On Sep 6, 9:40 pm, "Eigenvector" wrote:
"John McGaw" wrote in message

.. .





Nate Nagel wrote:
Eigenvector wrote:
I'm in the process of pulling new phone cable for my house and tied the
old cable to the new cable with electrical tape. Unfortunately the two
became separated and now I need to push the new cable through the 1/4"
or so hole in the wall and out the house. I know the holes aren't
aligned, so I'm hoping there is an easier way to do this that doesn't
involve "cut the drywall" The jack that it came from was a surface
mount jack, so there is no box in the wall, just a hole in the drywall.

I know that there is fishtape, but for some reason I thought the head on
fishtape was larger than the diameter of phone cable. The holes are
almost exactly the diameter of the phone cable, if not smaller, whoever
did the fishing of the wires did a really good job. The hole is small
enough so that looking through it is hopeless - no eyeballing this job.

just use a length of stiff wire instead of a fish tape; a 14AWG single
copper conductor will work, or even better would be some smaller yet
stiff steel wire (aka "mechanic's wire")

nate

In a pinch a straightened wire coat hanger can work pretty well. And it
has the benefit of being free.

OP: how far is it that you need to thread this telephone wire? Straight
through a normally-constructed wall? Is the construction brick or
something else difficult? Normally the original telephone installer would
have used an "installer's bit" (what else?) to go through the entire
structure and then to pull the wire through. This means that the path
really should be quite straight but not necessarily perpendicular to the
walls and once you figure out what the original path is, threading the new
wire becomes much easier. Normally I'd just put a piece of coat hanger
wire perhaps 18" long onto the end of the wire like a needle on a thread
(but _firmly attached_ using minimal taping without looping)and poke
around a bit to figure out the path and then push it on through.

--
John McGaw
[Knoxville, TN, USA]
http://johnmcgaw.com

I like the idea of a coat hanger, but I haven't owned a metal coat hanger in
years - they simply don't sell them anymore and I don't have anything that
needs to be drycleaned.

I got a whole mess of white vinyl coated ones in Target. When you
have an older house with small closets those big clunky plastic
hangers take up too much space. Plus they sag when you use them for
drying damp clothes.

nate