Contrary to some rumors apparently circulating, I do do some work. (Isn't English wonderful - how you can mix a scatological thought in with a serious comment on work? Maybe there
is a connection, hmmmm...)
As you can see from the following shots, I'm hard at work dragging and connecting the 1/8" wire rope, vinyl-clad cables to the framework. The shade cloth fabric will be suspended from these.
First, I had the good folks at National Hardware cut four lengths of the cable to length, each about thirty-eight feet long. Then, when I was ready, I laid out the cables on the deck. As you can see, I wore leather work gloves for part of this project. The wire or cable (here the terms are interchangeable) had a coating of some really sticky oil on it - I assume to protect the vinyl, but, who knows
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| Working With The Cables |
Anyway, after laying it out, and beginning to work with it, the didn't seem to be much of an issue, so the gloves went away when I began attaching the fittings to the wire and the stanchions.
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| Laying Out Cables |
As you can see, I even work from the dizzying heights of the pump house rooftop. Here I'm connecting the first of the cables to the stanchion, using what are called thimbles - metal tracks the cable runs in as it goes around a tight bend. The thimble prevents the cable from making too tight a turn through a curve, thus protecting the cable from needless abrasion and other wear.
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| Connecting Cable to Anchor Point |
Assuming that at least some of you didn't know that a thimble could be anything other than a metal thing that fits over your finger to keep you from jabbing yourself with a needle, the picture below shows, on the left, a wire thimble. The item to its right is a threaded shackle, a very strong item used to connect all manner of rigging. The shackle pin is threaded and one leg of the shackle is tapped so that the pin can be inserted.
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| Wire Thimble and Shackle |
The turnbuckle, which you see below (along with a thimble and a shackle) is used to tighten the wire. It's done by inserting a screwdriver or other rod into the long hold in the middle and turning one direction or the other to loosen or tighten as the case may be.
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| Turnbuckle |
And lastly, for this segment, if you look closely (you can click on any of the photos to expand them) you can see that all the wires or cables have been drawn up taught, ready to have the shade cloth and caribiners attached. I have the caribiners, but we're still waiting for Jose, the upholsterer, to return from the States.
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| Wires All Tight |
Till next time, Cheers.
