atcomsystems.ca/forum Forums Wiring - Telecom Carriers - Trunks & Services Cabling Telephones Systems Wiring Feeding phone line through insulation.

don't throw it away. Just heat the tip with a torch and make it into a loop just like the 1/8" fish tapes.

I took a steel fish tape apart and.. BOING it said!

I would if the tape would come out. It is now wound up inside of the unit. No amount of pushing the handle will get it out. As the post above says, boing goes the tape. I went ahead and bought a regular steel leader tape instead. Works much better. Can easily bend the end to prevent it from going inside.

I forgot those Greenlee tapes shown above don't come apart easily. We had one that we were able to treat before someone wound it up all the way. And for the "boing", it's best to pay out a tape prior to taking any apart. If one doesn't do that, it becomes one of those "Oops - shouldn't have done that" events!
:scratch:

My impression is that the OP is going to drill into the wall horizontally. In that case the big concern isn't the insulation, it is the possibility of hitting a wire or pipe.

That's the way I took it as well. Once through the initial layer of gyrok, just push the drill "gently" though. With the bit or the coat hanger, you can "feel" around before doing any major damage.

as a cable guy they never taught us that but I never hit anything anyways.... thank you so much for the advise!

easy stuff! I LOVE phone work. The situation was that he wanted line two active for his office. Well, the phone company came in and activated line two but the inside wiring was screwed up. He wanted a whole new line put in for line two. He didn't even want me to try and fix it. We went into the office, drilled the hole to the outside and there was very little insulation. Heck, there was more insulation in warm Florida than in this mountain town. So I looked in the hole in the interior wall and could easily see the hole in the exterior wall. I then stuck the glow rod through the hole and went outside and tied the phone cable to it (I used cat3 as it was only for phone). Then I went inside and pulled it into the house. After installing the wall plate I went back outside and fed about a foot of cable back into the wall and then stapled the line straight down to the foundation. There was satellite cable that the customer told me to zip-tie the phone cable too which went around to the demarcation point. When I got around to the demarc I then fed the phone cable up and beanied it to the phone company line. I just realized why we shouldn't have zip tied the phone line to the satellite lines; because what happens after the satellite comes down. As for using the beanies.... inside the demarc was a mess. I forgot camera so no pictures. I can't handle criticism anyways. You'll just have to believe me that it looked good. After testing and cleanup I then went to the mall and bought new shoes with my earnings.
They're awesome shoes. They're 43 dollar shoes that I got for 20.

so you used a Gel filled outdoor cable right?

It didn't have to be gel filled unless it was buried (assuming it's rated RT4.) Bell's aerial drop isn't gel filled either.