84 inch flange reels: seven feet of wood

What is published at 84 inches, and what isn't

The record thins out here. Across the maker tables we read there are four wooden 84 inch rows and one van count. Okonite lists an 84x54x48 in two builds. Superior Essex lists one fiber reel and one copper reel. Anixter's NEMA table uses the same 84x54x48 as Okonite, and leaves its 0.5 inch cable cell blank, giving only the 1 inch figure and up. Sonoco's guide lists an 84 inch reel with values of 46 and 42 inches, which we read as an 84x46x42.

Southwire's packaging sheet has no wooden 84. Its 84s are the S-120 and S-153, steel reels with I-beam tires coded RMT 84.36 and RMT 84.45 for returnable metal reels, and they carry a charge. They are not empties anyone can sell; they go back to the maker. We don't publish more 84s than we can source, so if you have a wooden 84 of another size, measure it and we will write it up as it is.

Nine reels make a load

Sonoco's van count for 84s is 9, the same as for its 90 inch reel, and down from 22 at 72 inches. Nine wooden 84s at 639 to 920 lb weigh only about 5,800 to 8,300 lb, a fraction of what a trailer can carry. The trailer is full of air and flanges. That is the arithmetic every 84 deal turns on: whatever the freight costs, it is split nine ways.

For that reason 84s mostly ride on flatbeds and step decks, not in vans. A step deck keeps a seven foot reel's height down, and the reels can be lifted on and off from the side. On a standard flatbed with a deck about five feet off the road, an 84 standing on its flanges puts the top of the load near 12 ft, which clears the common 13 ft 6 in limit with some room. Each reel is chocked and chained or strapped through the arbor hole.

Approximate footage at 84 inches

With the NEMA WC 26 formula from the Anixter handbook, Footage = 0.262 x T x (H - C) x (D + H - C) / d squared, and 3 inches of clearance, an 84x54x48 has H of 18, H - C of 15 and D + H - C of 63. Then 0.262 x 54 x 15 x 63 gives about 13,370 ft of 1 inch cable, Anixter's figure. The 84x42x42 fiber reel comes out about 11,884 ft by the same formula; Superior Essex, using 2 inches of clearance, prints 12,466 ft.

These are approximate, and on an 84 the weight rating governs almost every heavy cable. 13,370 ft of a cable at 1 lb per foot is more than the 12,000 lb heavier build carries, and more than twice what the lighter build is rated for.

Cable that needs an 84

A 42 inch drum takes tape shielded cable of about 2.1 to 3 inches under NEMA's 14 to 20 times rule, interlocked armor up to 3 inches at 14 times and fiber up to 2.1 inches at 20 times. A 48 inch drum stretches each of those by about 14%. These are reels for the biggest cable in common use: transmission-class underground cable, large three-conductor armored cable, long lengths of medium-voltage collection cable, heavy bare conductor and the longest fiber backbone runs, where Superior Essex's 84x42x42 holds more than six miles of 0.60 inch cable.

The crews that empty them are transmission contractors, utilities' underground departments, wind and solar collection-system installers, and contractors on large industrial and data center sites. Few distributors stock cable on 84s; it often ships direct from the plant to the job.

Lifting a seven foot reel

An empty 84 is 639 to 920 lb and taller than anyone handling it. Use a forklift rated for the load with long enough forks to reach under both flanges from the drum side, or a shaft through the arbor hole and a spreader. Corning's handling note applies: never pick a reel up from its tail-flange side. Anixter's apply too: keep it upright on both flanges, and never lift by the top flange.

Full, an 84 with 12,000 lb of cable is crane or heavy forklift work, and its arbor hole should have the metal bushing or plate that MIL-DTL-12000 asks for on wood non-returnable reels once gross weight reaches 2,500 lb.

Grading an 84 before you price it

• Material first: Southwire's 84x36x42 and 84x45x42 are steel and returnable
• Weigh or measure the flange to tell the 639 lb build from the 920 lb build
• Arbor hole and its bushing or plate: intact, round, not torn by a payoff shaft
• Flange plies: an 84's outer plies are long spans; look for cracks from arbor to rim
• Staves: count missing and broken; a few loose staves can be renailed
• Lagging nails left in the rim, and any bolts on bolted flanges

Buying or selling a few 84s

Most 84 lots are small, a few reels left at the end of a project. That is fine, but freight sets the price, so the questions are distance, access and timing. Tell us where the reels are, whether a forklift big enough to lift one is on site, and whether a flatbed can get in and turn around. Buyers should tell us the cable weight per foot and the length to be wound, so we can confirm the build before quoting. Matching a seller and a buyer who are a few hours apart is what makes an 84 worth moving.