Custom Engineering

Your Requirements. Our Expertise. Custom Pulley Solutions.

Above all else, we are an engineering firm that can take your technical requirements for sheaves and translate them into cost effective solutions to meet or exceed the performance required of your application. For over fifteen years now, Sheaves Inc. has been the number one source for the wire-rope industry, designing and providing QSheaves™, alongside other custom engineered wire rope sheaves that meet your specific needs and rigors of your application. We also supply a large inventory of stock sheaves from the best known brands in the industry. Contact us today or send a request for quotation, and our engineering team will work alongside you to find your custom pulley solution. 

Want a sheave system to solve your design problem? Our expertise is based on decades of engineering and supplying leading manufacturers, from the simplest applications to the most demanding. We’ve supplied sheaves for both recreational and large commercial boat lifts, to military applications. No problem is too big for us, and no solution is too small for a consultation. 

wire rope sheaves
wire processing custom pulleys
custom pulley

Fully Customizable Sheaves: Two Options, Customer focused

Esheaves.com offers custom solutions engineered to meet the exact requirements of your application. From the strength and durability of a nylon sheave, to the rapid shipping and stock availability of QSheaves™, we will help you meet any challenge. If our customizable options don’t measure up, we’ll engineer a complete, original solution just for you! 

Customizable Sheave Solutions

Review our stock and quick turn items to determined if a quick customization will work in your application. 

strongman sheaves logo

Strongman Sheaves

Don't modify existing equipment to make replacement sheaves fit. Don't compromise your new designs to fit some ‘catalog’ sheave. 

hardhat pulley for wire rope

Hardhat Sheaves

Cast nylon sheaves  provide exceptional durability and performance in demanding applications, and significantly improves wire rope life.

Need an individualized application solution? EShevaes.com is the trusted team of sheave engineers you can turn to. Find additional information about our customization options below. Ready to start a Custom Pulley Project? Visit our Custom Sheave Project page by clicking the link below

ABS sheave round groove custom pulley

A Note to OEMs

Contact us with your sheave requirements before freezing your equipment designs. We can offer a better sheave at a lower cost in many cases if we are consulting early in the design stage. Many times a modification of our QSheaves™ is the economical choice when certain design parameters preclude use of an off-the-shelf sheave. Even fully custom pulleys can be quite economical when the right decisions are made on materials and designs. Put our experience to use for your business.

Why Trust your Custom Solutions to ESheaves?

  • 30 years experience supplying the industry
  • Wide variety of materials to select from
  • Engineering consultation & applications team on staff
  • Quality products and world class service

Many applications, particularly in wire rope sheaves and in wire & cable processing, have design constraints that can’t be met by stock sheaves from us or other suppliers. In recent years, Process Sheaves LLC has developed over 300 custom engineered sheaves to meet critical customer parameters. We welcome the opportunity to work with you to achieve the most economical solution for your particular situation. 

We pride ourselves on our quality products and excellent customer service, as well as our continual desire to look for innovative ways to meet your needs; achieved, for example, in our patented line of steel sheaves that allow us to provide an extensive range of 6” to 12” sheaves to be shipped the same day.

Engineering sheave solutions is what we do best and what we do all day, every day. We respond to our customers immediately with technical answers and practical solutions. If we, on the rare occasion cannot provide you with the solution you are looking for we will point you to who can. Why? Because our customers are OUR number one priority!

About Custom Sheaves from Esheaves.com

Lead Times

Custom sheaves expressly designed to meet you exact requirements can usually be shipped within 2 to 4 weeks after receipt of your order. Quotations are usually delivered within 24 to 48 hours after receipt of your inquiry.

Engineering Process

The custom sheave design process is relatively simple. You tell us which are the constraining parameters – OD, bending radius, weight, temperature, shaft diameter, etc – and we will propose solutions. Refer to our order form under the ‘Request Quotation’ link. We must have maximum product size and minimum bending radius (Root Diameter).

Economics

It is generally uneconomical to purchase fewer than ten identical sheaves due to engineering and setup costs. The simplest sheaves (and most sheaves) require three distinct CNC operations and each step requires programming and setup time. Materials are purchased to requirements. Very small orders for one or two pieces are relatively expensive. For less than ten sheaves, it may be more economical to modify a stock sheave. Prices for thirty or more identical sheaves will often be comparable to stock sheaves of a similar size.

Materials

For custom wire rope sheaves, steel, stainless steel, and cast nylon are the recommended materials.
For custom processing sheaves of 22” OD or less, we prefer Gar-Dur, the densest and most abrasion-resistant UHMW-PE available commercially. It is available in a variety of sizes and shape from stock, generally yellow in color. We have been using it for 15 years and have experienced excellent results. Other materials we use are: UHMW-PE, especially for sheaves over 22” OD. HDPE for lower performance and lower cost. Cast polyamide, for special applications. Aluminum. D2 Tool Steel.

Composites

Composites such as carbon fiber are our newest development in sheave manufacturing. We have a technical collaboration with a leading aerospace manufacturer that promises to yield lightweight, strong, sheaves with excellent wear characteristics. We have seen weight savings of 50% with no compromise in expected performance. Due to tooling costs, these sheaves are economical only if the ultimate requirements will be 100 or more. However, sheaves of 30″ OD and larger may be very cost competitive even in smaller quantities. As our experience grows, we will post some case studies on our web site to give you concrete examples or weight and cost advantages.

Balancing

Our products can be statically or dynamically balanced to suit your requirements. Normally balancing is not required because precision machining of homogeneous materials produces inherently balanced finished sheaves, requiring no dynamic balancing for 1500 RPM and above.

wire and cable processing pulley
wire rope sheaves

Ready to Order?

Thousands of items are in stock and ready to ship. Search by product type, material,  part number, or other attrubite and find your sheaves today.

Need a Custom Sheave?

Save hours worth of engineering and take advantage of our extensive knowledge, experience and resources. Talk to our experienced engineers today.

Know your specifications?

Complete our online Quote Request and our engineers will review and respond with a formal quotation. Get a response in 24 hours or less