How much wench do I need?

Odog · Jan 30, 2017

SliverPicker said:
Typically you will find that you need roughly 5X as much wench as you can afford.

I had 5x more wench than I could afford and it didn't work out, she was a real expensive job, but she was fickle and nickel and dimed me to death.

Ted Jenkins · Jan 31, 2017

I gave up on having a pretty wench about thirty years ago so I built my own winch which still gets used. A great wood cutting companion that does not whine too much and is always happy to put in a hard day it is your typical wood cutting dog. My winch however is powered by a 10HP Tecumseh and used about 600' of 3/8 aircraft cable. The cable is rated in excess of 12,000 lbs but it only gets exposed to 8,000 lbs. However with one or two snatch blocks no log has every stopped it no matter how green or stuck in the dirt. A few times for fun I climbed about 30' or 40' up a tree just to yank it out of the ground, but it was so much work getting set up that it was only fun about 1 1/2 times. Its slowest pull is about 30' per minute and its fastest is about 90' per minute. The best use is to pull many logs up a bank and then cut them up on the bank so that loading them onto a truck is a snap. At this moment as time allows my hope is to automate it so some one can totally operate it remotely. Thanks

schmauster · Jan 31, 2017

Neat little contraption!!

muddstopper · Feb 6, 2017

I would probably go with a hydraulic winch. You can get one of those hyd pumps that runs off your fanbelts, to fit about any truck motor. Mount the hyd winch and pull logs all day long as long as your truck will run. Electric will kill a good battery and will run one down very quick. The gas motor one I wouldnt even try to tote in the woods, just looks way to heavy, but I am sure it will pull a lot of weight and should work as long as the little engine runs. Personally, I keep a 100ft long cable and a couple of snatch blocks on my truck when cutting wood. Hook one end of cable to the log, the other end to the truck, hang a snatch block on a tree and pull the log/tree where ever you want it. I have used the truck and a shorter cable or chain to skid logs to a landing. Works pretty good when your doing a small project and dont want to bring in a lot of heavy equipment.

Ted Jenkins · Feb 6, 2017

Hey mud stopper do not have too much to disagree about. Having access to a 100' of cable and snatch blocks works just fine for some applications. It is especially difficult to use a vehicle to pull your logs around when you are alone because your logs often get caught on obstacles. The hydraulic winch concept is especially difficult to set up, but it can work. One thing that is very limiting are the hoses unless they are very long. If the hydraulic winch is mounted in conventional fashion to the front bumper then it will work well, but the whole set up is expensive and heavy. One person certainly could operate a hydro winch after securing the vehicle to a tree or digging holes for the tires. My motorized contraption needs about 2' X 4' space to carry it around. It fits well into my Bronco behind the back seat if the tailgate is open. It weighs a little over 300 lbs as I normally use it. It has a battery, starter, generator, and a 100' lead that I use some times, but adds to the weight. The whole concept was started because moving a tractor to every job site was not always practical, but a winch that could be stashed in the bushes and moved around with one person was way more practical. If a snatch block is put up into a sturdy tree 15' or 20' high then it is pretty easy to stack a dozen logs into a convenient pile. The chain saw powered winches work well if you need to pull no more than 4,000 lbs and no farther than 100'. Always looking for a better concept or idea to make scrounging better. Thanks

muddstopper · Feb 7, 2017

Ted, a lot of difference in getting out a little firewood and logging for a living. Different tool set and mindset needed. I logged when growing up and we used everything from farm tractors, small dozers and pto winches to get logs. Now days, when i go to the woods, its to get one or two trees. I aint going to be going deep inside the wood line to scrounge a tree for firewood. I am to old and have no desire to get back into the logging business My cable works pretty good for what I use it for. I always wanted one of those chainsaw winches, but havnt ever seen one for sale around here. My plans for future firewooding is to mount a tilt boom and electric winch on my small dump trailer. I should be able to drag up small logs and load them on the trailer without any other equipment. One of those roundtoit projects.