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How to Make Cable Log Chokers

Ryan Hotchkiss

Logging chokers are made of steel rope, also called cable. The choker has two eyelets, one at each end of the cable. The choker is wrapped around the log, then one eyelet is slide threaded through the other. The cable is pulled through the threaded eyelet and tightened around the log. The eyelet fed through the other is attached to the tooth or a bucket or attached to a wench or hitch. Chokers are made with simple hand tools or complex machines. However, the principal design remains the same.

A choker is essential to the mechanical lifting or dragging of logs.
  1. Slide the grip clips or sleeves onto the cable. If you have a swaging tool, use sleeves. Sleeves do not have bolts. As a result, they do not catch on the cable or loops as easily as grip clips. However, grip clips are equally as strong, more simple to affix and easier to replace.

  2. Double one end of the cable back on itself and slide two of the the clips -- the fasteners -- up the cable. Slide the end of the cable through both the fasteners. Insert the thimble into the loop of the cable. The cable wraps around the outside of the thimble, the thimble rests in the eye of the loop.

  3. Slide the fastener closest to the loop up snug to the thimble. Hand tighten the bolts of the fastener to keep the thimble in place. Slide the second clip toward the loop and hand tighten the bolts when it is within 6 inches of the first fastener. Tighten the bolts of the clips with a socket set and hand wrench. Perform the same process on the other end of the cable.

  4. Double the end of the cable back on itself and slide the sleeves up the cable, threading the end of the cable through the sleeve. The process is the same as with the clips when using a swaging machine rather than bolts to secure the fasteners. Insert the thimble inside the eye of the loop, slide the sleeve up snug with the thimble and the sleeve with the swaging machine. Slide the second sleeve to within 6 inches of the first and crimp it. Perform the same process on the other end of the cable.