N.O.S.

,

 

......carrying out repairs and annual load tests of winches and cranes. The safety factor of winch ropes was 2:1......

Richard, that makes more sense for the two winch examples quoted earlier. I wonder what safety factor is used today? Also, the level of Safety Factor would have a bearing on frequency of routine testing.

My rope supplier currently recommends a SF of 4-1 for recovery winch ropes, but this is for a winch which is in constant commercial use, and might not necessarily be appropriate for 'occasional use' winches like those on army cargo trucks.

A passenger hoist rope might have a SF of 12 - not appropriate here other than to illustrate the importance placed on safety when wire rope is involved.

To replace your rope or not?

I restored my Constructor with a view to using it for occasional winching. The rope looked awful, but after I'd pulled off about 100 feet of the 450 feet total, it looked like brand new! So I decided to shorten it.

Only when I later pulled it right off in order to clean and paint the winch drum did I discover that the inner 150 feet or so had deteriorated very badly through ingress of moisture from the inside of the horizontal winch drum. It was absolutely rotten :shake: I could have been caught out.

Come on Jack, this military railway thread is getting a bit crowded - we need a few more sidings, or even a main line (please don't franchise it out...:whistle:).

Dig out a few more, Scott!

Well done Mark! Good sound advice.

Given that not many of us are going to sign up for a 5 day industry course on how to winch safely - which, if you were working for a major company, you would probably have to do in order to get a proficiency certificate (as an example google All Terrain Training Ltd and look at forestry winching courses) -

here are a couple of really useful downloadable guides to the subject:

1) HSE Guide to Debogging and Recovery of Forestry Machines

www.hse.gov.uk/pubns/afag703.pdf

2) Forestry Commision Tech Guide FCTG001 Winching Operations in Forestry - tree takedown & vehicle debogging

www.forestresearch.gov.uk/pdf/fctg001.pdf/$FILE/fctg001.pdf

Both these include excellent sections on how to plan the job and select tackle, and are well worth a read - far from scaring anyone off, I think they will inspire confidence by providing a lot more understanding. They are the best written and most practical HSE documents I've seen for a long time, a lot of care must have gone into producing them.

Another point worth clarifyng - it has been stated that a Matador winch is rated at 7T and the Breaking Strain of the rope is 18T, the Explorer is a 12T winch with 22T Breaking Strain rope.

Winch ropes for industrial applications (e.g. forestry work, mobile cranes, excavators) are selected on SWL (Safe Working Load), which is determined by applying a safety factor. For winch and mobile plant applicatons this might typically be 5-1.

So a rope having a breaking strain of 18 tonnes might have a SWL of only 3.6 tonnes. (18 divided by 5), the SWL of the 22 tonnes breaking strain rope would be 4.4 tonnes. This presumably applies to situations where Health and Safety legislation is enforcable.

Note that breaking strain is a design figure - the rope will not necssarily fail at exactly this point - the failure load coud be lower....

Talk to your local wire rope supplier for proper advice - the usual Blue Peter disclaimers apply to my scribblings.

I replace my MV winch ropes with the original spec (or higher spec if one is available), the cost is not horrific and I know they can be relied upon.

the unipower is a good puller but when it coums to manouvering it a bits of a beached whale too big too long to wide

I can see what you mean (though bet it will turn tighter than an old Constructor :argh:) Who invernted air-assist steering?

Funnily enough when it was suggested that the bridging trucks might come up at Witham's I looked at Les's photo again and thought "hmm, cut 3 feet out of the middle and that could be a very useful machine...."

Then I came back to earth with a bump :-D

If ever a truck looked the part for the job - the Fauns by comparison look a bit of a dog's dinner.

:tup:: Has the vehicle been successful in service Richard?

Aside from powered winches, the Turfor is a very useful tool any one any thoughts on those?

Very versatile hoisting and winching tool, wouldn't be without one. And if time is not pressing, there's always the Trewhella Monkey Winch but we've been there before on here!

Yes Croc, that sums up KERR nicely.

Re. Dancing Girl, would you like the cosmolene removed, or left on Sir?

Has anyone actually met Catweazle?

That's just the advice I was after, thanks guys. I conclude they are no good for my applications. Pity I hadn't asked before buying, at least they were dirt cheap!

Anyway Grasshopper, your hands were frozen to the linings of your pockets :-D

Thanks Lee. So would I be correct in thinking they could be very dangerous to use as normal 'slow pull' recovery ropes then? Anyone had any experience of same?

I had to ban the local landrover club from doing "snatch" recoverys (don't even start on kinetic ropes).......

Yes Croc, please do start on KINETIC ROPES!

I recently got hold of some large ones (W+P) for use as general tow ropes. Now I'm not one for snatch towing - dangerous and liable to break something.

Am I right in thinking these ropes are specifically for snatch recovery, where the energy of momentum is transferred from the 'vehicle accelerating rapidly away' to the stationary stuck one, but in a less agressive way than a rope or chain?

Are they suitable to use for general towing, or are they too bungee-like?

This is typical of the stuff I have recovered, and the pull required to move a vehicle that has lost traction on a muddy showfield ( which is I believe what we are talking about in this thread) , doesn't come close to what it takes to extricate something like this.

 

Come on, get real and stop inventing risks (or exagerating them beyond what is reasoonable)

I've got to say I rushed a reply to Mike's post in the hope that he would be abe to respond, rather than wait until his retun from GDSF. At least I'm glad he was able to to do so.

In fairness to you Mike, in the context of pulling vehicles off slippery grass (if fairly level and not dangerously sloping :whistle:) then your comments are quite valid and I am in total agreement with you (assumng that the wincher knows that his rope is in good order....).

However, your post is the first and only time that recovering a vehicle that has lost traction on a muddy showfield (sitting on top and not sunk to the axles) has been mentioned - the opening post asked for -

tips to foster good SAFE towing, recovery and winching,

and the subsequent 30 or so replies were (at least I thought so) adding up to a nicely balanced read on the subject.

Perhaps I'm worrying too much about other people, but I really do not want to see anyone who has never winched before pull out a "looks ok but in fact rotten" rope to help someone off a wet rally field and then think that any sort of winching is a piece of cake.

No hang on a minute, it's now on 970 so that's 30 to go....:-D

p.s. anything with N.O.S. on it is mine, OK?

No, hang on - it's now saying 31....

? Stick a wedge in the door, according to the counter I've still got 32 posts to go (if I can avoid any more trouble).

And the HMVF monthly SAFETY AWARENESS award goes to.......a fireman of course!

I've recently acquired the set of three books on WW1 British Army light railways -

NARROW GAUGE AT WAR 1

NARROW GAUGE AT WAR 2

LIGHT TRACKS FROM ARRAS

Published by Plateway Press. www.plateway.co.uk Excellent books - free postage offer on at present!

Plenty of material for a Rail Section on HMVF - just think of the giant rail-mounted guns, the R.O.D. locos of WW1 and 2 shipped over by USA and Britain to operate the partially destroyed European rail network, etc.etc.

And if some motive power is needed for construction of the Clubhouse line, I might just be able to help (after a litle work) -

Although the details of each group will need to be worked out at the next Meeting of the Damn I m annoyed mens club .

That's funny - the original GOM has just caused me to become a Damn I'm Annoyed person :rofl:

Maybe my comments will annoy some people but winching isn't really dangerous.....

 

I have been doing winch recovery/ heavy winching for 20 years and only ever broken one winch cable........

 

Oh and when I broke the cable it didn.t flail around like a banshee, it fell harmlessly to the ground.......

 

Come on, get real and stop inventing risks (or exagerating them beyond what is reasonable)

Well, I'm not sure it's so much about annoying people Mike, as questioning the validity of the whole thread :confused:

Am I annoyed? No, I'm absolutely furious :argh:

So much so that I feel compelled to make the following comments:

Have you really not learned in your 20 years experience that winching has the potential to be highly dangerous?

Have you never considered the possibility that you were extremely lucky with your broken rope?

The point is you shouldn't have broken it in the first place.

Was the rope damaged prior to this incident? (point already made in this thread).

You've also admitted to rigging it incorrectly (point already made in this thread)

And what about insurance / liability? I suspect that your machines are covered by commercial/business insurance - the point I made in this thread was to make people aware that IF anything were to go wrong (and thanks to some of the excellent posts, by now everyone should be aware that it could go wrong big time) someone might be held to account, so be very aware of the risks you take.

Have you never looked at a winch rope in appalling condition on a preserved MV and thought "Oh dear, I hope that never gets put to use"?

I've not had anywhere near the amount of winching experience as you, but I've had enough to be very aware of the inherent dangers, and the need to approach the task responsibly in order to minimise risks (point already made in this thread).

I for one thought it was an excellent subject to discuss on the forum, and 10/10 to TonyB for starting it off!

In my view all the posts made so far have all been very valid, and when done in the now classic HMVF style of blending good advice / relevant experiences and of course humour, the result is a well-balanced thread which hopefully will encourage any budding winchers / recovery artists to approach the task with the right attitude, and to act responsibly.

And if it puts off a few who may take the view that their equipment is perhaps not in the best of condition, that might not be a bad thing.

Please re-read your post Mike, and if you really believe that we should all post in a responsible way on a public forum such as HMVF, then PLEASE make some alterations.

:tup::

So that's you and Catwezle so far, think I've got the same problem so I'd be up for membership (annual please, as life membership no longer represents good value for money).

Or have our posts in a differet colour so they can be easily avoided by said whippersnappers!

Nice truck Jack, what is it? :whistle:

Hi bubba (or should that be burble?), don't worry - a lot of us talk scribble on here. Fountain of help hey? Flipping soil pipe must have sprung a leak again.

But as you've no doubt found out already, there's usually someone online who can offer some sensible advice - you just have to negotiate the service pit of humility and the cross-fire of sarcasm before help finally arrives. Alternatively just buy a workshop manual :-D

In fact why don't you join in with those 'rested' spanners of yours and help some of us out - the latest "project vehicle " in the clubhose workshop is a Scammell Commander. So far we have just the badge, but it shouldn't be too difficult to fabricate the various missing pieces :whistle:

The Land Warfare Hall at Duxford is extremely dark, so apologies for the bad quality

That's done deliberately, so as not to disturb the sleeping beauties