96 inch flange reels, the eight-foot class

The wooden 96s on record

Okonite lists two 96 inch sizes, each in a lighter and a heavier build. The 96x48x48 is 758 lb and rated for about 6,000 lb of cable, or 1,078 lb and rated for about 15,000 lb, the highest load in its table, shared with its heavier 90 and 108 inch reels. The 96x54x56 is 816 lb for 6,000 lb of cable, or 1,199 lb for 12,000 lb. Superior Essex closes both its outside-plant guides with a 96: a 96x42x48 fiber reel at about 1,100 lb and a 96x40x48 copper reel at about 1,175 lb, both 45 to 46 inches out-to-out.

Anixter's NEMA table ends with the 96x54x56, and the handbook uses it as a second check on its formula. Sonoco's packing guide ends with a 96 inch reel with values of 60 and 42 inches, read as a 96x60x42. Southwire's 96s are steel: the S-300 and S-300A, both 96x60x42, coded RMT 96.60, with 5.25 and 5.313 inch arbor holes. Those are returnable reels with a charge and are not wooden empties.

The trailer question: deck height before count

With an 8 ft reel, the first freight question is not how many but how high. Standing on its flanges, as Anixter's handling rules ask for any reel over two feet and 200 lb, a 96 adds eight feet to the deck it rides on. A standard flatbed deck is about five feet off the road, which puts the load near 13 ft, right against the common 13 ft 6 in legal height with almost no room for dunnage. A step deck, with its lower rear deck, leaves a comfortable margin. A lowboy or double-drop leaves more and is the usual choice when the reels are still full.

Count comes second. Sonoco's guide puts 8 of its 96 inch reels in a 53 ft van, the smallest count in its table. At 758 to 1,199 lb each, eight wooden 96s weigh about 6,100 to 9,600 lb, so the trailer is limited by length and height, never weight. Freight on a 96 lot is split only eight ways, which is why we look for a buyer near the seller or a trailer already running the lane.

Lifting a 96: forklift or crane

Empty, a 96 is 758 to 1,199 lb and too tall to see over. A forklift with a rated capacity well above the reel's weight and forks long enough to reach under both flanges from the drum side can do it; a shaft through the arbor hole with a spreader bar and a crane or boom truck is safer when the ground is soft or the reels are packed close together. Never lift by the top flange, and, as Corning's procedure warns, never pick a reel up from the tail-flange side with a forklift.

Full, it is crane work. Okonite's heavier 96x48x48 build carries up to 15,000 lb of cable, so the gross lift is about 16,000 lb. MIL-DTL-12000 asks that wood non-returnable reels at 2,500 lb gross or more have the arbor hole reinforced with a metal bushing or plate, and that returnable wood reels 24 inches and larger have substantial metal bushings or a plate. On a used 96, that bushing is the first thing to look at.

How much cable an 8 ft reel holds

Anixter's second worked check of the NEMA WC 26 formula is a 96: a 96x54x56 with 3 inches of clearance and 1 inch cable. H is half of 96 minus 56, so 20; H - C is 17; D + H - C is 73; and 0.262 x 54 x 17 x 73 is about 17,558 ft, the table's figure. The general form is Footage = 0.262 x T x (H - C) x (D + H - C) / d squared.

Superior Essex prints 45,134 ft of 0.60 inch fiber cable on its 96x42x48, more than eight and a half miles, and 16,564 ft of 1 inch cable; its copper 96x40x48 holds 15,925 ft of 1 inch cable. Its charts use 2 inches of clearance, which is why they run a little above the NEMA figures below. All of these are approximate, and on copper and heavy armored cable the 6,000 to 15,000 lb load ratings bind long before the flange is full.

Jobs that end with empty 96s

On a 48 inch drum, NEMA's multiples allow tape shielded cable of about 2.4 to 3.4 inches, interlocked armor up to about 3.4 inches and fiber up to 2.4 inches; a 56 inch drum allows about 17% more. That is the territory of high-voltage underground transmission cable, the largest three-conductor armored cables, long continuous runs of medium-voltage collection cable on wind and solar farms, and backbone fiber where a single length saves splice points.

The empties end up at transmission substations, converter and switchyard sites, wind farm laydown yards and big industrial projects, usually a handful at a time. They are too big for most contractors' yards and too few to fill a program's truckload, and the cable maker's return covers its own reels at best. Those are the reels a buy-and-sell desk exists for.

Grading a 96

• Wood or steel: Southwire's 96x60x42 S-300 and S-300A are returnable steel reels
• Arbor hole: bushing or plate present and tight, hole round; note its diameter, since our sources publish no wooden arbor size at 96 inches and the buyer's shaft must fit
• Flanges: long cracks across an eight foot flange often start at the arbor; check both faces
• Staves: count the missing or broken; drum staves on a 96 are long and heavy to replace
• Rim damage from forklift tines and chains
• Stencil: class, size, maker, date and rolling arrow, normally all present above 40 inches