[TowerTalk] Cable pulling

[Jim Hargrave]

David,

You can fabricate a sponge ball using foam rubber and cover it with cloth so
it will slide. Attach a nylon string to it and suck it thru using a shop
vacuum cleaner. Once you get it through, then you can use the string to pull
in your pull wire...etc.
It works fine with PVC, but I'm not sure about corrugated tubing. Getting a
good seal might be tricky.

    73s de Jim
       W5IFP


  > -----Original Message-----
  > From: towertalk-bounces at contesting.com
  > [mailto:towertalk-bounces at contesting.com]On Behalf Of David Aslin
  > Sent: Sunday, May 06, 2012 4:49 PM
  > To: towertalk at contesting.com
  > Subject: [TowerTalk] Cable pulling
  >
  >
  > Gerald's note prompts me to ask a related question:
  > What techniques are folks using for the first pull through a conduit?
  > Background: Like Gerald, I plan to have a 400ft+ run of 4 inch
  > corrugated irrigation tubing.  A 400ft fish tape would be hard to
  > find/expensive, but I need to get a pull rope through the conduit before
  > I can do the first cable pull (LDF5-50)  How?
  >
  > 73
  > David G3WGN  WJ6O
  >
  > ------------------------------
  > Date: Sun, 6 May 2012 15:13:42 -0300
  > From: "VE1DT-Towertalk" <gboutin at seaside.ns.ca>
  > Subject: [TowerTalk] Wire Soap - How Much?
  > To: <towertalk at contesting.com>
  > Message-ID: <001801cd2bb3$f96e2ce0$ec4a86a0$@seaside.ns.ca>
  > Content-Type: text/plain;	charset="us-ascii"
  >
  > I've no experience in running cables through conduit, but I do know that
  > I want to use a cable lube. I can get Klein #15028 1 quart bottles
  > locally, but I don't know how much I will need. Also, I know I don't
  > want to run out part way. In browsing through the archives, the answer I
  > keep seeing is "lots".
  >
  > In my case, I am using 4" diameter corrugated irrigation tubing for a
  > couple of LMR600 cables, a couple rotator cables and a few CAT5 cables.
  > Total
  > length is 400 feet. Worst case would be the volume of the conduit.
  > Using
  > the formula,    pi *r^2 *length    tells me about 30 gallons. I am not
  > planning on doing that.
  >
  > Polywater   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kr87VQcJeK8  says to use this
  > formula for PolywaterJ: Gallons = 0.0015 * Diameter(inches) *
  > Length(feet).
  > This comes out to 2.4 gallons. Using 1 quart bottles, this comes to
  > about
  > $150 here. Grainger also sells larger 1 gallon containers of 3M WL lube
  > at about the same price as two of the Klein one quart squeeze bottles.
  >
  > Does 3 gallons sound about right?
  >
  > --
  > Gerald Boutin, VE1DT
  >
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