24 inch flange wooden reels

Published 24 inch rows, and the 23s that pass for them

This is the first flange size where every source we read has something to say. Okonite lists two nailed 24s with the same 10 inch drum and different traverses. Anixter's NEMA capacity table lists three. Anixter's small-reel table and Superior Essex's premises fiber guide each add a plywood 24, and Corning uses a 24x16x12 as a fiber take-up reel.

Southwire does not print a 24 at all. Its nearest wooden reels are a 23.75 inch plywood series (N-3, N-5 and N-7P) and a 23 inch nailed series (C-1, C-3 and C-5) that it reinforces for copper and steel. In a yard those read as 24s to most people, and a buyer who needs a true 24 inch flange should ask for a tape measure on the flange, not the stencil from across the yard.

Plywood or nailed at two feet across

Southwire's packaging sheet draws the line clearly. Its all-wood reels have two-ply flanges with the layers nailed at right angles and are meant for medium to heavy loads. Its plywood reels have plywood flanges and either laminated fiberboard tube drums (the G series) or shaped wooden staves (the N series), for light to medium loads. At 24 inches both kinds are in circulation, and they do different work.

A plywood 24 is light, flat-faced and stacks well, which suits a distributor's cut-reel rack. A nailed 24 like Southwire's C series is heavier for its size because it is built for the weight of copper. The weight column shows it: a 23.75x17x12 plywood reel is about 20 lb, while a 23x17x12 nailed reel is about 34 lb. If you are winding copper building wire or steel messenger, ask for nailed. If you are winding fiber or light control cable, plywood does the job and costs less to ship.

Footage on a 24, worked through

We use the NEMA WC 26 formula from the Anixter handbook: Footage = 0.262 x T x (H - C) x (D + H - C) / d squared, where H is half of flange minus drum and C is the clearance, 1 inch for flanges from 16 to 28 inches. For a 24x12x10, H is 7, H - C is 6 and D + H - C is 16. Multiply 0.262 x 12 x 6 x 16 and you get about 302. At 0.5 inch cable divide by 0.25: about 1,207 ft, which is exactly the figure in Anixter's table.

The table below runs the same sum for the common 24s. Treat every figure as approximate. It assumes round cable wound evenly to within an inch of the rim; a hand wind on a jobsite will hold less.

Which cable a 10 or 12 inch drum will take

The NEMA minimum drum multiples in Anixter's Table 10.1 are what keep a 24 in its lane. Nonshielded cable up to 2,000 volts needs 10 times its diameter, so a 10 inch drum takes cable up to about 1 inch and a 12 inch drum up to about 1.2 inches. Interlocked armor at 14 times allows about 0.7 to 0.85 inch. Fiber needs 20 times and never under 12 inches, so for fiber only the 12 inch drum reels qualify, and only for cable up to about 0.6 inch.

That is why the 24s we see are mostly THHN and other building wire, small control and tray cable, and premises fiber on the plywood reels. Medium-voltage cable belongs on bigger reels.

Who sends us 24s, and who asks for them

Sellers of 24s are mostly supply houses and electrical shops. A branch that cuts building wire off master reels ends up with stacks of emptied cut reels coming back from contractors, and a commercial electrician's warehouse collects them one job at a time. Sign makers, elevator installers, irrigation and pump contractors, and HVAC outfits also leave them behind after a season's work.

Buyers want them for the same reasons in reverse: a contractor respooling leftover wire so it can go back on the shelf, a branch short of cut reels before a busy month, a farm or ranch winding fence wire or poly rope, a maintenance department storing extension cords and welding leads. Each wants a uniform size so the reels fit the same rack, dispenser or spindle, which is why we write up each size in a lot separately.

Lifting and stacking a 24

A 24 sits right at the edge of Anixter's handling exception: reels under two feet in diameter and under 200 lb may be shipped and stored on their sides, and everything larger should stand upright on both flanges. A true 24 inch reel is not under two feet, so stand them up. Empty, they weigh 11 to 34 lb, so one person can roll one and two can lift one into a pickup. Full, a 24x12x10 with its rated 350 lb of cable needs a reel jack or a forklift with a shaft through the arbor hole.

On a trailer, 24s are filler. They ride in the gaps beside 48s and 60s, or stacked upright in rows on pallets. A trailer of nothing but 24s is possible, but the load is light for the freight you pay, so we usually pair them with a larger size.

What a used 24 fetches, and what lowers it

There is little published pricing for used reels. The one buyer's list we found, from a pallet and reel yard in Tampa, Florida, pays $3.00 for a reel it lists as 24x30, the lowest figure on its sheet. That is one buyer's number at one yard, but it shows that a 24 is worth little on its own and that freight and count decide whether a lot is worth moving.

Condition matters more than size here. A 24 with a delaminated plywood flange, a crushed fiberboard drum or a split arbor hole is scrap, not stock. A clean nailed 24 with all its staves and a round arbor hole is worth putting on the next trailer.

• Plywood flange layers lifting at the rim
• Fiberboard drum tubes (G series) crushed or soft from moisture
• Arbor hole round and unsplit; 2 in on small plywood reels, 3.125 in on Southwire's wooden reels
• Staves present and tight on nailed reels
• Old cable ends, tape and staples cleared off the drum