Technical Hog rings on your wiring ?

I just use a twist of electrical tape around wire bundles every so often before I stick them in the loom. Plastic zip ties to fasten the loom to the car, or rubber lined adel brackets.

 

lacing string, plastic ties can cut.

 

Let me add a little more information about what I'm thinking here. There are times when you can't easily put shrink tubing around wiring because some/all the wires in a group have the connectors on each end. When putting electrical tape around the wiring every foot or so, it seems like the tape often doesn't like to stay stuck and the end begins sticking loose. What I was thinking was putting the tape around the wiring and then applying a hog ring "gently" encomp***ing the tape.

Also, I'm building a 32 coupe which I plan to chop the top on. The front pillars will have wiring run thru them to some guages that I currently plan to install above the windshield. The engine will be supercharged and I need some additional guages beyond the normal 6. The normal 6 will be grouped/arranged in a traditional fashion, and the other needed guages placed unobtrusively above the windshield. Thats the current plan anyway. Routing the wires up thru the pillar, I thought completely wrapping the wire and then using the hog rings would provide a smaller group to fish thru the pillar.

It may prove to be a bad idea, and I'll experiment on some old wire that I have laying around, but I just thought that it might be easier to fish thru tight spots on some cars. I appreciate all the input from everyone.

 

This is actually a fact I knew but only because of when my dad was helping me learn how to stretch seat covers on my first project car when I was a kid. Pretty sure that is when he told me they were also used in hogs noses to keep them from rooting...because his dad had hogs when he was a kid. Pretty sure my only use for them will remain upholstery.

 

In the early 30s Packard used the waxed string, then later they used galvanized metal strips that just bent around the bundle with a pinch. Then they went to a copper metal strap with a thin loop in the end thay you folded over. I have 1 stashed but usually just use some surplus stainless sheet, brushed, cut into thin strips, deburred, just wrap n bend around. I ran wires thru my pillars on both sides. 3 on 1 side for a sound system, 8 on the other for dome lights and all the rear light wires. I started with 2 taped together, longer, then fed the rest along and with those. I had to sacrifice about a foot and a ½. Once in and run along the roof/trough area inside I wrapped a bit of good quality tape every foot or so. Easy, mine is a 39, roof pillars were pretty tight. In Packard sedans it has enough room for a copper vac line and a funky vintage radio coax gig that used the chicken wire top insert for an antenna.

 

Try loom lacing. This is how the pros do it

 

A hog ring is too difficult to get the right tension on wire groups. It's either going to be too loose and slide, or too tight and cause an eventual short.
When I need to feed wiring groups through someplace, I cut short sleeves off my roll of heat shrink tube, slide them over the wires, and then just shrink them down. It works great and adds so little to the bundle size that it's extremely easy to pull through. And unlike twine, or tape, it's not going to get caught inside an area, come off, and end up causing more troubles.

 

I love these threads.
OP "Is this a good idea."
Everyone to a man "no".
OP "I am going to try it anyways."

 

I use the metal ties that were used on the old Limey bikes, BSA, Triumph, etc.
Clean, thinner than plastic ties, trim them to length, simple-no special tools and you can reuse them a few times.

 

Friction tape was common in the 50s and 60s

 

Most have reccomended against it, but I don't think anyone ever said they had actually tried it or something similar. There are apparently various sizes of these rings and the ones I'm considering appear to be blunt on the end and not made for piercing. They are only 3/8" in diameter and more of a "fencing" ring than an actual "hog" ring. I'll post a couple more pictures that I just found that show them being used. I saw a video the other day but can't find it now. It also appears that installing them is a "gentle" process that doesn't require a lot of pressure.

I'm not afraid to try new things or go my own way when doing something. Failure is an experience that I can learn from just as well as a success. At any rate I don't see the harm in trying it on my workbench ..........If it isn't satisfactory,I guess I can always use the small left over rings on some miniature pigs.......

 

I’ve used all these , zip ties ( if you cut them with a razor blade you can loose that sharp edge )

those hose clamp type things , the metal zip ties .

I can’t see why a big ring won’t work , just be careful when you crimp it to not pinch any wires , and if you ever need to get it apart it could possibly be a pain.

hey , I’ve thought of dumber stuff then this , heck I got a couple stupid ones floating around right now

let’s face it , untill you try you won’t know if it’ll work or not !

 

I have used two sided velcro, sticks to itself. Generally used to tie plants to stakes.

 

I was involved on the B-1B electronics at work in 1985. We had a huge panic of boxes coming back from the field with chafed wiring. After 3 shifts of people working on it, all was well. But all that stuck with me, sharp edges were the main culprit. The mention of any metal close to unprotected wiring gives me chills.

 

If your loom has a connector on each end, and it's going to be pulled through some area too small for heat shrink to be used over the wires, then the only other option would be to tape it every so often, and then as it is pulled in remove the tape wraps. I've done this before and I just leave a tail on each wrap so it's easy to grab and pull off as I feed it in.

 

Best deal is to add a cable tie cutter to your tool box. Tension and cut flush in one motion. In a past life I worked in a data center that had thousands of cables to reach computer to ****og modems. A single cabinet would have 100s of cables all wire tied to each other or supports. Without a real cable tie tool those sharp edges would cut you hand up in a hurry when adding or moving connections.

I still have a real Panduit metal version. Adjustable tension too to prevent damaging insulation