Mainline length

[DDDfarmer]

Is there a reason that skidder winch mainlines are mostly sold in 100'-140' lengths?  I have a spool of unknown length but estimated around 300'.  Is there a reason I should not keep it all one length, or cut it into two 150' pieces? 

[treeslayer2003]

I bet ya can't get all that on there.

[Ed_K]

 It really depends on what lenght your working from your skidder.I have 100' on mine and only needed more a few time in 12yrs.

[Maine logger88]

I only run about 75 feet of 5/8 on my skidders in the wood I cut that's all I need I can see in different situations needing more though

[EricR]

you could skip the gym if you were pulling 300' of cable all day

[DDDfarmer]

Ok, just looked at the book.... 165' of 3/4" cable   so maybe 175-180' of 5/8".  Well there might be 75' on it now.. time to max it out.   Too many times pulling in small spruce and needing another 25-30'.

[DDDfarmer]

Who needs a gym when you have a skidder-saw and 2' of snow?  Then farm work when you get tired of doing wood.

[coxy]

just remember the more cable you have on the drum and don't get used goes to the junk yard   it will get flat twisted and knotted if you don't pull it out all the time  meaning if you have 100ft and mostly use 50-60 the rest is going to get crappy fast

[EricR]

I don't know if it would make a difference or not to you, but one thing you may want to keep in mind is that the more layers of cable on the drum, the less pulling capacity you have

[thenorthman]

your limited by the drum size, most skidders only need 100-140' of line, any more then that on a regular basis you need to think about getting a yarder.

there is a mathmatical equation to figure out how much line your winch can hold, but it pretty long and i'm feeling pretty good right now...

something like depth minus barrel dia, times drum size times drum width, multiplyied by the factor for whatever size line your using 1/2 is .907 ish bigger cable is a smaller number, smaller cable bigger number.

you also have to take into account uneven winding, and leave a little drum space for that, unless you like wearing through the sides of the winch body...

I have the actual equation at my day job... machinery's handbook... good stuff in there even beyond standard machining uses.

[ST Ranch]

agree with coxy - too much line will waste what is on the center of winch drum.  Better to just have a 25-30 foot length of 7/16 hung on the brush cage of skiodder that you can add onto the end of mainline on the occation you need it.  I use 100 feet of 5/8 swedged line with 10 chockers on my D37E
Tom

[thenorthman]

the more the merrier if you ask me.  If I could stuff 200' on mine I would do it.  I regularly use all 100' I have on mine, and to be quite honest only one end gets hammered so you can pretty easily cut it off add a new end, or flip it end for end to get some more life out of it.  But I don't often get the joy of backing up to a log and just hooking it up and driving away, lots of gullys, swamps and hills to work on here, all the flat land is growing milk, corn, tulips, or taters.


If you are maxing out the winch capacity on a regular basis what are you doing to the rest of the machine?

[timberlinetree]

We do a lot of forest stand improvements for the dept of ag and always use a lot of cable. She(forester) doesn't want us running all over the place running over saplings although I do sometimes but just stand them up if I can.less I have to back down a hill the better.let the winch do the pulling not the skidder on uphill pulls. For us the more cable the better.

[thenorthman]

I also have an extra 50' hanging out on the landing, and carry 1 or 2 snatch blocks in the skidder, along with a couple of cat eye chokers, and couple of 12' chokers, and yes I've used the 12 footers on a regular basis.  Sometimes a guy either taint got the grunt to move a log, or no amount of twisting is going to get em unstuck from a stump.  Been more then a few times I had to tag out with the 50' line and nearly all the line on the drum.

[treechopper40]

I run 75 foot of 5/8 regular cable with 6 slides always fill every choker unless its real big wood I worked for a old Frenchmen when I was young and he had 4 230 timberjacks he would tell me you put out more wood by loading light and going often then you do by freighting the skidder and winching your hitch all the way to the header and spinning and tearing every thing up and he is right and he could also move the wood I miss that oldtimer he taught me alot