A 90 year old man in Tulsa showed me how to stop wasting half my zip ties

I was running a 40 drop job at an old school building in Tulsa back in March and this retired electrician kept watching me work. About halfway through the day he came over with a coffee can full of cut zip tie ends and asked why I was tossing the tails. I told him they were trash and he just shook his head, grabbed a handful and threaded three short drops through a single stud hole with those little pieces in about 20 seconds. Turns out if you cut your tail long enough it holds smaller bundles against the same run instead of using a whole new tie. I went from using about 60 ties a day down to 35 just on that job. Nobody teaches this in the training videos. Has anyone else had an old timer hand them a trick that sounds dumb but actually works?

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grantnelson8d ago

That coffee can full of cut zip tie ends is killing me, that old guy was just sitting there watching you throw away his treasure. Man it sucks that nobody passes this stuff down anymore, all that know how just walking out the door with those guys. Wish I'd had a retired sparky lurking over my shoulder back when I was burning through ties like crazy.

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