Just stumbled on a fact about rope terminations that blew my mind

I was going through some old elevator manuals I picked up at a garage sale in Cleveland last month, just killing time. Turns out there's a spec in there from the 1960s that says rope terminations back then were only expected to hold 80 percent of the rope's breaking strength. I always assumed it was closer to 95 percent or something. I double checked it against a newer book I have and sure enough, modern terminations with proper torquing can hit 95 to 100 percent. That 15 percent difference explains a lot about some old jobs I've seen where the ropes looked fine but the car drifted. Has anyone else run into older buildings with rope terminations that just seem undersized for no reason?

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2 Comments

victorclark2mo ago

Isn't that always how it goes, you find one little thing and it cracks open a whole can of worms?

4

ryanh772mo ago

Nobody's talking about how that "one little thing" was probably sitting there for months.

4