Cable Railing Hardware 1/8" T316 Swage Lag Screws for Wood Post 100Pack

Very happy with these cable "lags", worked well and fairly easy for my project. Here are a few suggestions for use. Prior to beginning, buy high quality drill bits and a hydraulic crimping tool ($45) Carefully measure and determine how many lags, guides and cable you will need. First, create a pre-drilled "template" and drill all holes, I even suggest counter-sinking the holes slightly for looks Then prime/paint all the wood Insert the lag into a drill, use the drill to drive it into the wood post all the way - then back it out so you can see 3 grooves Insert the cable and use the hydraulic tool to crimp it into the lag Pull the cable taunt to the other lag and pinch it between your thumb and fore-finger then cut. No need to measure. Insert the cable and crimp, use the tools to slightly tighten, wait until all cables are installed to "piano" tighten as you can over tighten a cable and actually "bow" a support if not careful. Some of your lags will be crooked because the hole was drilled at an angle or you were too rough with crimping, however as the cables get tightened most of these will straighten out quite a bit. Stairs are tougher, I used an angled "guide", however it was limited to 30 degrees and I actually needed 32 but honestly think I could do it by eye just as well. Code in Mass is no cable run over 4' without an addl support, cables need to be no more than 4" apart but pros usually go 3" My project that you can see in the pics cost me roughly $600 including paint and accessories.

The product looks great after install. But if you want to save time you’ll have to experiment. 1. You can measure post to post and subtract the 1.5” for the wire. This will work on a level surface. Except if you did not shoot the drill completely level or straight - the 1.5” will likely be taking “too much”. Always do 1.6” just in case. 2. If you cut the wire a bit too long and can’t manually turn the hand tool, grip your hydraulic crimping on the wire screw and manually turn it this way. You could just start over but who would wanna do that? 3. When doing the wire cutting, have someone hold the other end of the wire you just cut - to line it up with the second wire you needed for the same posts and cut until you have the needed amount. 4. Use a drill to drill the wire screw into the post to get it started. Attempt to get the screw into the post the same depth - do a thread count and get a rough guess/count on proceeding screws. 5. Use a cobalt, not supplied, 3/16th drill bit for tapping the wire screw holes. 6. On stairs, throw away the directions they gave you on 2” between posts. It would depend on the depth of your stairs for that to make sense anyway. You’ll be in for a rough few hours on one section if you don’t listen to this advice. You need to set the wire screws to a COUNTABLE thread count on each side. You then place the wire into the hole of one wire screw until the wire hits the bottom of the wire screw. Drag some wire to the opposing post’s leading edge and line it up with where the wire would go. Cut the wire approximately 0.25” shorter than the leading edge of the post. If this is too long/short then you will eventually get a feel for where this cut needs to go. Once you get this down it’ll be cake.

Everything I ordered (cable, cutter, crimper, and swage lag screws for wood posts) are super high quality, including the wrenches that come with the swage lag screws. Really great product, couldn't be happier with the results. I built 2 sets of floating stairs for 'mini-lofts' in my new home, the pictures show one set of stairs with the Steel DN Mate cables/swage lag screws. First time using cable railing, so there was a little bit of a learning curve. After installing close to 100 cable runs on my staircases, a couple ideas for installation on wood posts for other potential buyers. Admittedly, my staircases are custom and quite steep, so I had to build a couple custom drill blocks for the screw holes. And I used cedar posts, a relatively soft wood. That being said, my angles being so steep, it was pretty tricky installing the lag screws without scratching the wood post on the angled runs, even with the angled wrench that comes with the screws. In fact, the last few turns after scratching my posts on my initial try at the steep posts, I used small vise grip pliers around the crimps on the screws to turn the lag screw in all the way as the crimps are far enough away from the post while sinking the threads for the pliers not to touch the wood. The angled wrench started scratching the posts with about 2-3 threads remaining to be sunk into the wood due to the wrench slot on the lag screw right up against the threads of the lag screw. However, the vise grips did not leave a mark on the crimps, so it was not a problem. That showed me how well the swage lag screws were made - no scratches even with bare pliers. During the entire project, no parts from Steel DN Mate failed me. I looked at the Steel DN Mate store on Amazon, and didn't see a product like what I wished I had during my installation - a ratchet wrench that would grip the crimp marks to help install the lag screws. That would be awesome, even though the wrenches included with the screws are high quality. Had Steel DN Mate offered such a tool (which would keep the tool away from the wood posts) and just generally help installation I would have purchased it. Since the crimp marks withstood vise grip pliers, I can imagine they could come up with something that like a gripping ratcheting wrench would make installing the lag screws on straight and angled holes a breeze. Another helpful suggestion might be a longer handle on the crimper. It takes a good bit of strength to make the crimps, and such that it's easy to not hold the tool perfectly straight which ends up with slightly bent lag screws. However, once the cables are tensioned, the tension generally straightens out the crimped lag screws fine. So with steep stairs, and soft wood, one must be pretty careful during the install. And doing two staircases which took me about a week of pretty solid work to make up all the cables - all the crimping and tightening of the lag screws can be a good bit tiring. But I can't argue with the results, I recommend the products from Steel DN Mate highly. I hope others might find some of my comments helpful, in no way do my comments criticize the products, I just wanted the information to be helpful to others.

Very cost-effective and easy product to install great quality

Update 9/24/24 - the supplier reached out multiple times to help resolve this. They shipped me V2 of the wrenches which were improvements but still broke. They then shipped V3 of the wrenches (which should be what is in stock at Amazon now) which are significantly beefier and hold up well on hardwood. Note, for hardwood make sure you drill the holes deep enough and use a pilot hole size guide for hardwood (usually they suggest slightly larger pilot holes for hardwood vs softwood). I added the last picture with all 3 versions side by side. Obviously big changes between V1, 2 & 3 for the one wrench. The third is definitely stronger and should work consistently. The flat angled version for V3 looks the same but is heavier (44 vs 38 g). I assume that it will stand up better as it is needed for many applications on angled stairs or in tight quarters. Good screws, bad proprietary wrench. The wrenches broke within 10 minutes of use and they are the only ones that will work for the Steel DN swage lag screws. So, this easily basically means that you will have to buy a bunch of these wrenches (they sell them separately) and be really careful with them. I used the drill bit provided and screw wax but the wrench still broke when tightening. My application is on hardwood posts. I assume this will be less of an issue with soft pine.

I used this product to replace wood slats on my handrail for my deck. I found the wood slats really hurt the visibility. Problem solved with Steel DN Mate. I replaced my 1 by 1 wood slats with the stainless steel cable system and I could not be happier. Extremely cost effective and easy for a "do it yourself project". Ordered through Amazon. When I first screwed up by not predrilling 2" for the screws I texted the company saying the wrenches provided broke. I had new wrenches ordered on a Saturday night and delivered by 8am the next day. After predrilling the required 2" I had no more problems and that was on me. I used a template made from a 1 by 4 board that had holes drilled vertically every 3" that I clamped to the 4by4 post that allowed me to score where to predrill the holes. Then removed the template, predrilled the 2 inches into the post, installed the the swage screws so 1" of thread still showing on each side, cut the wires 1.5" shorter than the distance between posts, crimped the wire using a hydraulic crimping tool and then started on one side using the wrench and turned equal amounts on one side and then the same to the other side. I started out 10 quarter turns on one side then same on the other side. When the cable slack was taken up I switched to 5 turns then 3 and 2 turns on each side so as not to twist the cable. Photo shows the end result. We are thrilled with the results.

I've just begun my project and have installed roughly 25 or these. Pretty straight forward, install is easy only thing that takes getting used to are the left handed threads, my mind want to turn to right but that is opposite other than that (which is not product related anyways) these things are great! Initial reaction for the crimping made me nervous thwy wouldn't hold buth these cables are tight as can be and no signs they are fauling at all. The only thing I would complain about is that both tools aren't round. The rounded one is too long to fully rotate between cables and the short one that is flat hurts hands after 2 or 3 studs.

Worked as expected and easy to install. Very happy with my purchase.

v good

I recently bought 4 products from Steel DN Mate: -The Stainless Steel Lag Screws for Wood Post of 1/8": Works really well with the tool provided. Because there are Left and Right screw, it prevents the cable from twisting. Good quality, really solid! -The 1/8" Stainless Steel Cable for Deck Cable Railing System: Great quality again! It comes with a cutter that works perfectly. -The Stainless Steel Protector Sleeves for 1/8" Wire Rope: Nice look for a finish on a wood post. I really like the way the sleeve can hide a hole that isn`t perfectly drilled. -And the Hydraulic Crimping Tool: Works perfectly for the Stainless Steel Lag Screws. I crimped the screws at two different places. It seems really strong, even with a lot of tension on the cables and the finish look is great. I am really satisfied with all of the products above. As you can see on the pictures, the finish look is awesome. It was super easy to install. Honestly it took me about 4 hours to install everything. I didn’t waste any screws or cable and no defaults were found on the tools provided. I would strongly recommend this company for your deck project. Overall, it gives a great look at a low cost!

Worked grea

Combined it with the cable and the crimping tool. Must of installed 50 pieces with 3 crimps each. Held up all summer. We will see what winter brings. Happy with the look and finish. A little time consuming to turn in a half turn at a time and I did both ends myself. 5 rotations on the right then 5 on the left repeat. But did the job .

J’ai refait les rampes de mon deck. j’ai acheté les vis , les câbles noir et le kit de crimping sur amazon. Il y a plusieurs petite étapes à faire avant d’installer un câble: 1-mesurer le câble, le couper à 1,5 pouces de moins que la longeur entre les 4x4 2- enlever environ 3-4 cm de revêtement noir de chaque côté du cable 3- installer les vis avec Léa pince à crimper Nous avons fait deux crimp par vis 4- viser les vis un peu à droite et un peu à gauche en même temps donc si la distance est longue, vaut mieux être deux Ca donne une rampe moderne et jolie Je suis très heureuse du résultat