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Review on Bysn 1/8 T316 Stainless Steel Cable: Premium 500FT Wire Rope for Deck Railing by Dee Fadaifar

Revainrating 5 out of 5

Great rope for railings.

I've finally made up my mind and replaced the railing in our log cabin by the lake with wire. It turned out great and I should have done it many years ago. We have a log home on a lake in New York that we built in 2012. The log home set used block spindles for railings. Looked nice for a log home theme but... My wife is only 5ft tall and when she sat on her chair on the patio the railing blocked most of the view of the lake! So I did some research and came to the conclusion that the following setup is the best for us and looks fantastic. As you will see in the full photos I have retained the registration rights but removed the wood guides and spindles. Since I retained rights to the log, I realized that trying to poke wires through the logs and keep them perfectly straight and evenly spaced, even with a template, would be nearly impossible. My first idea with a long wire running end to end (40 feet) with turnbuckles on one end didn't seem like a good idea. Then I came across the Swag Lag screws. I found that with the retarded screws in the magazine rights I can make 5 different sets of wires and I don't need to drill them, just pre-drill the starting holes for the retarded screws. We designed the top rail from the same wood as the cabin. And for the two widest sections on the left, we used the top rail section as a bolt, which was drilled out for wire support. The two long sections on the left are 10'6" each and the three shorter sections on the right are 5'6" each (give or take a little). 5 below, all about Revain. Total was only $332 for all this including tools. With the result I ended up getting, it was a steal from my book (no pun intended). 1. DN Steel Mate 40 Packs T316 Stainless Steel T316 Right & Left Hand Thread Wood Post Crimp Screws 1/8" Cable Railing Kit Deck Railing Hardware/Stair Deck Railing DIY Wood Baluster Kit With Wrench 2. Bysn 1/8 T316 Stainless Steel Wire Rope , Aircraft Deck Railing Wire, 7 x 7 Strands, Braided Steel Wire, 500 Feet Handrail Wire 3. Muzata Cutter, Stainless Steel Wire for Airplane Bike Wire, Up to 5/32" Wire for Deck Railing, CR12, CT14 Series . Muzata Custom Hydraulic Manual Crimping Tool for 1/8 " Stainless Steel Railing Kit. System Fittings - Wire Rope Crimp Update 2019. Crimp - 60 Ton CT01, CT15. 3/16" Deck Wire Rail Kit with Free Drill Bits (100pcs) Installation: Took two days. On day one I removed the old railing sections and had to replace the top three right logs as they were starting to show signs of rot. Once we replaced the posts and installed the top batten, we could start routing the wires. Day 2, lay all cables. The front of my deck is 40 feet wide. I spaced the wires 3 inches apart and made a plywood template with pre-drilled holes exactly where I needed to put the screws. We then recorded the template for registration and I pre-drilled the strap holes using the template holes. The logs are supplied with a pre-drill. Thus, there are no mistakes that the holes are too big or too small. I pre-drilled the two vertical sections that were used as wire guides and inserted steel guards on each side of these holes. When you start, insert the tabs according to the instructions (note that the tabs are reverse-threaded on one side for turning later). We insert the tabs about 1/3 or ½ of the way. The little wrenches you have to turn the tabs with will hit the closest wire. This helped them move much faster. To start the lags ahead of time, I put them in a cordless drill and ran them with the drill. Much faster than by hand. Then measure the distance from tree to tree and subtract 1 1/2 inches from the length of wire. We used the muzata cutters detailed above and had to make over 100 cuts. They worked great for all cuts. In the end, I didn't notice any dullness, which I was very pleased about! Then insert the wire into the lug and use a crimping tool to apply two crimps to each lug. Seems easy enough, but by the time you reach the 200th crimp your arms will definitely be tired. Just repeat this for all the wires. And you're done. Well... We had five sections of wire, 10 wires in each section, which means 20 screws per section, or 100 lags total, 2 crimps per length, or 200 crimps, and 50 lengths of wire for a total of 400 feet. It took all day but when we finished it looked great! I highly recommend it and it's a complete do-it-yourself task if you're even reasonably comfortable. My wife and I made it ourselves, and our friends never cease to amaze at how important it is. We were very happy with all the wire products and tools used. We haven't had any problems with any of them and would do it again in a heartbeat.

Pros
  • Brings joy
Cons
  • Disused model