lacing cord RE: OT-ish... what to do with > 400 relays...

From: Joe R. <rigdonj_at_cfl.rr.com>
Date: Fri Feb 20 07:52:52 2004

At 11:37 PM 2/19/04 -0500, you wrote:
>I will have to look for them, they are deep in storage will other items from
>my teenage years.
>
>A little bit of the history though....
>
>My father was a wireman/engineering prototype builder. This is back in the
>days when most systems had significant harnesses thay were hand made (with
>lacing cord, no such thing a tie wraps). The harnesses were build (typically
>my placing a full size blueprint on a piece of plywood, placing "nails" at
>all of the junction points and curves, and springs at the end of each leg.
>The wires would them be cut to length, stripped, tinned (coated with solder)
>and placed onto the board. Lacing cord would then be usig to tie the wires
>together (I can still do a half decent running stitch, but can not find any
>waxed lacing cord....).


  That brings back memories. I got my first job in electronics when I was
16 or so. I worked for a company that put in central office systems for
telephone companies. Since I was young, energetic and skinny I had the job
of running the cables on the overhead wireracks that ran around the offices
above the equipment. Once I ran the cables I had to tie them down with
lacing cord. Yeah, the round cord not the flat tape. You had to pull it
super tight and the stuff would really cut into your hands. We tied it
about every foot. We had to tie around the wire bundle and then put loops
between every horizontal layer and loops between every vertical columme. A
typical wire bundle was perhaps 8 layers deep and 14 cables wide (we used
54 pair cable). Runs would be 80 to 150 feet long so I did a LOT of tying.
It would take over a week just to run the cables and tie them down. I'd
frequently use over a spool of cord on one job. After that I had to
terminate all the cables on wire blocks but that's another story.

   I think I still have one roll of lacing cord but other than that I
haven't seen any more of it for YEARS. However when I worked for MMC we
used lacing tape. This stuff is wide and flat and doesn't cut into your
hands the way that the round cord did. It also doesn't have the heavy wax
coating that the round cord did. I see the flat tape occasionally around
the hamfests and surplus stores. Let me know if you want a roll.

   Joe
Received on Fri Feb 20 2004 - 07:52:52 GMT