Old guy in a pickup taught me something about lashing wire

I was out on a job in Greenville last spring, running new lines through this old neighborhood with trees everywhere. Pulled up to the pole and this older fella in a beat up Ford F-150 rolls down his window and watches me for a minute. He finally says "you're gonna fight that lashing wire all day if you don't let it run natural off the spool instead of forcing it." I thought I knew better but after 40 feet of it birdnesting on me I gave his way a try. He just nodded and drove off, never even told me his name. That one tip probably saved me 20 minutes per span on the rest of the job. Anyone else pick up a trick from a random bystander that actually worked?

2 comments

2 Comments

ellis.jennifer29d ago

Oh man that is gold. Reminds me of this old lineman I met at a gas station who showed me a trick for untwisting coax by letting it hang off the back of a bucket truck. Just gravity does all the work. He told me to stop fighting the cable like it's a snake. That advice stuck with me more than any training manual ever did. Sometimes the best tricks come from folks who don't even introduce themselves.

williamd7029d ago

Oh hold on, that's actually a good story but coax is usually pretty forgiving with twists. The real trick with ethernet cable is what you're describing. Coax has that solid copper core running through it, ethernet has those tiny twisted pairs that actually need the gravity trick more. I remember helping a buddy run cat6 through his attic and we had the whole spool dangling off his roof ladder just letting it spin itself straight. Coax you can usually just yank on and it'll be fine, but that old timer probably knew the difference and was just giving you general cable wisdom that works for both.