When you start working for a manufacturing company, you can expect that spending some hands-on time in the shop will assist you with picking up the ins and outs of the unfamiliar products. As someone that isn’t shy about getting her hands dirty, I have spent a handful of days in production assisting with assembly of a variety of different parts. Things were all starting to make sense and nothing was sending me for too much of a loop.

That was until I was called into the shop to assist/observe in the production of a 500 ton Maxi-Dub swivel (Part Number 00508-1500).

Wow. Cue me being re-thrown for a loop.

Weighing in at over 2,500 lbs., this directional drilling swivel is one of the biggest that we manufacture. It has been designed to stand up to pullback loads associated with HDD applications, and with a safe working load of 500 tons this is a swivel designed for jobs with rigs up to a million pounds.

It’s hard to believe that this swivel actually has a bigger brother that is rated for rigs up to 1.4 million pounds.

As I watched (and attempted to assist) assembly it became more and more clear to me that these products are incredibly well designed and precisely machined. And really, really ridiculously big. After a couple days in the shop and a couple new scrapes and bruises, the swivel was ready for the paint booth and I was ready to return to the office and do my best to get an order in for that exact swivel.

So…

Anyone need a huge swivel?

Also note that we now have a new size (00604-050) for ½” nominal duct (0.40 – 0.71” inside diameters).

If you didn’t get a copy of the announcement in your email, then send us an email at sales@dcddesign.com to be added to our preferred customer list.

If carrots are not your appetite, get in line for one of our special Duckts. They’re hatching this spring!

Be part of Team Duckt and send us a picture of your Duckt’s travels, whether it be at the job site, at the office, or going on vacation with you. If you don’t have one, we can send one with your next order.

We’d love to hear your story. Contact us today! sales@dcddesign.com 1-888-794-8357

Sean needed a quick shipment sent out so we made some calls and managed to get a last-minute Friday pick up scheduled. Then it got complicated. Paperwork was reprinted; new parts were pulled out; boxes were slit and resealed; and the pick up went off without a hitch.

“THANK YOU! THANK YOU! I just wanted to tell you how very impressed I am with your sales staff there at DCD. Kate helped me and my (desperate) customer out of a jam on Friday that, in my opinion, was going above and beyond the call of duty!

I just wanted to let you know how appreciative I am to be able to work with her and vendors such as DCD. When you boil all business’s down, people buy products from people so really it is the service that is key.

To me, THAT kind of service is what makes good companies GREAT! Keep it up!” -Sean Burgess, Millennium Communications & Electrical Products, UT www.mtpllc.us

It’s what we do. You’re welcome.

Trenchless Technology’s Projects of the Year included a Runner-Up award for the Vancouver Central City Transmission project.

The project was completed just 20 miles from our production plant, and a 500-ton Maxi-DUB swivel was used to complete the pullback under the ocean inlet to the downtown core. Congratulations to all the 2011 winners!

Looking forward, DCD Design will be introducing some new Maxi-DUB models in the coming months. You asked, we answered. For a 1200lb Maxi-DUB swivel, it just takes a little longer to get the job done!

We took in an Eagle aerial cable lasher last week for repairs. “It wasn’t running smoothly anymore and it needed a few adjustments,” they said.

As it turns out, this lasher is serial number E00109 – built in January 2007 and delivered to the customer. In the intervening 5 years, it looks like it’s run a few thousand miles and gotten into a couple fights!

The drive wheels had grooves worn into the track from the lashing wire, and they weren’t turning well. The drag from the wheels was loading up the gearbox, so we overhauled that too. And we replaced a couple worn shafts and rollers…

After a bit of work, Eagle lasher E00109 is back on the wing and lashing our fiber optic test cable smoothly!

It’s that time of year – maintenance time! Time to have a look at your gear and decide if it’s ready for the coming season, or if you need to put some work into it now. These days, most people are leaning towards repairing the gear they have and making it last a little longer.

DCD Design and our distributor network are here to help assess your gear and get it in for the necessary repairs, whether it’s overhead cable lashing, underground cable installation or horizontal directional drilling/boring.

Once enough of those calls, those ideas, gather in the file, it becomes self-fulfilling. The market is there; we just have to create the product!

So for this Christmas season, here’s a couple ideas we’re working on for 2012:

“The Snakecharmer” Duct Rod End Fitting

This threaded fitting will expand the Duct Rod Accessories to provide a snake lasso for the fiberglass rodder, for those jobs where you really do need to get into that duct today.

“The Wrestler” Tuf-Lugger Accessory

If you need to go up against something big ‘n ugly in the ring, you need something Tuf on your side. Roll out the Tuf-Lugger cable puller, mount on “The Wrestler”, and haul that bull out of play. Not even Mickey Rourke could compete with this!

Disclaimer: Sorry, no. We’re always developing new products, but these ones may be beyond us all! And the photos have been making the rounds – credit goes to those with the telephoto lens.

Pelamis Wave Power of Leith, Scotland have applied the DCD Breakaway Connector in an unusual application: they have developed and successfully demonstrated a quick connect and disconnect for attaching the main moorings of their wave energy converters.

By integrating the heavy-duty 00560-020 Breakaway Connector into the sea-bed mooring system, only slack connections are made on deck and the latching of the Pelamis to the mooring system is made remotely.

This allows Pelamis to achieve machine installation in less than 100 minutes – critical minutes when working in changing ocean weather conditions with chartered vessels.

The sheer scale of these machines is hard to gauge in the photos – the P2 Pelamis is 4 metres in diameter, 180 metres long, and weighs 1300 tonnes!

Another milestone for Pelamis: this machine has celebrated its first anniversary since grid connection with positive test results and operational achievements.

DCD Design is pleased to share this application, and we’d like to thank Pelamis Wave Power for incorporating the DCD Breakaway Connector into their mooring system.

The Golden Carrots have a littlest sibling, suitable for ½” nominal piping (0.40 – 0.71” inside diameters). Our engineering students, Joey and Yuya, developed the Solidworks model and they’ve just come back from plating, looking like solid gold. The carrots, not the students. Part number 00604-050 is now in stock, and will make a great stocking stuffer!

We’ve also built a new spray applicator for our cable pulling lubricant, Tube-Lube 326. End users had a few suggestions to make the tanks stronger and more functional, so we sourced a 3-1/2 gallon steel tank, added a pressure gauge and calibrated the spray nozzle to deliver enough Tube-Lube to the cable jacket to ensure a smooth, low-friction installation. The Manual Spray Applicator (p/n 35100-003) is available in festive red, and ready to load into Santa’s sleigh now.

Careful, there’s a two-pun limit over the holiday season! DCD’s December promotion has kicked off, with sale pricing available on the 00650 Deluxe Sealed Duct Pullers. New this season, we’ve updated the Puller Jaws to fit 3 o-rings for redundancy in service.

To go with that, there’s a new instructional video on DCD Design’s Youtube channel, showing you how to service the Pullers and replace o-rings. Check the replacement chart to see which o-rings fit your Duct Puller.

If you subscribe to our monthly newsletter, you already knew that. If you haven’t subscribed- why not?? Enter your email address here and keep up with all our news. (Or add a comment to the effect here on the blog and we’ll add you to the newsletters.) Catalog requests can click here.

DCD Duct Rodders – all of them! – are on sale in November and with Thanksgiving approaching fast, that means there’s only a few days left to get an order in.

We’ve produced a few videos for the Duct Rodders; most recently, a quick instruction on re-spooling the rod into the cage. The pultruded fiberglass rod is strong and flexible, but you need to feed it into the compact reel cage smoothly to ensure the Rodder lasts.

Here’s a complete playlist of the DCD Duct Rodder videos – putting all our reference videos in one place.

DCD Design will be open Thanksgiving Day so if you need something, let us know. Otherwise, have a great long weekend!