Is this poor manufacturing
 

We finally got all out rigging gear and wire. But all the toggels on the turnbuckles sit high off the shaft by about 3-4mm. Looks like poor tooling in the manufacturing process. Will the point loading created by it sitting high be a concern ?

Thanks

Ummmh - I tried to post a photo, but that did not work.

A wordy description is:

The thick sheet metal of the toggl is bent over a round dye to form it so it will fit over the pin on the bottom of the turnbuckle. However it does not sit flust over the pin, but instead sits off by 3-4mm as the radius of the pin is greater than that of the internal radius of the toggle, no amount of pushing and even levering will get the pin neatly into the toggle.

I am concerned that in time there will be point loading on the bent sheet metal.

See if this photo will work:
http://adams35.multiply.com/photos/album/2#1

Dear Ribbony,

I may be wrong, but that does not look like one of the Ronstan turnbuckles you mention in a previous post.

If so, and you have chosen other than Ronstan, you may have fallen into a classic "Price Versus Quality" trap.

I feel for you.

The only thing to do is approach the vendor with your concerns.
Do not be fobbed off with "It will ride down with wear" or other excuses. It probably will, but the toggling action will be compromised.

That being said, and if they are the brand I suspect they are, there are thousands of those fittings on boats around the world and they fail very rarely.

Somewhat in defence of the manufacturers, is surprisingly difficult to reliably punch and bend toggle plates with any consistency. Material avalability, tolerances, die wear and designer and operator idiocy all come into play (pardon the pun).

If you want a further source of irritation, have a look at the clearance in the clevis pin holes and then have a look at the squareness of the axis of the pins to the long axis of the turnbuckle!

Take care that your efforts to complete the manufacturing process ("pushing and even levering") do not damage the chrome and enable the vendor to say " Well you have mucked about with it, we can not take it back now"

As general advice, a sound plan when purchasing materials and components, rather than getting the whole thing complete from a rigger, is to gain a working knowlege of what you want to do, carry out some research into available replacement parts, listen to people you feel you can trust, and then go out and buy the best quality items you can find.

You have been advised as such, but not in as many words in replies to your recent posts.

As an aside, and further to previous exchanges, did you inspect your chainplates?

Are they servicable?

Regards,
Joe Henderson.

Thanks Joe for the many wise words.

I will avoid mentioning the brand involved, but they are made in NZ.

We did some research and came to the decision to use these as they had a much higher load rating than the Ronstan TB's. These were over a ton stronger than the wire we are using where as the ronstan fittings were 200kg under the rating of the wire (we have the test certificate for the wire). Thought we did get them a little cheaper than ronstan we went more with the load rating, though the toggles in their current state would detract from the 6934kg rating.

a toggle made and installed like that will probably crack. We have had it happen on rigs when we still used that quality of hardware...

You should have no problem returning those to the manufacturer. Considering they are "faulty out of the box" you can not be responsible for the shipping costs either. It's very unfortunate that you ended up in this situation but it may just be bad luck. As long as your source handles it reasonably and accepts a return as he should then this should all be somewhat painless - just a delay to your schedule. As a side note, I believe I ran in to you on the cruisers forum. Nice to see you here asking for advice as well. Some very capable people on this forum.

I have put two stays on the lowers and the gap definitly closed up somewhat as there is reasonable tension on them. But, when it stops raining I can get down and look properly to see just what gaps are there and take a photo to update the situation.

Yes, there are some great forums, each with it's own interest group. Obviously it is great to have a forum that specialises in this rigging topic as it is a very important issue with vessel and crew security at the core of a good rig, performance also but that is not so much a concern for us. The Cruisers forum being very broard base and diverse, then if we have a welding question (steel boat), the MBS is the best place to ask.

No excuse for this
 

Hello,
Sound suggestions above. I'll just add that, regardless of how strong these turnbuckles rate -- or even how strong they actually are -- there is not excuse for this kind of poor quality control. Send 'em back.
As far as the difference in load ratings, I'm curious: did you compare break strengths, or just rated load? Different manufacturers will use different numbers, and the less scrupulous will inflate their rated loads, right up to the yield strength of the material, instead of using a sane factor of safety.
As for mentioning the brand, please feel free! We have no advertisers to offend here, and in any event we all have a duty to wake up manufacturers, and to protect one another from the sleeping ones.
Fair leads,
Brion Toss

The gap has closed up considerably under tension, but there is still a gap there and the load will still be sitting on 2 points rather than spread around the curve of the toggle/pin :(.

The brand - "Searig"

The strength of the screws was the "BL (kg)" that is listed in both the Searig and Ronstan catalogues.

Here is a photo of the toggle under tension when installed as a lower shroud.
http://adams35.multiply.com/photos/album/2#3

I did return one swage toggle for a 1/4" wire that had the clevis pin skewed off at an angle as Joe mentioned in his comment on the turnbuckles. Something going on with these toggle plates, wonder if there is subcontracting happening. They used to have Searig stamped on them but these do not.