and pasted a few pictures from our workmanship standards and sent them over. They were doing the basic ties incorrectly.

 

I thought i posted this earlier, but it didnt post so will try again. On the roll of string tie in an earlier post, if you take out the center cardboard and tape a u shaped flat piece to the outside of the roll , that lets you hang it close to where you are working and pull the string down from the center of the roll. easier than unwinding it from the outside

 

I gave it a try last year when I rewired the '30...
Chappy

 

Thank you.