Mondo Knows Facts
A cable tie only tightens because of a pawl
A small hinged tooth in the head clicks over ridges on the strap The tail of the tie is moulded with a row of angled ridges, and the head contains a flexible pawl that drops behind each ridge as the strap passes through. Pulling tightens; pulling back only drives the pawl harder into the teeth. Because the grip is one way, a tie has to be cut rather than loosened. It sits in Mondo's everyday life collection, one of 200 facts that each trace back to the reference below.
Where this comes from
US Patent and Trademark Office
Facts that can change over time are reviewed and updated. If something here looks wrong, Mondo would rather know than be confidently incorrect.
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Tags: fasteners, plastics, cables
A cable tie only tightens because of a pawl: the short answers
- Where does this come from, and can I check it?
- A small hinged tooth in the head clicks over ridges on the strap. The figure is taken from US Patent and Trademark Office, which is linked in full on this page. Every fact on Mondo Knows names its source rather than repeating an unsourced claim.
- Is this really a everyday life fact?
- Yes. It sits on the Everyday Life shelf, one of 2,600 sourced facts grouped into space, animals, the human body, history, science and more. Category pages collect every fact in the same field.
- What else can I read about it?
- The links under the fact point to a quiz, game, puzzle or calculator on the same subject, and the shelf below shows related facts. The wording here is original, and quoted phrases are marked as quotations.