How to Extend Cable Ties

Making cable ties longer with daisy chaining

Cable ties are great for securing a huge range of objects and with the vast array of lengths and widths they come in, there’s usually a cable tie for any job you need no matter how large or small. 

An issue usually arises when the object you have to secure has a bigger diameter than the maximum bundle diameter of the cable ties you have available.

One creative way of getting round this is by linking one cable tie to another. This will provide the extra length you need. There are however a few issues with extending cable ties in this manner. These are:

1.The largest issue is the loss of strength of the cable ties, when you attach one cable tie to another the ties lose a huge amount of their tensile strength. There’s been no studies conducted to determine exactly what the tensile strength is reduced to, it would also depend heavily on how many cable ties are used and the sizes of the cable ties that are daisy chained together.

2.Another issue that could be faced while linking cable ties together in this fashion is that they may become less secure where the heads of the cable ties are. The heads are the weakest points of the ties and they won't be flat on several points depending on how many are daisy chained together. 

Other than these two points above the cable ties should still do the job required if they are connected to each other to make them longer.

How to Daisy chain cable ties

It is a very simple process to join cable ties together just insert the end of one of the ties into the head of another.

Once this is done just repeat the process depending on how many cable ties you want to join together. Finally once they are all joined together just insert the end of the original tie to the remaining unused head and tighten to secure in place, just like any other cable tie. 

Remember while this might be a great shortcut to completing a job more easily, it will dramatically reduce the advertised tensile strength of our cable ties, making them less useful for any heavier duty task.

 

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