speeding up a Lewis chainsaw winch

[NDtreehugger]

I agree with 2 pieces of equipment.

This may be a bit off topic.

I had 1 snow blower, a big heavy bob cat walk behind; it was slow and even slower backing up, when there was little snow it took for ever to get the job done, the thing was way too slow.

When we had 3 foot snow drifts on the drive way the bob cat would walk right through the snow no issues, anyway the sprockets needed replacement I told the guy I hated the slow machine so he changed the sprockets, it would throw snow 50 foot in the air and was a lot faster BUT when the big snow drifts came the blower bogged down and stopped, pull start over and over and ooooooooover again,,, sucked.

I put it back to the old size sprockets and bought a new smaller and faster blower, now I have 2 one for light snow 2 speed back and 5 forward, one for heavy snow 4 speeds forward and 1 back all are slow.

The cost on the purchase is high 650.00 for the small one, 1500.00 for the big bob cat.

In the long run I’m saving money by saving the big bob cat for the heavy snow and not over loading the small blower on the heavy snow.

My thinking tells me 2 pieces of equipment is the best way to go.

 

[redprospector]

I can just see it now. By the time the saw has been started, the throttle blipped and then immediately shut down, the choker rat will be sporting a new set of heavy necklaces.

He'll learn to step out of the way!
Seriously, If you gear it to run 120 ft. per min. you'll be thinking to yourself; "Man this thing is slow". I'm going off of memory, but I believe that a Koller yarder's haul back is running between 6 & 800 ft. per min.
I just know that 120' a min. isn't as fast as a lot of folks would think. I could be wrong though.

Andy

 

[KiwiBro]

He'll learn to step out of the way!
Seriously, If you gear it to run 120 ft. per min. you'll be thinking to yourself; "Man this thing is slow". I'm going off of memory, but I believe that a Koller yarder's haul back is running between 6 & 800 ft. per min.
I just know that 120' a min. isn't as fast as a lot of folks would think. I could be wrong though.

Andy

If set up right, it sure would be good to get that cable back down the hill as fast as possible.

Not sure if it will work or be too good for the saw but might try mounting a clutch drum directly to a winch drum/reel, although could get a bit tricky getting the cir-clip back on and would have to be dead central.

Heck, at 10,000 RPMs on a 4" drum that's about 1000 ft/min if my calcs are close. I think that will just about be enough speed.

 

[Nato]

hey i figured i would chime in on this one. i own a lewis winch and while they look really cool on the u tube videos, pulling all kinds of stuff around, they do have, in my opinion a very big flaw. they don't spool the cable up in a "spiral" it just loads up on itself, creating a mess. this only happens if you are pulling in a heavy load. the drum doesn't have a "seat" for the wire cable to start its wraps to lay next to each other. this causes the wire to "birds nest" and also creates "a$$ holes" ( a technical term used by iron workers for the little strands that break and stick out of a lay of rope and slice your hand) as long as you can move the winch in a side to side maner as you wind in the rope it spools sumwhat ok. but this is only if you have a very light load on the winch. you said you would be using it to pull about 150 pounds and to me that sounds like it might work ok. i wouldn't try to speed the drum up though, you will never get the rope to lay right. this is also critical if you will be using all the supplied wire rope that comes with the winch. when you first spool the drum up, the rope just fits between the drum and the back housing. when you can't move the winch in a side to side motion (like said above) the rope will wrap up on itself and get jammed because of its increased height on the drum. i hope this info helps you out. i will try and take some pictures soon to help describe what i mean better.

 

[KiwiBro]

hey i figured i would chime in on this one. i own a lewis winch and while they look really cool on the u tube videos, pulling all kinds of stuff around, they do have, in my opinion a very big flaw. they don't spool the cable up in a "spiral" it just loads up on itself, creating a mess. this only happens if you are pulling in a heavy load. the drum doesn't have a "seat" for the wire cable to start its wraps to lay next to each other. this causes the wire to "birds nest" and also creates "a$$ holes" ( a technical term used by iron workers for the little strands that break and stick out of a lay of rope and slice your hand) as long as you can move the winch in a side to side maner as you wind in the rope it spools sumwhat ok. but this is only if you have a very light load on the winch. you said you would be using it to pull about 150 pounds and to me that sounds like it might work ok. i wouldn't try to speed the drum up though, you will never get the rope to lay right. this is also critical if you will be using all the supplied wire rope that comes with the winch. when you first spool the drum up, the rope just fits between the drum and the back housing. when you can't move the winch in a side to side motion (like said above) the rope will wrap up on itself and get jammed because of its increased height on the drum. i hope this info helps you out. i will try and take some pictures soon to help describe what i mean better.

Thank you for the excellent description and warning. I understand the frustrating mess you describe. If you get time, could you please look at the way the two sprockets are mounted to their axles/shafts and whether these could be swapped over like redprospector suggests, without too much drama? Thanks.

I don't want to shell out the $ to know for sure it's going to work out OK.

*edit* I suppose the bigger sprocket will not fit under the housing, but could you or any Lewis winch owner please check how much clearance for that smaller sprocket there is and how big a sprocket could actually fit under the housing? Thank you.

 

[Justsaws]

Capstan winch, big one with a big drum. Cheap to make and for pulling 150# it can be made to go as fast as the person coiling rope wants to coil rope.

Make your mule out of an old tiller as was mentioned before. Couple of belts and pulleys and however big of a wheel the coiler thinks they can toss coils.

Edit to add:

Why do you not want to use a capstan?

It is the best fit for your two purposes and is way more flexable than a contained drum winch.

I also think that you will be un impressed with a Lewis winch. I do not own one because I choose not to after seeing one demo'd and watching an owner use his I just did not see the value in terms of speeding up my process, which is slow. If I was beiing paid to pull things by the hour then I would get a Lewis winch, it is easier than come alongs and pulleys. In terms of modifying it for speed, probably not going to hold up well and as was previously mentioned it will mess up the cable even faster. I think you are trying to use it in the wrong application, the application being production for profit.

I have zero commercial relationship to the logging industry, I was simply interested in pulling logs to the truck and sledding rocks.

Maybe the newest Lewis winchs are faster but I would have a really hard time believing that the ones I saw were tugging anything over 40fpm, they were slow. Website says up to 80 though.

100fpm. 1200 inches per minute or 20 inches every second. Slooow walk.
40fpm. 480 inches per minute or 8 inches per second. Sloooooooooooow walk.