Resin sockets poured on tow pendants and wire rope assemblies, at the boat or in our Hatfield shop. We bring the rig to the dock, cut the old socket off, and pour a new one. No size limit, and a certificate with every pour.
Most of this work is tugs. A tow pendant reaches its removal criteria, or a socket gets damaged, and the boat is tied up until it has a new termination on it.
Pulling the pendant off the vessel and shipping it somewhere to be re-socketed costs days. So we load the rig and go. We cut the old socket off on the dock, prepare the rope, pour the new socket, and the assembly goes back in service without the wire ever leaving the pier.
That is the whole reason this service exists. Everything else on this page is detail.
Philadelphia and the Delaware River, New York and New Jersey harbor, and the ports between them are the regular run. Further up or down the coast is a conversation, not a no.
We have not run into a rope or socket we could not pour. Tell us the diameter, the construction and the socket you are using and we will tell you straight whether it is a problem.
Both, depending on the job. If your spec or the vessel's records call for one of them, say so when you call and that is what goes in the socket.
Because of all the ways to put an end on a wire rope, this is the one that gives back the whole rope.
Terminations are rated by efficiency: how much of the rope's catalog breaking strength the finished end actually develops. A properly poured resin socket rates at 100%. A wedge socket is about 80%. Wire rope clips, correctly applied, are about 80%. Swaged sockets also reach 100%, but they need a press, which is exactly what you do not have on a pier.
On a tow pendant, that difference is not academic. The rope is sized for the pull. A termination that gives back four fifths of it has quietly resized the whole assembly.
Nothing about this is quick, and that is the point. The socket is only as good as the preparation underneath it.
The old socket comes off. The rope is measured and cut to the finished length, and the end is seized so the lay does not run back on itself once it is opened up.
The wires are unlaid back to the seizing and opened out into a broom: every wire in the rope separated, the core dealt with, the whole thing splayed so the resin can get around each individual wire. This is the part of the job that takes the time, and it is the part that decides whether the termination is worth its rating.
The broom is cleaned so nothing is left on the wire for the resin to fail to grip. Lubricant on the wire at this stage is what turns a 100% termination into an unknown one.
The broom is drawn up into the socket basket, the socket is aligned with the rope axis and sealed, and the resin is mixed and poured in one go. Then it cures, which happens on its own schedule and cannot be rushed.
Nothing above is done from memory. A twenty-five point sheet is filled out on the job, signed by the inspector, and kept with the assembly's paperwork.
Maritime socket pours are performed by Nelson Rigging Services, LLC, our separate entity for this work. Same people, same shop in Hatfield, same standards. The checklist below is theirs, and a completed copy goes out with every pour.
Nine items, covering the parts of the job that cannot be corrected once the resin is in.
Six items. This is the part that takes two minutes and cannot be repeated.
Six items, over however long the resin takes. Curing is not something you can hurry.
Four items, and the reason any of the rest is provable a year from now.
Not every socket has to be poured at the water. If the assembly can travel, or you are ordering a new pendant outright, the same work happens in Hatfield.
We stock the rope, so a new pendant can be built and socketed here as one job: rope off the reel, cut to length, sockets on both ends, ready to go on the boat. Because we also proof test in the same building, a shop-poured assembly can be pulled before it ships, which is the one thing a dockside pour cannot offer.
Every pour comes with a certificate recording what was done, to what, with which resin, by whom and when.
Tell us where the boat is, what the rope is, and when she needs to sail.
Termination efficiency figures are the standard published ratings for wire rope end terminations: resin-poured and swaged sockets at 100% of the rope's catalog breaking strength, wedge sockets and correctly applied wire rope clips at approximately 80%. Resin compounds used are Wirelock and Crosby Socketfast, poured to the manufacturer's published procedure. Coverage, capability and documentation current as of 2026.