Winch

[timberfaller390]

Okay, so the idea I have had floating around in my head for several years about building a big winch has rolled back around again. What I have been thinking is a trailer mounted, gas powered 3 drum winch.  I have a small but very heavy transmission with 3 forward speeds and reverse and a 16 horse engine. what has got me stuck is powering the 3 drums individually, a freespool feature and some sort of braking system for the drums. The engine will power the trans. via belt with a manual tensioner so it will be sort of like the belt on a bandsaw mill. My main hangup is powering the drums independently of each other, I think I can figure the rest out. Any thoughts or ideas will be much obliged.

[Ed]

First question is..................................what are you trying to do with it?

Ed

[timberfaller390]

Basically just a general all around pulling platform. Logs , stuck tractors whatever needs pulled.

[Mark K]

I built something similar to what your describing. I used an old IH power unit that had a hand clutch and coupled it to a double line winch off of a td-18a bulldozer. Mounted it to a trailer and used it to yard logs from a revine on our farm. Worked pretty good, had to make sure it was butted up against a tree and chained off. Gets a little old draging that 1 inch cable all over the place but had more pulling power than my tj skidder.

[HOOF-ER]

how bout a  line shaft with movable gears. Just slide on shaft to engage or disengage. Some sort of dog to lock the drum gear. ???

[sjfarkas]

instead of running the transimission why not put a hydraulic pump on the motor and then run a valve block and then you could run as many winches as you want?  Just a thought.

[timberfaller390]

instead of running the transimission why not put a hydraulic pump on the motor and then run a valve block and then you could run as many winches as you want?  Just a thought.

Because I don't have a hydraulic pump, valve bank and 3 hydraulic motors laying around but I do have lots of gears, chain drives and such.

[timberfaller390]

Okay so I like the line shaft idea but the two questions I have are how hard is it going to be to keep the line shaft gear sliding on the shaft. I think a very minimal amount of rust would make it hard to move. My next question is how hard is it going to be to disengage that gear with tension on the drum. For enstance I have tension on drum #1 and need to disengage it but also keep tension on it but then engage drum #2.

[Hilltop366]

Gravity locks (pawl) on the winch drum like a strap winch on a flat deck only much larger.
The logging winch I use is set up this way it has a second leaver that acts as a weight so you can flip the weight down and engauge the clutch to take the strain off the line and it will release the pawl, with the weight up the pawl drops into each slot on the drum as you pull in line. Hang on I'll see if I can take a picture.

[Hilltop366]

  Pic 1 shows pawl engauged in drum




Pic 2 shows leaver in release position so you can kick it down and release the drum(free spooling) or if under load engauge clutch to release pawl. The long leaver is free to move on the shaft, the part that is fastened to the shaft is the extra large chain link looking part .





Pic 3 shows leaver in the up position to keep the pawl rubbing on the drum so when you release the clutch the drum will stop





Pic 4 & 5 shows the most important part, the drag break on the drum that keeps the cable from balling up when free spooling, note the cable going past a leaver that has the cable pulled to one side so when you pull out the cable it moves the leaver over and pulls off the break then when you let the cable go slack the berak goes back on the drum.

[timberfaller390]

Hilltop, great pics they helped alot. Any chance I could get an overall pic of the whole drum/clutch/brake assembly

[captain_crunch]

Without going hyd power be a bit of a trick. Only way I know of would be 3 clutch packs off one drive shaft. I would hunt around for an old BU 20 skagit hoist beings it would have independant frictions and brakes for drums. But we used a 6 cylinder chevy engine with an automatic trans to give it a torque converter

[Woodchuck53]

Morning Timberfaller, being from Ga. you could take the boss and drive to the coast and look at shrimp boats. I have never been afraid of using all possible research to save cost on fabrication. Steel is way to expensive to cut twice or more while changing things. Just a thought after looking at my good friends shrimper skimmer this week end. They use cat heads and  such on all kinds of winches and hoist on the boats. A lot of them compound set ups. Have a great day. Chuck

[Hilltop366]

More pics of winch.

The clutch is on a thick plate that is part of the large sprocket it turns all the time when pto is in gear, to turn winch drum you pull leaver (there is a 3 short rods in shallow teardrop holes at a angle so when the leaver is pulled it tries to make the rods stand up and push apart) to push the drum against the clutch so it will turn with clutch and sprocket. Kind of hard to describe and a real pita to put back togeather I think a coarse thread would be eaiser.

[timberfaller390]

Anybody know how the clutch/drive was set up on a steam donkey? I have a couple of books on donkey's but they are mostly pictures and not much about how they worked. I did some internet searches but again just alot of pics. I figures since they had 3 or 4 drums powered independently from a common engine, I thought I might get some ideas there.

[captain_crunch]

The old Steam Pots used a clutch friction and band brake on each drum(winch ect) and they all ran off comon shaft. Looking around at ship yards not too bad of an Idea but more than likely they will be hyd powered also. I have an old Otonwna(spelling stinks) swather that has planatary clutch packs for steering each drive wheel and I have thought about useing them to build two drum hoist with. There is just no way to do it without indiviual clutches that I can come up with

[HOOF-ER]

Well just got back here. Being a farm boy I was thinking about the older corn planters. They had multiple gears on a main drive. It was a hex shaft with hex ID gears to change planting populations you just slid gears over on the drive shaft.  Gears had a loose fit and slide fairly easy.A clutch would control the start and stop and a dog would hold the load. This is as simple as I could think of. Good thing because I am kind of simple minded. ;D  I would nose around the salvage yards you should have ag equipment in your area. You might find most of what you need there. I like the hydraulics, that is my plan. The winch is just sitting there waiting to have a motor put on it. ;)

[timberfaller390]

thanks for all the info boys.

[timberfaller390]

I am wanting to build something similer to this: http://www.fs.fed.us/t-d/pubs/htmlpubs/htm83512305/   minus the spar and be trailer mounted.

[IMOWOOD]

I built my first "skidder" with an old PTO powered tow truck winch on an A frame with wheels that was pulled by a farm tractor.  Ill try to dig up some pics.