48 inch flange reels: 48x28x24 and its neighbors

The 48s on paper

Only three tables we read print a true 48 inch flange, and each prints one size. Southwire's A-38 is a 48x28x24 nailed wood reel for bare aluminum and ACSR, 32 inches out-to-out, 212 lb, with a 3.125 inch arbor hole and the Aluminum Association code NR 48.28 for a non-returnable reel. Superior Essex's outside-plant fiber guide lists a 48x32x23 at 184 lb and 34 inches out-to-out. Anixter's NEMA capacity table uses a 48x36x24.

Okonite's table skips 48 and goes from 45 to 50. Its neighbors and Southwire's other near sizes are worth knowing, because in a yard a 46 or a 50 gets called a 48 more often than not.

Two inches of flange, forty fewer reels

Sonoco's van counts make the case for measuring. Its 48 inch reel, with values of 28 and 24 inches, fits 100 to a 53 ft van. Its 50 inch reel, with values of 32 and 24, fits 60. Two more inches of flange and four more inches of width cut the count by 40%. A seller who writes up a lot of 50x32x24s as 48s is promising a buyer 40 more reels per trailer than will fit.

That is why our quotes are per trailer and why we ask for a tape on two or three reels. Freight is paid by the trailer, so the size of the lot and how tightly it loads set the freight cost per reel. At Southwire's 212 lb, 100 empty A-38s come to about 21,200 lb, still well short of what a van can carry, so again the trailer fills by volume.

The size on the one published price list

Used reel prices are rarely posted. The one buyer's list we found, from AAA-Affordable Pallets in Tampa, Florida, pays $10.00 for a 48x28x24, its top figure, the same as it pays for a 50x32x24 and a 54x32x24. Its smallest reel, a 24x30, gets $3.00. It receives reels on weekday mornings and early afternoons.

That is one regional buyer's published figure, at its own dock, with the seller paying to get the reels there. It shows the floor for a good 48 delivered to a reel yard. It does not tell you what a trailer of matched, graded 48s is worth to a buyer who needs exactly that size several states away, which is the trade we quote.

Footage on a 48

The NEMA WC 26 formula, as Anixter prints it, is Footage = 0.262 x T x (H - C) x (D + H - C) / d squared, with H as half of flange minus drum and 2 inches of clearance for 30 to 48 inch flanges. On a 48x28x24, H is 12, H - C is 10 and D + H - C is 34, so 0.262 x 28 x 10 x 34 is about 2,494, the footage of 1 inch cable. On Anixter's 48x36x24 the wider traverse lifts it to 3,207 ft, the table's own value.

Superior Essex's fiber chart for its 48x32x23 gives 7,728 ft of 0.60 inch cable and 2,694 ft of 1 inch cable. All of these are approximate, and on heavy cable the reel's load rating, not its footage, is the limit.

What runs on a 24 inch drum

A 24 inch drum takes nonshielded cable up to 2.4 inches under NEMA's 10 times rule, tape shielded cable of 1.2 to 1.7 inches at 14 to 20 times, wire armored cable up to 1.5 inches at 16 times, and fiber up to 1.2 inches at 20 times. In practice the 48s we see carry ACSR and bare aluminum on utility jobs, aluminum URD and secondary cable, copper feeders on commercial work, and trunk fiber on outside-plant builds.

Sellers of 48s are mostly utilities, their line contractors and the cooperatives' warehouses, plus wire plants with reels that failed their own inspection for reuse. Buyers are crews salvaging old conductor, cable recyclers winding stripped copper or aluminum for transport, shops winding hose or poly duct, and other contractors short of a midsize reel for a pull. Each side wants the same thing from us: an honest count, one size per line, and a freight figure before anyone commits.

Two loose staves, or a split arbor hole

A 48 with two loose staves still carries cable. A 48 with a split arbor hole doesn't, because the shaft that lifts and unwinds it bears on that hole. Service Wire's return program draws the same line for its own reels: it needs an undamaged arbor hole and at least 75% of the staves intact. We grade used 48s the same way, in this order.

• Arbor hole: round, unsplit, not wallowed out by a payoff shaft
• Flanges: outer plies whole, no cracks running from the arbor to the rim
• Staves: count the missing or broken ones; loose ones can be renailed
• Drive holes: torn-out drive holes lower the price for buyers who drive reels with a pin
• Old cable, staples and lagging nails cleared from the drum
• Stencil readable: size, maker, class and the rolling arrow

Handling 48s on a dock or in a field

At 184 to 250 lb empty, a 48 is a forklift reel. Two people can roll one on flat ground, but not up a ramp or into a trailer. Lift with a shaft through the arbor hole or with forks under both flanges, never by the top flange, and keep them standing on both flanges in storage so the flanges do not warp.

Out in the field a 48 usually sits on a reel trailer or a pole truck's payoff, and empties end up dropped beside a right-of-way, a substation fence or the back lot of a line contractor's shop. Before we arrange pickup we ask whether the reels are reachable by a truck with a liftgate or need a forklift brought in, whether the ground is firm enough in wet weather, and whether the reels are standing or lying flat in mud, because a 48 that sat flat on wet ground for a season often has a soft lower flange.