This may be too simple, but how does one safety wire grips. Special tool to "dress the ends" or what.
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Demps, Hopefully you have grips with the grooves in them to accomodate the wire. It makes for a neater job but no real problem if not.Most riders, including myself like to wire them in three places..in the center and at each end.If your grips have the grooves you'll see them in those locations. Simply cut the wire just a little longer than the circumference so that you can twist it several times down to the surface of the grip. I usually like to cut the wire leaving several of the twists & bending them down around the grip in a direction that won't interfere with your palm or fingers.The twisted end that remains must then be pressed down into the surface of the grip firmly so as not to be caught on your glove. The closed tips of needle nose pliers are good for pressing the wire ends below surface level. That's it!
BTW, if you are getting new grips to do this with, I use the FMF 909 grips and they are awesome. They have about a 1/4" bar running the length of the grip & you install them so that the bar locates just in the joints of your fingers, giving you an iron grip. I use a twist throttle so I don't know if they are available for thumb throttles.

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THE AZ HARD PACKER, calmiller@kachina.net

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[This message has been edited by hot_shoe_cv (edited 10-29-1999).]

 

A little hint after 9 years of safety wiring aircraft components, there's a little trick to make the wire real tight. You can twist the wire by hand, have about 4" of excess wire after wrapping the grip. Obviously cross the wires, pull tight, and begin wrapping the wire.

With your index fingers extended hold the wire down the length of your finger, then grasp the end of the wire with your thumbs, which should firmly hold the wire at about the 2nd knuckle of your index finger. Use the tips of your index fingers to help pull the wire real tight as you twist, with your thumbs acting as the anchor.

You want about a 90 degree angle between the wires as you twist them. About 8-10 wraps to the inch should do the trick if you are using .032" or .040" wire, double that for .020" wire.

After wrapping the wire the required amount. Take a pair of needle nose, and grasp the wire about an 1/8" to 3/16" up. Take the nose of the pliers and do a small circle as tight as the tension of the wire will allow. This pulls the last little bit of slack from the wire. WA-LA, tight wire.

Off the original topic some. Same technique works if you are doing bolts. When you start the first bolt, get the wire wound up to the next item/anchor, grab the wire and do the same circle motion with the pliers, to remove all that slack too. Another cheater way, which I don't always think is the best, is to tighten the bolts as tight as your dare (over-torquing) and then run your wire, then slack off the bolts. It makes for REAL tight wire, but wire done correctly will always be sufficient.