Cable reel guides

Start here: the three numbers

Every wooden reel is named flange x traverse x drum, in inches. A 36x24x17 has a 36-inch flange, 24 inches of inside width between the flanges and a 17-inch drum. That naming comes from NEMA WC 26 / EEMAC 201, the binational packaging standard for wire and cable in the US and Canada, and it is how Okonite, Southwire, Superior Essex and Anixter all list their reels.

If you only read one guide, read the sizes guide. It explains the three numbers, where the published sizes come from and how flange, drum and traverse trade off against each other. Everything else builds on it.

The guides and what each answers

If you are buying a reel for cable

Work in this order. First the drum: find the cable maker's minimum bend figure, or the NEMA multiple for that cable type, which Anixter's handbook tables at 10 times the outside diameter for nonshielded cable up to 2,000 volts, 16 for wire armored cable and 20 for fiber, never under 12 inches. Then the footage: run the capacity formula with your outside diameter and the right rim clearance. Then the weight: footage times weight per foot, plus the reel. Then the fit: out-to-out and arbor hole against the stand or trailer that will hold it.

The capacity guide has six worked examples that match Anixter's published capacity table, a table of how footage changes with cable diameter, and a worked example running the formula backwards from a length you need. The measuring guide covers the drum trick for reels you can't reach round.

If you are selling a yard of empties

Read the returnable guide first, because it tells you whether a maker's take-back covers any of your reels. Sonoco's EcoReel, Service Wire's return and Dura-Line's credit each publish their terms, and each covers a narrow slice. Whatever is left is yours to sell.

Then the condition guide, so you can sort the good reels from the rejects before anyone arrives, and the trailer guide, so you know roughly how many reels make a load. Sonoco's packing guide puts it at about 200 reels of 36x24x17 in a 53-foot van and about 22 of 72x36x36. With those three read, you can send us a write-up that needs no follow-up questions.

Five myths the guides put right

Most of the questions we get trace back to one of these. Each is covered properly in the guide linked above it in the table, with the published figures behind the answer.

• A bigger flange always holds more. Not if its drum is fatter or its traverse narrower; two 48-inch reels can differ by half.
• Traverse is the width of the reel. It is the inside width; the overall width can be several inches more on thick flanges.
• Old means worn out. Weathered grey wood is cosmetic. A split arbor hole or a flange cracked to the center is what ends a reel's life.
• A full trailer is a heavy trailer. Empty reels run out of space long before weight; a van of 200 small reels is light.
• Every reel can go back to its maker. Take-back programs cover narrow slices, usually one maker's own reels in full loads.

Where the figures come from

We use published sources and cite them on each page. The main ones are Anixter's Wire and Cable Technical Information Handbook, which reproduces the NEMA WC 26 capacity formula and drum multiples; Okonite's technical newsletters on reels, with dimensions, weights and rated cable loads; Southwire's reel packaging sheet, with arbor holes and reel series; Superior Essex's reel guidelines for fiber and copper cable; and Sonoco's EcoReel packing guide for trailer counts.

Where a source gives a figure, we quote it and name the source. Where we have done arithmetic on published figures, such as flange thickness worked out from overall width, we say so. Where nothing is published, such as a ply-count load rating from NEMA WC 26 itself, which is a paid standard, we leave it out rather than guess.

Words used across the guides

• Flange: one of the two large discs; its diameter is the first number in the size.
• Traverse: the inside width between the flanges; the second number.
• Drum: the barrel the cable winds on, built from staves; its diameter is the third number.
• Out-to-out: the overall width across both flanges.
• Arbor hole: the center hole for a lifting or payoff shaft, often about 3 inches on wooden reels.
• Drive hole: an off-center hole in a flange where a driver's pin turns the reel.
• Tie-off hole: a small hole near the drum where the cable's inside end is tied.
• Lagging: wooden slats nailed around a full reel to protect the cable.
• Reel stencil: the size and maker markings on a flange.
• Reel lot: a batch of reels written up by size, count and condition.

Tools that go with the guides

The capacity calculator does the formula for you from a reel size and a cable diameter, starting from 2 inches of rim clearance, which you can change to Anixter's 1 inch for small flanges or 3 inches for big ones, and passes the result to the quote form. The size chart lists each flange size from 18 to 96 inches with its own page. If a guide leaves a question unanswered, send it to info@cablereelsforsale.com with the reel size and what you plan to wind, and we will answer it straight.