Perhaps the whole winch thing got out of hand. Maybe it will rival the Jerry
Can thread. The way I see it is this; If you don't want to pay for one of
Arthur's winches, don't. There are tons of wiches out there and each of us
has a different requirement or expectation from a winch. Perhaps we want a
letter perfect concours restoration or a recovery vehicle? Whatever the
case, buy the winch that best suits your needs. Now winch safety is the good
information from this thread. Winches are tools and can be your best friend
or your worst enemy. If you are new to winching, get with somebody who knows
what winches are capable of. I wouldn't run off to the nearest wrecker
driver either. Most of these guys aren't as knowledgable about winching as
wrecker drivers were years ago. My best advise is a heavy wrecker operator.
These guys almost always have good sense about their equipment and its
abilities. Each design of winch has it's own unique abilities. I have
built several recovery vehicles over the years and the last two have been
winch blessed. As an example, my most recent truck had a dual drum PTO, a
hydraulic Ramsey and an electric Warn. This was a 1 ton based vehicle and
could pull from any direction. With 44" tires, 4 winches and an operator who
has been doing off road recovery for over 20 years, it was pretty cool.
Safety is paramount. Whatever can happen, will happen. Be aware of the
energy stored in cables and the direction things are going to go when all
hell brakes loose. Most off all, keep everybody clear of your operation.
People just don't know what could happen. As a rule of thumb, I choose one
side of a vehicle to stand on and once a cable is tight, I stay there.
Never cross a cable that is tight, either over, under, in front or behind.
Practice safety and common sense! Kenny
Kenneth Engle
Loxahatchee, FL
'52 Stude M-275 tractor
'78 Casemaster Pioneer Tool Trailer
Recovry4x4@aol.com
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Thu Jul 05 2001 - 00:40:34 PDT