Hi, cts.
I have seen a few chains snap but never had one 'go' while chaining/clearing. I did see two trucks break a tie-down chain while one of them was trying to pull the other out of a bog - the driver in the bogged truck selected reverse when the tow started instead 1st forward. They never did find the 'missing link'.

Many contractors doing chaining used to carry large shackles on the dozers in case of a chain break. These were usually of the oval pin type with a lock pin inserted hammered into the inserted end to keep it in place. Screw-in pins had a 'nasty' habit of unwinding at inopportune moments, even when wired in place, almost always rendering the shackle useless as a result. Replacement shackles were often 2 days drive away for a return trip, maybe more.

I have broken a doubled-up 3/4" chain twice with a D9T, once while towing a 90-foot rail flat car and once while trying to pull a Cat 637D scraper out of a bog where only the right front wheel had gone down. That second one was when I finally got the 20-foot X 1 1/2" wire rope sling that I had been asking the ranch to purchase for 2 years.

2 X D6Cs are not going to do a lot of damage to 1 1/2" ship's anchor chain when chaining scrub and light timber. 2 X D8Hs are not going to do a lot of damage to a 2 1/2" anchor chain even when chaining some fairly heavy timber. 2 X D9Gs likewise didn't seem to hurt a 3" chain much, even when pulling some fairly heavy timber.

Key chains and necklace chains didn't seem to have the required 'robustness' and so weren't used much.

Chains sometimes did get brittle after a lot of usage. When this happened, we would push the chain in with a heap of scrub or timber and set fire to it overnight. The next morning, we would use the dozers to tease the chain out of the fire heap and let it cool down for a couple of hours before hooking up and going back to work.

Never did see the back end tore out of a Cat when doing this work but did once see what the inside of an IH TD18 looks like after it had 'can-openered' while chaining. They left it where it sat.

NOT that ANY of this has anything much to do with porta power pumps or hollow jacks. LOL.

Just my 0.02.

Hi, cts.
Doo yer kneed a noo wotch chayne?????????????????



They useta make these in 90-foot lengths - referred to in nautical terms as "one cable" - dunno if they still use those measurements since 'meteoric' has become such a 'thing'.

This is the sort of chain we used to use for clearing, although this looks a little heavier than most of what I saw - fun stuff to load onna low bed too. We worked on the width of the cut the dozers could handle in whatever country we were working in plus at least 100 feet per tractor. I once worked 2 D8Hs with 600 feet of 2 1/2" chain cutting around 400 wide - 6,000 acres - 5 X 1,200 acre blocks - in 5 X 13-hour days.

Woodjyer like ter know what used to be the manufacturer's test for wire rope?????? Maybe it still is, I dunno.

Just my 0.02.

Hi, folks.
Donchya just LURRRRVE the subject 'creep' on this 4um?????

Just my 0.02.

Deas wrote:

Hi, folks.
Donchya just LURRRRVE the subject 'creep' on this 4um?????

Just my 0.02.

Well ant that how life is?

Besides it has been educational.  

  So educate me how cable was tested.
 

Hi, Ray54.
I dunno if it is still dunn ther saym way but I wuz told that it useta wuz that the cable wuz rapt 3 times tightly around itz own diameter, then straightened out and subjected to its breaking strain again. Even a slight drop in the strain at which the rope broke was considered a failure.

Not very 'forgiving', huh?

Just my 0.02.

just to add even more confusion, a chain is also a measurement. surveyors chains still in use to day. they have just gone metric and is equal to 20.1168 metres.

In 1620 an English mathematician and astronomer named Edmund Gunter described a surveyor's chain with 100 links, measuring 66 feet (22 yards or 4 poles) overall. By this design, one square chain equals 484 square yards, ten square chains equal an acre, and eighty chains equal a mile.

Hi, Folks.
And, if my admittedly aging memory serves me 'key-wrecked-ly', one link in said surveyor;s chain had an effective length,- inside to inside - of 7.92 inches.

Just my 0.02.