Original Posted By: rhartwig11(at)juno.com
In a post to Henry, I mentioned the cable shackles from West Marine.I went into the archives and found the post from Joe C. on them. Here it is.[[[ I'll try to describe what I used. I picked up from West Marine, orany marine supply house, stainless eye straps. the ones with 3/16 mountingholes. these kind of look like the omega symbol with mounting holes on eachleg.the loop portion is already formed to accept cables. I then took a 1/4"drillrod and reformed the ends around the rod so they face each other. did thisin asmall vice using a small piece of scrap strap as a spacer to keep the twosidesfrom touching while reforming. to test them, I took a 1/8" cable withnicopressend loop with thimble, fastened to shackle with standard shackle pin. atotherend I attached a turnbuckle rated at 2000#. other end of turn buckle Iattachedcable with loop and looped around the trailer hitch on my Ford Explorer.otherend went through the reformed eyestrap and around a large tree. I then puttheFord in low range 4 wheel drive and slowly applied tension until somethinggave. Well, the eye end of the turnbuckle separated mid way between thethreadsand the eye, the cable had 3 broken strands and the reformed eye strapshowedvery little hole elongation at the pin. to my way of thinking, this adapted"shackle" proved plenty strong for it's intended use.I hope this explanation is clear enough.Naturally all the normal disclaimers apply.By the way, the last eye straps I bought were $1.50 earegardsJoeC]]]] Hope this helps anyone looking for an alternate shackle source. Iused them and they worked great.Carl________________________________________________________________________________Date: Sun, 22 Sep 2002 07:40:40 -0500Subject: Pietenpol-List: Stainless steel hinges