Producing rope on conventional rope making machines usually involves three operations:
Stranding
The yarns for the individual strands are twisted in a stranding machine. Usually, the strands are wound up onto rather large flange reels.
Closing (laying)
The strand bobbins are placed in a layer and the strand ends are tied together with the waste strands from the previous production. The strands are twisted together and wound up on an even larger flange reel.
Coiling
The rope is re-wound to obtain coils of required length and/or dimensions.
On a Robco rope making machine, this three-stage process is carried out in one continuous operation on just a single rope machine. This is possible as the system is based on the two-for-one principle – i.e., two rope lays per revolution compared to one rope lay on a conventional rope manufacturing machine. Apart from the obvious advantage of capacity, the two-for-one principle makes it possible to avoid rotation of all heavy parts. This again means low energy consumption and low noise level. Also, much of the hard manual work is avoided. Finally, this production method reduces the waste immensely.
The Robco rope making machines cover a rope range from 2 mm to 52 mm diameter.
See the M177 rope making machine in action below