Building a pto powered logging winch Finished

[Banjo picker]

 



I have been wanting a logging winch for some time and just couldn't justify the price...but like a lot of us I get the fabricating but every now and then, and when a co-worker said he had a pto winch, I knew it was going to be mine....It turns easily and he said it had been rebuilt...it looks good and turns freely anyway....I am going to mount it on that 10inch H beam and go from there....besides the winch I have $6.50 in those arm lugs so far.  Tim

[weisyboy]

looks good, not ya just gota make a nice strong frame for it and when i say strong i mean strong.

iv been trying to get a winch or 2 up and running lately.

searched high and low for a Blitz truck winch, to no avail.

now i need a bit of steam/boiler pipe, for the drum, or other heavy walled pipe. about 4" diameter, i have a 75hp post hole borer gearbox or 2 round here, they have a 4.18 : 1 ratio.

that should give me 50 - 135 fpm feed rate, with 75 fpm at peak torque on tractor (1500rpm)

so it should be good. thats exactly the speed i wanted.

[chevytaHOE5674]

Your going to use the tractor PTO to power it? What about a reverse/spooling out? Going to build in a safety clutch or shear pin? Or going with a hydraulic motor for power?

Either way I am interested because I am wanting to build a recovery/log winch for the back of my crawler.

[pineywoods]

Banjo, you will need some means of power out feed. No way will you be able to dis-engage the dog clutch under load. I have 2 winches almost identical to yours. One is mounted on a 50 hp kubota driven by a hydraulic motor. The other is on a small dozer, driven off the pto, but the pto is reversable. Drive shaft is only about a foot long, which makes for some rather severe angles on the U-joints. I thought about mounting the winch vertical to get around that. IF your tractor has hydraulics, that's by far the best way to go.

[Banjo picker]

To get the cable off ,,just put the pto out of gear and it free wheels easily...This is a work in progress, and I am in search of ideas....

I think my speed is going to be somewhere between 20 to 30 feet per min. depending on pto speed and how much cable is on the drum....Its 13 inches around the bare drum and you have to turn the pto shaft 28 times to get one revolution on the drum...so if my math is right the first wrap will be about 20' per min...not very fast I know ,,but if I fill the drum up it will increase speed considerably....

I worked on it yesterday, I have some of the work fabed up for one of the boys to wield...I had a couple of questions I wanted to ask before I started but the dad blamed internet wouldn't let me on line...One question that I had was should I center the pto up with the tractor pto or center the unit as a whole up with the tractor....I went ahead and tacked it up with the pto's lined up....seems that would make for less trouble with th ujoints on down the line....Tim

[Banjo picker]

Banjo, you will need some means of power out feed. No way will you be able to dis-engage the dog clutch under load. I have 2 winches almost identical to yours. One is mounted on a 50 hp kubota driven by a hydraulic motor. The other is on a small dozer, driven off the pto, but the pto is reversable. Drive shaft is only about a foot long, which makes for some rather severe angles on the U-joints. I thought about mounting the winch vertical to get around that. IF your tractor has hydraulics, that's by far the best way to go.

Piney could I not just run it from the tractor seat?   ???  Tim

[weisyboy]

pto outa gear will be fine, most winches unless really geared down will run out ok, unless the cable has bound up on the drum.

might be a bit slow mate, @ 540 rpm you will have a feed rate of 16fpm on the bottom run, this will mean your tractor will be running WOT to get the rope moving at an anoyingly slow speed.

but i supose if thats what you have then go with it.

ptos lined up is better for the drive train, but could cause twisting on the linkage arms.

you can run standard uni joints at about 35 degrees, without trouble, cv joints can be run at up to 80 deg.

[CX3]

I made a winch out of a piece of 8 inch well casing pipe and a hydraulic motor geared down 40:1.  It worked really good and had lots of power.  I wish I had pictures of it for you guys.  I hope someday to build another one.  Good Luck

[mulelogger]

Banjopicker, I just got through building a similar winch this week.I put a hydraulic motor to drive the winch and mounted a snowplow blade to the bottom. I couldn't be any happier with it.I got to try it out wednesday. I just back it up to a stump and drop the blade against the stump to hold the tractor still. The winch is probably stout enough to flip the tractor over backwards but with the hydraulic motor the valves shut off before it gets that much pressure. Think about it. It's worth a little extra to have that safety measure. Call me at 931-279-0375 and I will explain how mine is built. Good luck

[chevytaHOE5674]

Mule logger could you post some pictures of your winch setup? Also what size motor did you use? Is it directly driving the winch or a sprocket and chain setup? Thanks

[pineywoods]

I agree with mule logger. PTO power to a pto type winch can get real expensive in a hurry. Sooner or later you will back the tractor against a tree and start winching. If the log hangs on a large root, the weakest link in the equipment will break. Better hope it's not the gears in the tractor tranny or the main drive gear in the winch. With hydraulics you have the pressure relief valve as a safety fuse, plus you can reverse the hydraulic motor to back out of the situation.

[weisyboy]

we have always had bump bars on our tractor winches, so they can be backed against trees.

if you dotn have the tractor revving WOT you will stall the tractor before anything will break.

normally the weakest link is the rope anyhow, a good shield is essential, to catch the rope when it flys back.

i have seen the rope from a td14 dozer winch cut a 8" ironbark sapling clean off when it broke and threw back.

[Banjo picker]

Thanks for all the replys so far...the tractor I will be using is a Kubota M7040...which puts close to 65 or so hp at the pto.  It does have remote hyds...one set  (they asked 700 a pop to add another)....I could mount a hyd motor on the side of the H beam I have it attatched to....I sure don't need to bust anything in the tranny....that just is too much of a risk...

Thats why I put this on here to get some good info...

I'll get another pic or two on and maybe you can give me some more ideas...Tim

[paul case]

i was wondering in my stupidity....
how does that winch hold the load?
most of the worm gear winches that i have seen relied on the worm gear to hold in which case it would have to disenguage to be able to let the cable out??
a neighbor of mine had one he used that was not power out. he figured out to back up on the cable andlet the tire pull the cable out. i have also seen skidders pull the cable out with the load and hang it up on the skidder to go back for more.
lots of ways of doing things i guess when you use them enough to figure them out.  pc

[Banjo picker]

 

 

Those dogs hold it....I think that is what you were talking about...

[Banjo picker]

 



 

If I need to move it ...no problem its just barely tacked down....Tim

[Larry]

Using a hydraulic motor is a great idea...wish I'd thought of it.  Putting one on my winch is on the to-do list but keeps getting pushed off.




Built this one maybe 15 years ago.  One winter I logged 50 mbf and the winch held up its end.

Backing up to a tree is a very bad idea.  Chaining the front end of the tractor to a tree is a even worse idea.  These old screw winches got nuff power to pull a tractor in half.

Good snatch blocks are your friends.

Cheap protection from a broken cable is a expanded metal shield.  I attach one to the ROPS...with a bit of baling wire or something. :

[bill m]

I think you would be better off with a hydraulic motor to power that winch. Worm gear winches get their braking from the gears so even though the input shaft turns easy with the pto out of gear the drum will not want to spin the input shaft backwards. You may end up stripping teeth if you try to unspool with the cable. I have made 2 tractor winches but I use hydraulic planetary winches. This picture is the first one I made about 8 years ago.


The next picture is the one I made last spring.

[mulelogger]

Hey guys, I will try to get some pics of my winch on here but it will be a few days. I'll take my wifes camera the next time I go to the woods if I can catch her taking a break from taking pictures of the new grandbaby :D

[Banjo picker]

After a pretty good talk with Mulelogger, I have decided to definately go with the hyd motor set up....But as to Bill's comment of stripping the teeth when unspooling  ???  I still have the dog to either put the drum in gear or not...seems like the thing to do would be to just disengage the dog, let the drum free wheel when pulling the cable to hook up..get back to the tractor engage the dog...get on the tractor and start the hyd motor...that way I can have the best of both worlds--wont have to run the hyd. backwards to unspool....Am I missing something???---And I do know thats entirely possible.... ;)---Anybody have a good supplier of 1/2 cable?

Larry you made the decission harder if you been running yours for 15 years with no problems....

What size cable are the rest of you running...Mulelogger said he was using 1/2 in...I don't know if I can get anything bigger than that through the hole in the drum anyway...

Thanks for the Ideas and esp. the pics...

Congrats on the new arrival form the Banjo house....Tim

[jimparamedic]

here's mine and I use the cat heads too




I have also added a 7 foot blade instead of the stands that are in the pic under the whench

[DanG]

Welcome to the forum, and congrats on that Grandbaby, Mulelogger!  You may have to bring the winch to the camera this time. ;) :D

BP, I can get a pretty good deal on cable up at Mr. Hootie's old place, but I don't know about the shipping.  Find out where your County buys theirs and check there.  If that's a no-go, I can check here.  They had a real bargain going a while back.  Don't know if there is any left.

[Banjo picker]

Thanks for the offer Dang, I will see what I can find here first...but one of these days I want to get down there and visit with you and Tom a little bit anyway..freight wouldn't matter then. ;)  but I know several contractors that have cranes and I'll see it they have any that they have taken out of service as well as your sugestion.... 

Jimparamedic is that pto powered or hyd...there is a lot to look at in that first pic...Tim

[Larry]

What size cable are the rest of you running...Mulelogger said he was using 1/2 in...I don't know if I can get anything bigger than that through the hole in the drum anyway...

I started with 3/8" but broke it too many times and went to 1/2".  The smaller it is the easier pulling through the woods.  In the picture that may have been 9/16"...heavy.

I've found brand new winch line at scrap yards but in shorter lengths.  A friend said elevator maintenance crews scrap it because of age.  Auctions are good also.

[pineywoods]

Using a hydraulic motor is a great idea...wish I'd thought of it.  Putting one on my winch is on the to-do list but keeps getting pushed off.


Backing up to a tree is a very bad idea.  Chaining the front end of the tractor to a tree is a even worse idea.  These old screw winches got nuff power to pull a tractor in half.

Good snatch blocks are your friends.

Cheap protection from a broken cable is a expanded metal shield.  I attach one to the ROPS...with a bit of baling wire or something. :

Here's the result of backing up to a stump. would you believe $425 for a new gear?
https://forestryforum.com/board/index.php/topic,21646.msg307411.html#msg307411