A common 1/2” X 10’, 6 X 25 Wire Center, Wire
Rope Sling comes in at $29.00, $43.00, and $67.00 from three different online retailers. So, why is there such a wide pricing range for what appears to be the same product?
When doing some price comparisons, you may notice that the lowest prices seem to come from the websites that only sell lifting and rigging equipment. However, these lifting and rigging websites tend to focus on the common “bread and butter” lifting and rigging equipment and may not have a large inventory of rigging products to select from. Tey may also make up for their low prices by bumping up the cost of their shipping and handling fees. Online suppliers with the more expensive wire rope
and web slings tend to be larger catalog and supply houses that offer an impressive array of all types of industrial products, including rigging gear. Tey also offer the convenience of selling items like gloves, eye protection, spray paint, etc.—an added convenience factor that allows you to buy everything that you need from one source.
Catalog supply houses may also offer prepaid freight,
or have cheaper shipping rates since they move so much product in and out the door that they receive volume freight discounts that they can then pass on to the customer.
and a 25-ton shackle can run close to $300.00 per piece. Simply put, the more steel and more material required to produce the product, the more it’s going to cost you. Tis is also true for lengths of wire rope and chain. Larger diameter wire rope, and larger and longer lengths of chain and wire rope, often fall out of the “standard” product range of suppliers other than rigging shops. If a shop has to special order a piece due to a non-standard size or length, that extra time and effort to acquire the piece will get passed on to the customers as a price markup. Te complexity of the rigging products you buy also has an effect on your cost. A simple 1-ton 4’ lifting beam can be mass-produced by a supplier and can be bought in a range anywhere from $600.00 to $800.00. A beam that has to be specially-engineered due to non-standard lifting points, bail heights, load engagement requirements, etc., can easily double the price of a standard beam. Te engineering of specialty items requires additional labor, and smaller raw material batch purchases, which add up to additional costs to make a small production run or fabricate a custom one-off piece. High-performance and specialty items also cost
more. For instance, 3/4” 6 X 37 with wire center rope would cost around $2.50 per foot. A high-performance cable like a 3/4” Dyform 18 would cost about $4.50 per foot. But in the right application, the Dyform 18 will last much longer to justify the higher initial cost, and may also save labor costs because the customer won’t have to perform cable changes as frequently.
What Rigging Gear Are You Buying? Basic lifting and rigging gear has many options and price ranges as we noted above. When you get into non- standard sizes and lengths, your choices of where to buy are reduced due to the special nature of these products, and this leads to an increase in price, as well.
Standard Sizes vs. Engineered
and Custom Products Size is always a factor when it comes to the cost of lifting and rigging products. For example, a 1-ton screw pin anchor shackle can be found for around $9.00 per piece, a 9.5-ton shackle sells for around $80.00 a piece,
Utilizing a Lifting Specialist If you’re at your factory or job site and have a lifting application but don’t know how to make a lift or what to use to make the lift…what should you do? What most people do is contact their local rigging shop to speak with a lifting specialist. Hopefully, the shop’s specialists can help walk you through the solution over the phone, or they may prefer to come on-site and assess the job and recommend the best lifting solutions for your project. However, highly-trained lifting specialists are compensated for their time and knowledge applied to a lifting project and therefore will increase the cost of your rigging solution. Unfortunately, you’re not going to solve your problem by e-mailing a catalog house or e-commerce rigging website’s customer service team. Teir businesses are built to move rigging hardware, wire rope slings, chain slings, and synthetic slings out the door in a quick and efficient manner. Tey’re not necessarily set up to offer support, troubleshoot, or help solve lifting challenges. Utilizing a lifting specialist might cost you more upfront, but will save you time and money in the long run by increasing your lifting efficiencies and providing a solution that will get the job done safely.
28
SEPTEMBER–OCTOBER 2017
WIRE ROPE EXCHANGE
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