Any sailors out there (capstan winch)

[Steve_Miller]

Barient 21 winch, 2 speed, non self tailing NOW 175.00 | other | City of Halifax | Kijiji

What can anyone tell me about a capstan winch. I am investigating capstan winches to build a small 3PH skidder. What would power this Barient winch, is it hydraulic/electric? From what I could dig up, this will provide about 1500-2000lbs of force I think. I like the idea of this setup. Any input good or bad is appreciated.

Thanks
Steve

 

[Ron50]

A good brand in its time, but bought out by Lewmar. Parts harder to get now. These types of winches have bearings, and springs that can wear if not maintained during lifetime. Drum appears to be the aluminum one. No wire rope and when not used in water you will need to try and keep dirt and rocks out of rope weave as it will probably wear the aluminum quickly.
To operate you turn winch handle'included?' one way for high speed low power. Rotating handle the other way gives more power but less speed. This winch is also not self-tailing meaning that it takes two people to operate or you crank with one hand and keep tension on the tail of the line with your other hand. Many used non self-tailing winches for sale.

 

[GPintheMitten]

Hand powered.

 

[Bear 55]

Personally I would use a pto hydraulic powered winch My .02....

 

[Bear 55]

[url=http://www.kijiji.ca/v

Personally I would use a pto powered hydraulic winch and an arch assembly on the tph...Just my .02

 

[Raspy]

Steve,

That is a hand cranked, 2 speed winch for tending sheets or halyards on a sailboat. The winch handle plugs into the top.

Maybe the capstan winches you are thinking about are ones for anchoring and have a motor mounted below, or ones that are simply called electric winches that are shaped like the one in your picture, to tend sheets and have the motor below.

Electric capstan anchoring winches have chain wheels, or chain wheels/drum combinations. They can be hydraulic, but are usually electric and have a motor below similar to a starter motor. High amp switches or relays control them.

The drums can be stainless or bronze. The chain wheels can be galvanized, bronze or stainless and are sized for the specific chain to be pulled. The chain goes 180 degrees around the wheel and then through a curved hawse pipe through the deck to the chain locker below deck.

I think most anchoring capstans are reversible, but they also have a clutch on the chain wheel so you can let the anchor run free to drop it.

Usually there will be deck switches under sealed rubber buttons that you step on to run the winch. They can be worm drive to hold the chain/anchor load, or have a dog clutch that can be set. For a heavy constant or heaving load, a grab hook is slipped onto the chain and tied with a nylon line to a strong cleat. This relieves the strain on the winch mechanism.

 

[CalG]

I would love to fit a capstan on the flat belt pulley fitted to the Fordson E27n. With the addition of a roller fair lead located on the front axle, there are many pulling and hoisting jobs that could be done handily.

a couple hundred feet of "blue line" and a well set tractor with a capstan could do a lot of work!

I'm working on it, but the pulley turns too fast ;-)

 

[Steve_Miller]

I had planned for the capstan to be driven by hydraulics. I just stumbled across capstan type winches and they got my brain spinning that the rope can be of any length and you don't have to worry about tangling on a drum or the drum not large enough to handle the length of cable you want. If I had the capstan, I already have a hydraulic motor I can drive it with, I can control the speed of the motor with a flow control and have an electric valve to control the on/off (this way I could have a kill wire to e/stop the winch if need be) of the hydraulics. I was thinking about a pull strength somewhere around 1500- 3000lbs as this is enough (I think) to not worry about ripping something off the back of the 3PH. I built a post hole digger to mount on my SSQA already and I have another motor similar to it that will spin in the 1-120 rpm range so its just a matter of getting the FPM right to have a good winch speed which will be determined by the diameter of the capstan. thanks for the input, any more thoughts and ideas will be greatly appreciated. If it ever gets off the ground I will post the build process.


Thanks again
Steve

 

[Raincoast]

The type of winch you referenced is a sheet or halyard winch, as has been mentioned, it is manually operated via a handle that fits into the top. This is strictly a one way winch (clockwise as viewed from the top) unless you remove the pawls from the lower gears.
An anchor winch (windlass) is likely much more suitable for your purpose. A sheet winch is too light duty to do really heavy lifting. It would also be much easier to modify a windlass to use a hydraulic motor for power.

 

[Coyote machine]

Agree with Raincoast completely. There is a big difference between reeling in a sheet, (sail) and reeling in a huge boat while at anchor with a stiff wind pushing against the boat, trying to keep the anchor from being retrieved. A windlass is your best bet. Maybe get one from a boat salvage yard and rebuilt it, as needed.