Fish Tape Stuck In Conduit

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Saturn_Europa

Saturn_Europa

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Fishing Industry
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Electrician Limited License NC, QMED Electrician
Has this ever happened to anyone?

I was fishing a 2" conduit with about 20 wires in it. Its all 14 gauge control wiring. Its about a 30 foot run. I tried my nylon tape and got nowhere. So I brought out my steel tape that has a hook bent into the end. I got the tape 23-24 ft in and could not get it any farther. So I tried to pull it out and it is apparently wrapped around a wire. Its pretty darn stuck. I got out my second fish tape, cut the hook off and tried to fish it from the other side. It wont fish that way either. Its two inch rigid conduit with a PVC coating, and I have no clue what it does underground. I assumed it would be a pretty easy pull.

I cut the ground wire and tried to use that as a pull string. But it only pulled 2 ft before it stopped and would not move at all. I think all the conductors are taped together.

Any suggestions on how to get out the stuck fish tape? My only thought is to shut down the plant and cut all the control wires and pull them out together with the fish tape. Then pull them all back into the wire gutter and butt splice them there. But its pretty risky and I have had bad luck with this conduit so far. Or just cut the fish tape and know never to try to pull wire through that conduit.
 
Yeah it happened to me. I cut it and just left in in the conduit.
I may be going to hell someday.


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Depending on what the control wires are for and how critical they are to the plant, at this stage I would not take a chance to cut them and try to take them out. Because you may be stuck with cut wire and not able to remove them along with the fish tape.
 
Saturn_Europa said:
Has this ever happened to anyone?

I was fishing a 2" conduit with about 20 wires in it. Its all 14 gauge control wiring. Its about a 30 foot run. I tried my nylon tape and got nowhere. So I brought out my steel tape that has a hook bent into the end. I got the tape 23-24 ft in and could not get it any farther. So I tried to pull it out and it is apparently wrapped around a wire. Its pretty darn stuck. I got out my second fish tape, cut the hook off and tried to fish it from the other side. It wont fish that way either. Its two inch rigid conduit with a PVC coating, and I have no clue what it does underground. I assumed it would be a pretty easy pull.

I cut the ground wire and tried to use that as a pull string. But it only pulled 2 ft before it stopped and would not move at all. I think all the conductors are taped together.

Any suggestions on how to get out the stuck fish tape? My only thought is to shut down the plant and cut all the control wires and pull them out together with the fish tape. Then pull them all back into the wire gutter and butt splice them there. But its pretty risky and I have had bad luck with this conduit so far. Or just cut the fish tape and know never to try to pull wire through that conduit.
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If that hook is caught on electrical tape, try pushing the steel fishtape further in and spin it by hand to get that hook rotated 180*, then pull back out. For future fishing, make sure hooks are well taped so they dont grab wire/tape/zipties/whatever upon removal. You may have to abandon the tape; continued removal efforts may damage cables in the conduit.

A plumber's drain line inspection camera may help you get the tape unstuck as well as get from end to end, then you could attach a polyline to it upon removal--have any plumber friends that owe you a favor?

As you wrote, 20cables in a 2" conduit should have been easy enough a pull.

ps: roto-rooter does drain line inspection on 2" sized pipes:

http://www.rotorooter.com/residential/outdoor-plumbing/video-camera-line-inspection/
 
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