That was this week's task ... 5 pulls, 170 ft. long, of 600MCM copper. 4" pipe.
No matter how you look at it, that's a lot of wire to pull. Just unloading the truck is tough!
This time, thank heaven, we were able to rent a wire tugger. United Rentals brought in a Greenlee machine. One week for $600. Heck, the scrap from the job will cover that!
Heads were made the old fashioned way - no basket / Kellems grips here! Nope- we braided an eye into the 3/8" pull rope, then looped the wires through the eye.
The looping was a bit involved. We discarded the inside strands of each cable, then formed the outside strands into two groups. One group entered the eye from the left and was folded back; the other entered from the right. Scrap strands were then wrapped around the folded strands, making a nice tight bundle. The entire head was no fatter than the bundle of wires itself. Then we wrapped it all in tape - first duct tape, then a layer of electrical tape.
(I bet 'pipe wrap tape' would work even better than electrical tape for this job!)
We were generous with the lube ... we averaged nearly two gallons per pull.
Final results: We got all five pulls done the same (10 hour) day; we had scheduled four days for this. All six of us were still tired - but imagine the alternative! Pulls went smooth and steady.
The moral of this story is: USE a tugger! I've been in the trade since the last millennium ... and this is the first time I've had the luxury. It beats the tar out of the usual improvised "tuggers:" cranes, forklifts, pick-up trucks, etc.
Now, your local rental firm might hem and haw- but they DO have tuggers available.
