I've seen cable ties in some of the PSK pics recently, and was curious as to the thought behind having them. I'm sure if I thought long enough I could come up with a few uses, but I was wondering if there were any specific ideas for having them.

Two main uses I have used them for:
-Shelter building
-gear repair

I'll second that.

And their great for handcuffing little critters that resist your attempts to cook them over the campfire, side note....don't attempt this on bears as it upsets them and they will end up eating you over the campfire.


Sorry I had to say that.

The uses are as varied as para cord and duct tape, I've used them to secure a knife to a sapling to make a spear. Attach gear to molle webbing,D rings, they make a great stringer for fishing. Dog lost his collar once, made one out of a zip tie.

Zip ties have almost as many uses as duck tape and leave less residue behind.

I think the first time I saw releasable zip ties was in one of Doug Ritter's kits. I've looked for them in stores ever since, but have yet to see them.

I figured if shelter building or making repairs weren't going well and things were going south (mental strain, physical injury), then having releasable zip ties might provide a second/third... chance to get it right.

Of course the release feature isn't so good if you're using them as little tiny handcuffs.

+1

If you ever blow a zipper out on a backpack you can punch a small hole on either side and lash it closed.

I've mentioned this before, but if you're going to carry zip ties, go with Thomas & Betts whenever possible, as they feature a stainless steel tang for improved holding strength, and are manufactured to meet or exceed most automotive/aviation specs. You'll want to get the black ones as they are UV resistant, whereas the white ones are not. T&B also offers a variety with an integral mounting head which can be very handy at times (i.e. running paracord through it while lashing a shelter).

Jim

Releasable ties are available from Lee Valley Tools and Mountain Equipment Co-op

I keep a few small and a few medium sized ones in my gear repair kit for doing quick repairs on the fly to gear or equipment.

I find that their single use nature makes them less practical in a survival setting (IE: You use them to help lash a shelter together, then move on due to weather or whatever...and you need a whole set of new ones when you get to your next location). I much prefer utility cord, rope or paracord for such things...much more practical.

I've experimented with the zip ties which you can release but they don't hold strongly enough to do anything serious with so I use those as cable ties on my computer and stereo at home.

+1 on the Thomas & Betts (or similarily designed) ties. They may seem like overkill but they'll hold under way more load than the cheapies before stripping and the mounting head as a 101 uses.

Zip-Ties are a great item to have with you in a kit


There are very well made Zip-Ties (along with everything else in life) and average Zip-Ties. The good ones are made out of a tough plastic (nylon) instead of a less expensive soft plastic. And the locking tab is made out of metal, not the inexpensive plastic.


The metal locking tab will not ever slip and is much stronger then the plastic one.


Most Zip-Ties are the inexpensive ones, it’s somewhat hard to find the better ones today. In the past they were much more common, but the cheep ones have stormed through the market because people don’t want to spend much on something like this.

I do use the cheep ones on projects that are not critical or for the numerous projects my brothers keep coming up for me to work on as they don’t offer to pay for parts most times. But for my stuff that I work on and in a camping / survival kit I use the better and much stronger Ties.

With the cheep ties you can usually pull on them and have them break or slip. Not so with the good ones, it takes a cutting tool to remove them.

In a survival situation you want the best you can get.

Since these little guys are very lightweight, one option is to simply use the extra long ties. When lashing two items together, simply double or triple wrap each item before attaching the tie. When you are done with them and need to move on, they can be cut near the attachment point and later re-used as slightly shorter ties.

Jim

Another thing I have in a pack is Velcro, I have a roll of it (2-rolls as you need both sides of it) that is sticky in one side. You peal & stick it (like tape) It’s not super strong but I have found it useful for things at times.

They make releasable ones?! Now THAT would be handy. The single use aspect has been what's always kept me with 550 cord for shelter building and gear repair.

The velco straps used for securing cables are amazing for all kinds of tasks. I go through these things like crazy around the house. I get the Velco brand 'One-Wrap' straps. They come in all different shapes, sizes, colors, and roll lengths.

http://www.velcro.com/industrial/one.html

Actually most zip ties are releasable. Most require the use of a small tool to depress the locking mechanism while extracting the end. I've used zip ties extensively for the past 25 years. The best were coated metal strap type that I used mostly for tying heliax to the sides of towers. I still have a handful of them in one of my bags. You could just about use them for choking logs off a mountain, they are pretty tough.

Get black ties rather than white, they hold up to the UV better. One thing to remember, there's no such thing as a zip tie that's too big, but you can get them too small for a task. If you do, be aware that they can be daisy-chained together to make them longer.

As for what to use them for, use them for lashing a skein of line up, or extension cords, or locking two sticks together either in parallel or perpendicular for framing work, or a green branch into a loop, or lashing branches to framing to make walls or roof cover, or splicing line without knotting it up, or as stitching along heavy seams like canvas or leather or as a bag end closure, or as emergency shoe lacing, etc.

Lowe's Home Improvement stores have a wide variety of ties in their electrical supply department.

Aren't you supposed to use a butterfly hanger and stand off adapter to secure Andrew transmission lines onto towers? At least for 1 5/8" and up...

You can, and if you have them handy I reckon you probably ought to go with what the mfrs recommendations are, but when I am out fixing or repairing or rerouting equipment on a tower, I make use of what is in the van, and if that means using the coated metal banding, that's what gets used. Long as it is secured tight and not binding over an edge of angle iron or some such, it won't hurt the line any. I don't worry too much anymore about cross coupling on the outer conductors, we have to ground out the heliax/coax transmission line so heavily anyways to meet lightning arrest electrical code that any spurious energy in the outer conductors is usually dissipated long before it can eddy out into another adjacent line.

I usually have bigger problems on a site with intermod mixing or multi path due to some bozo having mounted an aluminum bracket directly onto a galvanized steel brace. Thank God for conductive grease! Then there's the ding-a-ling that doesn't screw down his N-Connectors all the way, ARRRRGGGHHHH!

On the other hand there isn't much, can't think of anything off hand, that you can do with a nylon zip-tie that you couldn't do with a good piece of light line. In production work zip-ties get used not so much because they are good but because they are quick and so many people these days don't know how to tie a decent knot. Half of those who know don't practice enough to do ti quickly.

I have a few small sucrets boxes that I keep things in in a small tool bag. A zip tie is secured around each one and it keeps it closed very nicely.....it also slips on and off easily since the 'case' is smooth plastic. So I have it securely fastened and easily accessible....a nice balance.....

From an earlier post I'll add......a nice 'source' (at least for me) for some of the large/thick zip ties....though already used...7-11 or the gas station....they use them to hold up their signs.....when they pull the sign down the tie usually stays behind.....I've asked and been granted permission to remove some when they are building up on the pole. They hold several of my containers closed....just remember they are 'used' so if you do get a few....use good judgement in their suitable uses.....

One thing about using zip ties vs. tying line, when I am holding something that I need to bind together in one hand, I can fairly easily put a zip tie on the bind with the other, whereas I am seldom able to tie a line with only one hand. It can be done, but it is awful hard most of the time. Hanging on a tower while holding down a loose cable, I can grab a zip tie, wrap it around the cable and the tie-down brace, and push the tip through the eyelet, using just one hand the whole time. I am also able to do zip-ties when my hands are so cold they are fairly numb, when I have been unable to tie a knot in a line without great difficulty.

Maybe there's folks out there who are better at line tying than I am, but the dozen or so field techs I've worked with would agree zip ties are a lot easier to deploy than line as a fastener out in the field. Calf roping might be a good place where tying a line could be preferable to using a zip-tie, if you know what you are doing. I reckon there's a whole lot more folks out there that could bind up three legs with a proper sized zip tie than could work out a three wrap hitch knot and expect it to hold, without any practice.

I like zip ties for some things. For one, they stay and do not quickly lose strength, even in a lousy environment. Two, you can get them tight, and once they are tight, they do not slacken. And for somethings they are relatively quick, compared with the right knot. For instance, a couple of the garbage zip ties could do what a tying turkshead could do and save you a few hours.

However, and I am not putting down the zip ties or anyone, but



this tells me that knot-tying is an area in which a lot of people could improve their proficiency. I cannot imagine the time it would take me to work with zip ties and get that anything like a calf's legs tied, but a piece of line it would take nothing flat.

I've found them at HomeDepot-black 25pack.

Cable ties do things with strength that you just can't do with paracord. I carry some 6 inch ties when I go camping / hiking in my repair kit. We had a hip belt quick connect (on a "new" pack) split. A zip tie squeezed it together enough so that the belt would still snap together. It lasted another 45 miles at Philmont, and as far as I know, its still on the pack. You just can't compress that type of connector together reliably with cord to hold together for any length of time. It is unparalleled at some types of expedient gear repair.

Thanks for all the input/ideas. Just bought some recently for another project, so I have some left over. Will toss some in the PSK this afternoon.