The Dead-End Tee is one of those small, easy-to-overlook products whose quality is vital to power reliability. Weighing six pounds, the Dead-End Tee has immense holding power; it’s proven to support 60,000 pounds. Serving as the anchor point between a piece of wire or conductor, the piece is the vital point of connection that can attach a wire anywhere from one to 100 miles long. The Dead-End Tee has countless uses, providing simple, strong attachments for poles, cross arms, X-braces or tension braces.
Whenever a utility needs the part – whether the infrastructure is for a new build, to update aging infrastructure or is urgently needed for storm restoration work – prompt access to a sustainable source of the highest quality product is vital. Being able to get a product that is 100 percent U.S.– sourced meets these needs in unmatched ways.
- Quick response times: Domestic production ensures ready availability and responsiveness that is so important in restoration work. Most power outages utilities face involve natural events damaging their transmission and distribution infrastructure. These weather-related power outages can cost the U.S. economy billions annually.
- Forged for Better Quality: Hughes’ Dead-End Tees, commonly called the 2817, are hand forged. Forging involves first heating it in a fire or furnace and then hammering it – a time-honored craft that produces the strongest steel.
- Readily Customized: The stem mounting holes of the Tee can be chamfered, or skillfully cut at precise angles, as needed for insulator, clevis, hook or other attachments required.
- A more sustainable option: Domestic production ensures a smaller carbon footprint since products aren’t shipped from overseas. Hughes’ products are also sustainably sourced and recycled, and 90 to 100 percent of steel used at Hughes Brothers is from recycled sources.
- Beneficial for the domestic economy: This dedication to sourcing from the U.S. gives more jobs to Americans, which in turn helps build the U.S. economy.
The 100 Percent American Product Journey
Like every Hughes product, the raw materials are produced in the United States. Steel for the Dead-End Tees begins its journey just down the road from Hughes’ Seward, Nebraska plant, in the town of Sioux City, Iowa.
All over the country, each day, Hughes suppliers’ employ skilled workforces to create the elements that will become the U.S. electric grid. In Texas, Hughes’ fiberglass is created through the process of melting glass and stretching it into thin fibers. Down South in Alabama and Mississippi, casting and molding producers are hard at work, while in the Midwest in Ohio and Illinois, Hughes resin producers develop a number of parts for Hughes. From the forests of the Pacific Northwest, across Oregon, Northern California and Washington, dedicated lumber suppliers gather coastal Douglass-Fir from the mills and load the materials onto a railcar – embarking on a journey down the I-80 corridor to the Nebraska-based Hughes factory. In Idaho, a laminated wood supplier produces our engineered wood products and then ships it to Hughes via local trucking firms.
Quality Forged Daily at Hughes
Most parts’ journey culminates in Seward, where the elements for each product and solution arrive at the Hughes factory, a 600,000 square foot facility where 275 employees customize, assemble and finish a product that is reliable, top-quality, and supports economic growth for Hughes partners and producers across the nation. Hughes Brothers has been finishing and selling products from their headquarters in Seward, Nebraska since 1921. The work of widespread suppliers across America contributes to creating the reliable Hughes product that assists utility and manufacturing companies with their needs. A quality product begins with the raw materials – at Hughes Brothers, the 2817 is domestically produced and sourced.
*Disclaimer: 5-10 percent of material and sources are imported where sourcing is impossible in the US.
