72-inch cable reels: the top of Service Wire's range

The end of the wooden range

Service Wire’s reel return guideline names a 30 to 72 inch flange range. Above 72, its program does not apply. Southwire’s catalogue tops out its wooden reels at 68 inches, and from 84 inches up the reels in its tables are steel. So a 72-inch wooden reel is near the largest wooden reel a yard in this region will see, and it is almost always from power or utility cable.

AFL notes something else at this size: some reels have a centre support, marked with a red stripe on the drum, and its table says which ones it accepts. A centre support is an extra bulkhead inside the drum for strength. If you see the red stripe, mention it.

Weight and handling

None of our sources lists a weight for a 72-inch wooden reel. Southwire’s 68-inch A-99 is 536 pounds, so a 72 is heavier than that. Handle it with a forklift rated for the load and long enough forks, or with a crane and a spreader bar through the arbor hole. It travels standing, strapped, and never rolled down a ramp.

Take-back

Twenty-two reels make a Sonoco truckload at 72 inches, which a large utility or transmission job can reach. Dominion’s 500 kV and 230 kV work in Loudoun and Pepco’s underground transmission in the District are the kinds of projects that use cable on reels this big. A yard with five 72s from two makers has no program to call. The desk does.

Once empty

At six feet, a 72-inch reel is a working reel for heavy material, a large display or feature, or lumber. It is rarely a table. If one has a sound arbor hole and full staves, it should go back to work winding cable, and the desk will try to place it that way first.

Published dimensions at and near 72 inches

Southwire publishes no 72-inch reel; its largest wooden reels are the 68-inch A-99 and N-99. Sonoco and AFL both list 72-inch reels.

Reading the numbers

Flange

The diameter of the round end, edge to edge. The size a reel is known by.

Traverse

The inside width between the flanges, where cable winds. It sets how tall the reel stands on end.

Drum

The diameter of the barrel the cable winds onto. Stiff power cable needs a big drum.

Arbor hole

The centre hole for a shaft. 3⅛ in on most wooden reels; 5¼ in and up on heavy steel ones.

Weight

Empty, or tare, weight in pounds as the maker publishes it. A tag on the reel gives the same figure.

Series letter

Southwire codes the build: A and C nailed, N plywood or nailed, E and G plywood, S steel.

Where 72s turn up here

Big medium-voltage and transmission work: Dominion’s Loudoun projects, Pepco’s underground cable in the District, substations on the larger data-centre campuses. Check a 72’s staves from inside the drum with a torch before you count it toward a take-back load; staves crack on the inside first, where the cable’s weight bore down. A reel with sound flanges and broken staves is still worth something to the desk as material.

One more thing to look for at this size is a centre support, an extra bulkhead inside the drum. AFL marks reels that have one with a red stripe painted on the drum, and its table lists 72-inch reels with and without. Note which kind you have when you count.

Requests for 72-inch reels

Selling or clearing

A sound nailed 72-inch reel meets the size rules of the programs we have read; count by brand first in case one maker's reels fill a truck (22 at this size, by Sonoco's table). Send the desk the rest.

Buying

Say what will lift it at your end (tractor forks, loader, crane) and where it will stand.

Empty weight to plan for

over 500 lb in wood (Southwire's 68-inch A-99 is 536 lb)