Saber Thimble

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pagrey

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Saber Thimble
I just saw this thimble from Saber. Interesting design that wedges in a hawse fairlead. I've never seen anything exactly like it before.

saber.jpg


I don't think the hole is big enough for a soft shackle at 1" so it really is just a plain thimble but the wedge is new to me. If you browse their site they have some other odd stuff, a few different shackle designs.

saber-2.jpg
 
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Hey Paul, saw your post about the Saber Winch Thimble and thought I'd share a couple of photos from a trip I did with some of the guys at Saber last year showing the thimble in action 👍

Saber-Offroad-Toolangi-Offroad-CF-2000px-120.jpg


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It fits a soft shackle through the thimble no problem as you can see from the photo. The shackle that's being used there is an 18,000kg (39,000lb) soft shackle with a protective sheath - so yeah, it'll fit a decent size soft shackle!

Hope that helps! Any questions, I'll do my best to answer them 😀
 
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rasband said:
How does this design compare to the well known Safety Thimble? What's the benefit of wedging into the fairlead?

https://www.tacticalrecoveryequipment.com/product/safety-thimble-2-1/
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I guess if you wanted something that stuck out like 1" less than the safety thimble and didn't know there's a safety thimble fairlead that points it up and out of the way? Or if you're pissed of at TRE for some reason and don't want to buy from them. I don't have a good reason not to like it but it does seem redundant in a world where the safety thimble exists.
 
freedom_in_4low said:
I guess if you wanted something that stuck out like 1" less than the safety thimble and didn't know there's a safety thimble fairlead that points it up and out of the way? Or if you're pissed of at TRE for some reason and don't want to buy from them. I don't have a good reason not to like it but it does seem redundant in a world where the safety thimble exists.
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It solves the problem of chewing up the hawse fairlead when sucking in the thimble. Though, I can easily see the winch pulling the Saber straight through and destroying the hawse long before the Safety Thimble does similar.

In my usage, I moved the thimble off of the hawse for storage because the protruding thimble would occasionally push against rocks and trees. The Saber is slightly better in profile, but I would be concerned about wedging it into the hawse, for the reasons just described. That means moving it off of the hawse for storage which makes it's defining feature a bit pointless.
 
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rasband said:
How does this design compare to the well known Safety Thimble? What's the benefit of wedging into the fairlead?
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It's just different and looks a bit lighter and that can mean safer. As far as me personally regarding the TRE the combination of the farilead that keeps the TRE thimble up and out of the way, it is more expensive and wont even fit with the winch guard integrated on my bumper so I'd be left with that whole thing out front. Not a big deal but it's different.

freedom_in_4low said:
it does seem redundant in a world where the safety thimble exists.
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Redundancy is a good thing the last time I checked, having options and new products is a good thing even if it's not your favorite design or brand.

jjvw said:
It solves the problem of chewing up the hawse fairlead when sucking in the thimble. Though, I can easily see the winch pulling the Saber straight through and destroying the hawse long before the Safety Thimble does similar.
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Sure it probably could. Until I see it I'm not really going to worry much about it. Running that thing is probably not as stupid as running synthetic on a steel hawse.
 
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jjvw said:
It solves the problem of chewing up the hawse fairlead when sucking in the thimble. Though, I can easily see the winch pulling the Saber straight through and destroying the hawse long before the Safety Thimble does similar.

In my usage, I moved the thimble off of the hawse for storage because the protruding thimble would occasionally push against rocks and trees. The Saber is slightly better in profile, but I would be concerned about wedging it into the hawse, for the reasons just described. That means moving it off of the hawse for storage which makes it's defining feature a bit pointless.
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yeah, I don't like the idea of it sticking out either. But that's what I was getting at; it only solves that problem if you don't know you don't have to pull the thimble right up to the face of the fairlead.
 
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pagrey said:
Redundancy is a good thing the last time I checked, having options and new products is a good thing even if it's not your favorite design or brand.
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I didn't mean to imply redundancy was a bad thing, though if you read all the hate around here for Factor55, it seems that this forum does think negatively of redundancy in the market.

I'm still running the old Factor55 design, when it attached with a pin to a tube thimble, before they updated it to eliminate the tube thimble, "copying" the Safety thimble, and before I knew any better. Because I already dropped $100 or whatever it cost and it hasn't bubbled it's way back up the priority list to do anything about since I use it about twice a year.

If TRE came back out with a thimble that laid flat against the fairlead, I wonder if we'd accuse them of copying Factor 55? :eek:
 
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pagrey said:
..


Sure it probably could. Until I see it I'm not really going to worry much about it. Running that thing is probably not as stupid as running synthetic on a steel hawse.
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It's better than some options. But it doesn't go as far as others do.
 
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I'm sure as this thing starts to see use there will be changes and refinements to deal with whatever comes up. It was years after the TRE style design appeared that the fairlead started selling to keep the thimble up and out of the way.
 
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Twice the cost of the safety thimble.

Agree on seeing a winch pulling it thru the fairlead and causing damage over time to the fairlead.
 
rasband said:
I don't the issue around here is "redundancy", all the real talk around factor 55 is the safety of it and the design issues.
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their original versions, yes.

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But they've since released new stuff that eliminates that, as far as I can tell, and then gets hated on for being a ripoff of the safety thimble.

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freedom_in_4low said:
their original versions, yes.

View attachment 309649 View attachment 309650

But they've since released new stuff that eliminates that, as far as I can tell, and then gets hated on for being a ripoff of the safety thimble.

View attachment 309647

View attachment 309648
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I guess I haven't paid attention to the recent ones. They might well be, but I'd agree if you said that the competition would be good for consumers as it should drive the price down. That second F55 one here looks poorly designed though, since it will put a side load on a sharpish point retrofitting that flatlink design when winched in.
 
For those here that use soft shackles is 3/4" what you run? I don't think anybody is going to switch to 10-12mm or 1/2" just to use this thing. I try to be a little realistic on occasion.

Edit: just checked, my neighbor has a TRE 3/4" soft shackle and it's 10mm rope so 3/4" outside. It'll easily fit through this thing
 
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rasband said:
That second F55 one here looks poorly designed though, since it will put a side load on a sharpish point retrofitting that flatlink design when winched in.
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could be. I've never had my hands on one so I don't know what kind of radius they put inside there for the rope to bend around. If it's similar to the radius on the opening of a hawse fairlead then I don't think it'd be any worse than any of the arrangements that bend the rope around the fairlead opening.

1644860846414.png
 
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Personally, anything metallic that touches the radius on the fairlead is a non-starter for me. I'd rather not have to replace the 150' synthetic rope on my winch due to damage from a messed up fairlead radius. That it may actually spread the fairlead opening due to winch pulling is a secondary reason, too.
 
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