The Best 5 Tools For Pulling Wire
Are you tired of struggling to pull your wires from point A to point B? Well, it doesn’t always have to be a fight. Electricians are constantly pulling wire through conduits, walls, studs, T-bars, trenches, cable trays and more. Rack-A-Tiers has changed the game when it comes to tools for pulling wire to say the least. Get ready to get excited each and every time you need to pull or fish a wire at your job sites! Here are the Top 5 Tools For Pulling Wire.
Fish Rods
These are an electrician’s best friends for sure. To start the list, we have the 3/16” Plastic Coated Orange Kits. These semi-rigid rods work great for almost any job you might come across. Working a commercial building job? Rather than having to lift every single ceiling tile from the T-bar to make a path, leaving dirty fingerprints on each as you go. Then slowly feeding your floppy wire from tile space to tile space, and finally replacing every single tile you just took out once your wire is pulled, (It sounds awful and time consuming and tiring because it is). Instead, tape your wire onto these rigid Fish Sticks, skip 2,3,4 or even 5 tiles and feed from opening to opening in less than half the time it would take otherwise!
The semi-rigid 3/16” rods work best for reaching far distances as they hold there are sturdier and don’t droop as easily. They also work well for fishing wires in walls, up walls, or in ceilings too, but sometimes, a little flexibility can be just what you need. That’s where the 5/32” Glowfish Kit comes in handy. These super flexible rods are a wire fisherman’s go to when it comes to hard to see and hard to reach places. The flexibility makes fishing in plugs and switches to or from ceilings or basements a breeze. Knock a hole out of your box, or slightly bend your boxes’ plastic tab, and feed your fish rod into the attic for your apprentice to tap on the wire. We all know he’s just laying down on some insulation playing Angry Birds and taking a break up there. They even glow in the dark, so that phone addicted apprentice has no excuse for not seeing it!
Both sets of Fish Rods have a male and female thread on either end so they can be threaded into each other to extend their reach! Pro Tip: When installing pot lots, avoid going into the attic all together. Use your Fish Rods to feed your wire from pot light to pot light!
Fish Tape
Next up for wire pulling tools is a must-have for all electricians. Better than your average wire fish tape, Rack-A-Tiers offers Fusion Fish Tape. Made with precision in Italy, it is the best hybrid fiberglass/polymer fish tape on the market! This polyester coated fish tape with a fiberglass core gives you the flexibility of a fiberglass fish tape, while maintaining the strength of a steel fish tape. It comes in the 100ft version, as well as the 150ft model. The Polyester coating and the fiberglass core makes running wire through conduit, slide right through like butter. Equipped with a brass tipped eyelet end piece which gives you a secure loop to attach your wire to. The best part about the Fusion Fish Tape is that it is Non-Conductive! This is a huge safety feature that should be a standard for all Electricians. This should be in every one of you Electricians’ vans or tool bags, especially if you work with conduit regularly.
The next tool will also make a regular conduit benders life a hundred times easier.
Wire Vortex and THE ALL AMERICAN Pull Buddy
If you need an extra pair of hands on the job, try the Wire Vortex. This wire pulling guide fits on a standard 4″ square box and saves you a ton of time when pulling wire. Stop tangling and damaging your wire when feeding through a junction or pull box, as the wire vortex guides wires smoothly.
Instead of having one worker pull your wire fish tape at one end, the other worker feeding the wire off the reels into the first box, and either pulling mountains of spaghetti mess wires out at each pull box, or having additional workers stationed at each and every pull box. The Wire Vortex partnered with the All-American Pull Buddy turns a 2, 3 or even 4-man job into a one-man job! For short pulls going from one box to another, The Wire Vortex can tackle that job on its own by guiding your wire through one end while you pull from the other.
The All-American Pull Buddy enables you to pull wire between two pipes through a conduit box seamlessly. Simply insert the Pull Buddy into the conduit, pull your wire through, and remove the Pull Buddy after use. Pull Buddies are small, light, and durable, making them the perfect choice for electricians on the job. Pull Buddies come in a variety of colors, allowing you to easily spot them no matter the environment. The All-American Pull Buddy will not only save your wire and time, but also allow you to get the job done on your own. By using both wire pulling tools, they almost give you God-like powers when it comes to long pulls.
Buy the Wire Vortex from Rack-A-Tiers
Buy the All American Pull Buddy from Rack-A-Tiers
MagnePull
The MagnePull is one of Rack-A-Tiers more unique pieces of wire pulling equipment. It is essentially a roller with a magnet that allows you to seamlessly fish wire in walls and ceilings, even if they are insulated. It is an extremely powerful, yet delicate, magnetic wire snake for the fishing wire through walls. It even works through insulation! The Magnepull kit includes a strong rare earth magnetic roller with a smooth surface and rare earth magnetic bullet leader. Magnetic wire pulling is a total game changer that can save you tons of time and money. Drop your metal attachment in the hole and drag your roller across almost any surface for a quick and easy wire fish.
Buy the Magnepull from Rack-A-Tiers
Ferret Inspection Camera
Now, I have saved my personal favorite tool for last, and I am certain this product will be one of your new favorite tools as well. The Ferret WiFi – Wireless Inspection Camera and Cable Pulling Tool take the cake as it can be used in an unlimited number of ways. It has a built in WiFi hotspot and is designed to provide faster and easier close up visual inspections when working in dark, confined and hard to reach spaces. With 6 main functions it is an ideal tool for any electrician, trade or DIY enthusiast.
Sometimes fishing wires can be very tricky, even with the tools listed above. Once and a while, your fish sticks are too rigid to make that corner, or your wire fishing tape is too floppy, or you have hidden plates in the wall, the list goes on and on. Sometimes you need to be able to get in there and actually see what is going on. The Ferret comes with a ton of attachments, including a hook for locating and grabbing your wire, a flexible bit that holds its shape to help you see around corners, and the ability to screw right into your fish rods!
The Ferret Inspection Camera isn’t only for at work or for electricians as it can benefit all trade workers, homeowners and DIYer’s. I use this tool at home all the time! Easily look for leaks under your vehicle, regularly check your gutters, find your kids toy they threw under the deck, inspect those birds that have been living in your attic. Do all this and much much more, all without crawling on your belly, or bringing out the ladder. The options and use cases are essentially endless. They also sell several attachments that only increase the usability of the Ferret, including a wrist band to easily view your phone while navigating the wireless camera and a retractable shaft to further extend your reach for those hard-to-reach places.
Buy the Ferret Inspection Camera from Rack-A-Tiers
Rack-A-Tiers has made it clear that all of their wire pulling tools and equipment are here to crush the competition with functionality and durability. Fishing and pulling wire can sometimes be troublesome, so pick up a few of these mentioned products today and make your life a whole lot easier for tomorrow.
