Just realized my fish tape was the problem, not the conduit

After 12 years of pulling cable I finally figured out why I kept getting snags on long runs. I always blamed the conduit, figured it was crushed or had debris inside. Last week on a job in Tacoma I swapped my old steel fish tape for a fiberglass one and it changed everything. The steel tape was getting kinked from all the tight bends, so it was catching on every coupling and pulling apart the jacket. The fiberglass one flexes better and slides way smoother, plus it's lighter so I can carry it on my shoulder without killing my back. I pulled 400 feet of cat6 in about 20 minutes with zero snags, where normally I'd be fighting it for an hour. Anyone else switch materials on their fish tape and see a huge difference, or was I just using a worn-out piece of crap for too long?

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max_ramirez4825d ago

The thing nobody talks about is temperature. Steel fish tape acts totally different in a cold crawlspace versus a warm day, it gets stiff and that kink problem gets way worse when it's 40 degrees down there. Fiberglass stays about the same flex no matter what, which is probably half of why your Tacoma pull felt so smooth. Also worth checking the age of your tape, they get work hardened over years of use and start fighting you in a way that feels like it's the conduit's fault. Pretty sure half the guys blaming conduit are really just blaming a tool that gave up a long time ago.

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