Is there any way to recycle old rigging?

[Scott Berg]

We sold the old ss rigging on our ketch for over $100 US to a local recycler.
They did a magnet test and a scratch test, confirmed the metal, and asked if I had more. They LIKE SS it seems


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[skipmac]

Originally Posted by Stumble

Even assuming you chose to buy 3/8 1x19 wire. The cost for 80' of it would only be $290. So for at most $300 you are willing to use life safety gear that you know is not up to spec anymore?

Just an FYI the four Norseman terminals for jacklines would cost you $320. If you want to use them for lifelines, expect to spend a few thousand dollars on terminals, and save a few hundred bucks on old wire.

First, I would not consider using old rigging that was in poor condition. I'm replacing the rigging on my boat just because of age. If I lost the mast with out of date rigging, insurance might not pay. I've inspected all the fittings with a magnifying glass and not a crack to be found on a single swage nor a single fishhook or even a discolored strand in any of the wires.

If I can still do the math correctly, a 200 lb person falling 10' would generate a shock load of about 1000 lbs. Since tethers are typically 6' or less and I weight about 175 that calculation is well beyond what I would expect to encounter in the real world in a worst case scenario. Even if the wire had lost half of its strength that is still a very wide safety margin.

I used to do some fairly extreme diving and from that background I learned one does not scrimp on important details in life support equipment. in this case I don't see there is any compromise in safety.

I would keep the swage on one end and just add a StaLok on the other so the cost would be less than your estimate but this isn't mainly about saving money. It's also about finding a beneficial use for good used stuff instead of going straight to the garbage with it.

[RaymondR]

The failures I have experienced with stainless steel rigging wire were both at the swaged fitting not in the body of the wire itself.


I practice a sort of rolling replacement regime, replacing the roller furler's forestay about twice as often as the other parts of the standing rigging and the lateral mast supports more often than the for/aft.


I am becoming a bit leery about replacing much of the old high quality equipment on the boat, particularly stainless, since there is so much rubbish about these days.

[bletso]

Originally Posted by Xthewater

Kept mine after standing rerigging. Soaked in a tub of warm oxalic acid then neutralized, came out looking shiny new. Repurposed for lifelines.

Good idea as my lifelines are in really bad state and I have to replace my rigging as well which still appears good, but very old. (30 yrs) (No it is still not up as the boat is on the hard and has been for 18 yrs. Yes life can suck.)

[Stumble]

Originally Posted by bletso

Good idea as my lifelines are in really bad state and I have to replace my rigging as well which still appears good, but very old. (30 yrs) (No it is still not up as the boat is on the hard and has been for 18 yrs. Yes life can suck.)

There are two main failure modes of stainless. The first is corrosion, which an acid bath may be able to arrest. The second is from work hardening that makes the metal brittle over time.

To do anything about the brittleness you have to re-anneal the wire in a temprature controlled environment. For 304 stainless I think it's 8 hours at 1050C (but that is just from memory it's likely wrong). Without this annealing work hardened stainless

If you just want to reuse the wire then make a painter for your dinghy, use it for non-mission critical stuff, even give it to someone to make a gate out of. But please don't put it anywhere that a human life could be relying on it to work. The cost savings are minimal at best, and someone litterly could die over a few dollars.

[Nicholson58]

Originally Posted by skipmac

If I read Nicholson58 correctly, on my last boat I ran them like he described. Mounted pad eyes fore and aft and ran the jack lines on the deck right up against the cabin. This was a while ago but I don't recall any significant scratch or dent to the deck.

I'm looking at options on the cabin top for my current boat as I think having the jack line closer to the centerline of the boat the length of the tether will keep you on deck and not hanging over the lifelines.

Correct, ours were permanent PVC coated SS cable with fixed swaged ends on pad eyes on the deck. The location was at the intersection of the cabin side to the deck. It ran inside the spreaders from near the bow to about the primaries. The forward pad eyes are where the cabin top blends into deck. Clip on and move fore & aft. This is strong and non-stretchy. This will keep you on deck. In this application, it is not possible to slid/roll on the jack. Zoom in on this really old photo of me on the foredeck. You can get a feel for the geometry. Don't you just love those old IOR designs? There was always plenty to do.