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Showerthought: bailing wire beats zip ties on a suction hose, and the old guys were right about it
Last month on a dock job in Port Arthur I watched a tender zip tie a 4 inch suction line at every rib, and two of them popped loose when we hit the mud. I re-rigged the whole run with doubled 16 gauge bailing wire and it held through the rest of the dive with zero slip. Zip ties are fast but they creep and snap under vibration, especially when the hose is loading up. Anyone here still keep a spool of wire in their bag just for hose rigging, or am I the only one stuck in the old way?
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the_anthony27d ago
Bailing wire is good but 16 gauge is a little light for a 4 inch line that's loading up. Maybe "doubled 16" is the trick and you got away with it because you ran it double. I've seen single 16 snap on bigger stuff when the hose starts walking. I keep 14 gauge on the truck, annealed, and it holds way better on anything 4 inch and up. Doubling helps but two wraps of 14 is what I trust when the mud's thick.
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