Industries that use complex machinery know the importance of using high-quality safety wire for your business. From aerospace machinery to hardware wholesale, choosing the best lock wire for your industry will ensure your equipment functions properly.
Safety wire or locking-wire is a type of positive locking device that prevents fasteners from loosening or falling out due to vibration and other forces. The presence of safety wiring may also serve to indicate that the fasteners have been properly tightened.
Safety lock wire is an important safety feature used in many industries to guarantee mechanical stability. Pieces of equipment such as screws, nuts, bolts, and other fasteners slowly loosen over time during periods of high vibration. In these instances, you need a wire lock to prevent loosening and accidents as a result of mechanical failures.
A safety wire is used to ensure proper security for a fastener. The wire needed is long enough to reach from a fixed location to a hole in the removable fastener, sometimes a linchpin or hitch-pin through a clevis yoke for instance and the wire pulled back upon itself, parallel to its other end, then twisted, a single end inserted through a fastener, and twisted again, possibly then anchored to a second fastener or other part, then twisted once again, having excess slack pulled relatively taut to be secure.
The two ends of the wire-loop thus formed are joined by twisting them together with a tool, using enough twists to be secure, then released from the twisting tool. When finished, any excess length of wire would be cut off with a pair of wire cutters, such as pliers that may, also, be the twisting tool. If the fastener part to be secured does not come with a hole for the safety wire, one may need to be drilled.
Many systems purport to be more efficient than installing traditional safety wire, an advantageous by-product of the twisting method of installing safety wire is that it leaves a highly visible and easily inspectable indication that the fasteners in question are in fact properly secured.
