StaLok and Norseman blues

[Gordon Dove]

As planned, I got a local rigger to demonstrate how to fit the StaLok for me. I don't have any Portuguese, so this was purely watch and learn.

First of all, he closed the cone up a bit with a pair of pliers. After opening the strands and inserting the cone, he then did the re-lay by means of a pair of pliers and a lot of violent twisting action. The cone still tried to escape, so he hammered it back in with a small socket and hammer. After adding the former and some exuberant spanner action, he opened it up again and I have to admit it looked pretty much exactly like the 'normal' pictures I've seen of a correctly fitted StaLok. A generous amount of Sika 291 and some even more exuberant spanner action and he was done.

He had a quick look at the Norseman I'd done an initial assembly on and pronounced it good, added Sika and once more an exuberant amount of tightening (cringe).

My conclusions from all this are that a) the local riggers don't have a magic formula for this wire. b) I was right to at least want to do the job myself, c) I should seriously consider getting the stays redone when I get to somewhere with better wire, d) He spurned my loctite, but I'm pretty sure there is plenty of Sika on the threads, so opening them again could be interesting and e) at around four dollars US, I probably got what I paid for .