Thimble Cappels

Reliance Barker Davies has been designing and supplying thimble cappels since the 1980s. Thimble cappels are used for both locked coil and stranded hoist ropes on both drum and friction hoists. The main advantage of using a thimble cappel is a faster capping time: there is no need for stringent rope cleaning as with wedge cappels and no brooming and curing times as with sockets.

The rope passes around a wedge shaped thimble which operates within two rigid side plates and the rope is gripped in fixed grooves fitted between the sideplates. To reduce bending stresses to a minimum the load carrying rope is held vertically and when a load acts upon the attachment the thimble is forced into the casing without slip of the rope.

Adjustments to rope lengths caused by rope stretch are easily carried without the need to dismantle the cappel. A long section of the hoisting rope can be seen at all times thus facilitating inspection.