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Posted by David Sherman on Tuesday, April 22, 2008 at 19:28:59 :
In Reply to: Galvanized cable posted by Mark in NJ on Tuesday, April 22, 2008 at 16:57:03 :
The abuse a truck winch cable endures is nothing compared to the cable on a slusher in a mine. It's runs from the slusher, which is basically an air-powered winch, out to a block at the end of the drift, and back to the slusher bucket. The smaller mines still use slushers to drag muck from the working face back to a chute or to a place where they can get it with a mucker, which runs on rails. In constant all-day use the cable gets wound in and out around a fairly small drum, while being dragged through gritty muck and water. Nobody takes any special care of it, although somebody might throw some old oil on it once in a while. The next time I need a winch cable for a truck, that's what I'm using, especially since I can get it right here in Wallace and it's cheaper than any other cable of similar size at the rigging supply places in Spokane. I'm not sure what its official designation is, but here they just call it "slusher cable". It's not stainless and it's not galvanized. It probably has an oiled hemp core. If stainless or galvanized lasted longer under that kind of abuse, the mines would be willing to pay extra for it, but they don't.