winches

[cj7]

Please be careful using your winches. I met a fellow last weekend that told me this story.

A man was guiding in a 1/2" winch cable onto the drum of a peice of equipment, when his hand got caught and it pulled him in throught the opening for the cable and around the drum. He was out of view from the which operator before and after it happend. It was only when another worker had looked over and realized that the guy the was in front of the winch was gone. They tried to get him out but needless to say he was dead. They think that there was a small frayed wire that must have caught his gloved hand and/or hand, that pulled him in. It must have been a horrible way to die.

So, please be very careful around winches. There are many dangers associated with them. In fact later this past weekend we snapped the cable on my winch. Which is another story. No one was hurt.

 

[jhburke]

When I was a teenager my dad had a sawlmill and logging operation. We were pulling logs up a 200 ft gully one day, we were using a 30 cat with a 60 ton winch on the rear. Dad was running the cat and I was signalling when to stop and when to go. The log rolled into a stump and before I could tell dad to stop the cable snapped and all at once I was about 50 ft down the side of the gully. The cable wrapped around my calf of my leg and jerked me over the hill. I had bruise from my ankle to my knee that looked like a tatoo of a snake. No damage to me other than the bruise and a very stiff leg. I was very fortunate that day.

 

[TimSullivan]

You were lucky. I was pulling a car out of a ravine after an accident with a truck mounted winch. The cable snapped and went right through the back window of the wrecker. The car slid back down the ravine and into a tree.

My boss had bought new cable about a month before but it was sitting on the bench back at the shop.

 

[Hans]

I always lay a chain over the winch cable when pulling. Heard this might at least keep a snapped cable nearer the ground. Does anyone know if this is true?

 

[DUMBDOG]

It would depend upon where the cable would break and where the chain is.

 

[looch]

This is reminiscent of a lengthy discussion regarding the physics behind what happens when a chain/cable lets go. There was a suggestion of laying a heavy blanket over the line. I've thought about it now and again and wondered if threading the line through an equal length of ABS pipe would help. Anyone care to offer their theories?

 

[gerard]

I guess if you really wanted to be safe either a blanket or tarp would be a lot better than NOT having one on. The tarp/balnket would certainly slow the whipping cable down some and offer some protection. The pvc pipe is also a good idea - you could run it lengthwise down a tablesaw making a slit. This would allow it to be slipped on/off the cable while the cable was under tension. If you used several sections you could keep a long section of the cable "under cover" and remove the sections as the cable became shorter.

 

[Wingnut]

I'm not sure I'd want to experiment since I like my head on my shoulders, rather than the ground ... those whipping cables do quite some damage ...
but, my "intuition" tells me that the release of tension on the cable would serve to make the chain an <font color=blue>additional</font color=blue> deadly flying object.
The blanket, tarp and other stuff like that would likely help more (if anything would) as it would interfere with the airflow, albeit not much. PVC pipe would make an interesting experience. Someone (other than me .... I like my bones in the shape they are right now) go ahead and test it (tape it too, we'd like to see the movie) and let us know the results.
I play it oversafe, just like the riggers taught me many years ago and replace at the drop of a hat. Frayed slings and cables and damaged chains give me the willies!

 

[Mosey]

I'm not getting the picture on this one. What do you mean by "the drum of a piece of equipment"? What exactly did he get pulled into? How does a frayed wire pull someone to their death? It seems like it would pull a finger or hand off before it would pull on him so hard it killed him.

The operator should never have keep going once the man was no longer in his sight!

 

[Kodiak]

Danny:

Winch cable is a wire rope made up of many strands of wire woven together to make a cable. Once these strands start to break they splay outward and are very sharp They can easily catch on your clothing, gloves or even skin pretty easily. The drum is the moving round part that the cable is wrapped around at the winch end. If the cable had some broken wires (ie was frayed) it could easily have caught onto something the man was wearing or even his skin. Still moving the cable then dragged him into and around the drum. Probably ripping him apart in the process.

A broken cable can be even more dangerous as the whole broken end tends to splay out into a ball of razor sharp wire ends that come whipping back from the release of the tension.
Many years ago as a commercial fisherman I was working aboard a trawler. We were passing a second trawler @ 100 ft to our starboard side when there was a loud pop and one of their trawl lines (1 1/4" cable) snapped. Well 75' of cable came whipping up the back deck of their boat, so fast you really couldn't see it. The end had splayed into a ball about 1 1/2 ft in diameter. As it went across the deck there was a red cloud left in the air, as it disembowled one of their crewmembers. Unfortunately he didn't make it, and it only took a fraction of a second.

 

[wroughtn_harv]

In Plano Texas there's a very nice young man missing a digit. He was a lineman for the local phone company. They were winching a manhole to manhole section pull. His gloved hand got caught and was pulled into the fairhead. He lost his middle finger. It came out of his hand as I recall.

Winches are not unlike the boom on a backhoe. The force they exert is many times that required to destroy human body parts. They can get you coming or going, but mostly because you're there.

 

[ScottAR]

I'm guessing it was somthing like the winch on the rear of this dozer. Winches of this size have the power to pull your car in half and certainly the power to destroy arms and legs.

 

[Mosey]

OK, thanks for clearing that up. Now I understand that "the drum of a piece of equipment" was the winch drum itself. I had it in my mind that the winch was pulling some other piece of equipment or something. It's still amazing that it killed him instead of ripping off his hand or arm first. I'll definately watch out for any loose wire on the winch cable!

 

[cj7]

Being out of site of the operator was part of the problem. The guy that died was never in site from the beginning.

 

[RanchMan]

<font color=blue>There was a suggestion of laying a heavy blanket over the line</font color=blue>

I didn't read the other thread, but this is a very common practice and many winch manufacturers actually recommend it in their instruction books for their products (for good reason).

Basically, it has to do with air resistance (as Wingnut alluded to). Believe it or not, it does help, although yes, it does depend on a number of variables as to “how much” it helps.

Basically the blanket serves as a big "air brake" to slow down the cable (no, it won't stop it.) With a sudden release of energy, the air resistance is considerable, unlike with a slow release of energy. The PVC pipe idea can't do this (although I'm not prepared to say it wouldn't have other "benefits".) The chain? Well, although you’d have that whole momentum thing that should “help”, I tend to agree with Wingnut in that you might just be creating another projectile (that is tethered to nothing, unlike the winch cable itself) A high velocity blanket would seem to be a lot less damaging than a high velocity chain if it “flew off.”

Now, admittedly, there are a HUGE number of variables in a typical winching situation so there is no guarantee that everything will “work out” just because you have a blanket over your cable when it lets go, (e.g. the cable snaps at the opposite end from where the blanket is placed, the direction the cable whips, etc.) but overall it is a good practice to increase your safety factor when winching. (besides, what is the downside??? And please, nobody say anything like “it takes up room in my trunk” or something goofy like that /w3tcompact/icons/eyes.gif - those are excuses, not valid reasons...)

PS: After writing all this ( /w3tcompact/icons/eyes.gif ) I found <A target="_blank" HREF=http://www.ramsey.com/video/>this</A> link - you can download (Cable/DSL recommended! Big file!) the “Safety” video to see what Ramsey recommends/shows - about a 15 minute video with not-so-great actors, but you'll get the idea.

You'll notice they continually repeat to "use a blanket or tarp" when winching for safety reasons, and being a manufacturer of winches (hence they worry about product liability suits), I think that gives them some added credibility. (I'll go on to say that there are other safety “rules” that are not mentioned, but overall the narrator does mention some "good stuff" to think about when winching....)

Enjoy! /w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif

 

[ScottAR]

I think the blanket idea is a good one. The only possible negative is if one has to scoot the blanket away from the winch to reel in more cable. This would be going near the cable while it's under tension which is a big no-no.

 

[RanchMan]

<font color=blue>...negative is if one has to scoot the blanket... </font color=blue>

True. However, since most of the time the blanket is put at the end furthest away from the winch, it would keep you from having to move it during the winching process. Another aspect is that since you are typically "unstuck" (and hence not winching any more) before you are close to having the cable fully retracted, it would allow you to remove the tension in order to retrieve the blanket. Good point though...

 

[chim]

Been a while since I knew where the instructions got to for my Warn, but I recall the blanket was to be located something like half way between the winch and the load. Mebbe a bit closer to the load, but the idea is to slow the cable down should it whip from two main causes - the hook somehow gets detached from the load, or the cable fails. Also, tree branches work if you don't carry a blanket you want to drag in the mud...................chim