The History of Wire Rope

  Rope is one of the oldest tools used by man. Beginning with vines and woven rushes, he used this tool from everything from building shelters and bridges to making fish nets. Wire was first made approximately 3,000 years ago by hammering out a sheet of malleable metal and than cutting a narrow strip from the edge of the sheet. This strip was then hammered into a slender wire. This type of wire rope dates to 700 B.C. It consists of a bundle of parallel wires bound together at intervals. A piece of bronze wire rope was found at Pompeii . The piece is nearly 15 feet long and about 3/8" in diameter. It consists of three strands laid in a spiral, each strand being made of 15 wires twisted together.

  The first appearance of wire rope, as we know it today, was estimated to be between 1816 and 1840. The use of wire rope developed rapidly in the industrial expansion following the Civil War until it has become essential to modern industry.

  A Wire Rope is a machine with many moving parts. A typical 6 x 25 rope (six strands consisting of 25 wires each) has 150 wires in its strands, all of which move independently and together in a very complicated pattern around the core as the rope bends. Clearances between wires are balanced when a rope is designed so that proper bearing clearances will exist to permit internal movement and adjustment of wires and strands when the rope has to bend.