DIY skidding winch build

Stomper · May 9, 2019

ericm979 said:
The 3rd function valve's page says it's a closed center motor spool valve. It must not really be closed center because your tractor's hydraulics would not work correctly with it plumbed in. If it's motor spool then when it's off the grapple cylinders would be free to move.

Sorry I linked to thee wrong valve this is the one
12V DC Tandem Centre DO3 Directional Control Valve | Princess Auto
I went back and fixed the previous post

iointerrupt · May 9, 2019

The motor says it'll do 4650 inch-pounds of torque, and given a 2.25" diameter drum, the winch equation (4650/(2.25/2)) roughly 4000lb of pulling force on the rope. Which is certainly respectable, will pull the tractor around easily without having the ground feet engaged.

As for the never-ending rope discussion, the best I've found so far for my capstan winch is 3/4" Dacron. It's reasonably low-stretch, it takes a lot abuse and keeps going due to being so oversized, and best of all it's really cheap compared to the other fancy ropes out there.

davedj1 · May 9, 2019

Having built my own clutch driven PTO winch I find this method interesting. Thanks for the link and thanks for sharing all the info. Keep up the good work!

Rustyiron · May 9, 2019

Well done Stomper:thumbsup:

Stomper · May 10, 2019

Thanks guys. Im hoping someone else can get some ideas from this project to help make their firewood gathering a bit easier.

Stomper · May 10, 2019

iointerrupt said:
The motor says it'll do 4650 inch-pounds of torque, and given a 2.25" diameter drum, the winch equation (4650/(2.25/2)) roughly 4000lb of pulling force on the rope. Which is certainly respectable, will pull the tractor around easily without having the ground feet engaged.

As for the never-ending rope discussion, the best I've found so far for my capstan winch is 3/4" Dacron. It's reasonably low-stretch, it takes a lot abuse and keeps going due to being so oversized, and best of all it's really cheap compared to the other fancy ropes out there.

What do you have for a capstan winch and do you have any issues with the rope wanting to bind up on itself on the spool. This is the issue that myself and a couple other guys are having. We believe it is something simple that we are missing but just haven’t it figured it out yet

Rustyiron · May 10, 2019

Stomper said:
What do you have for a capstan winch and do you have any issues with the rope wanting to bind up on itself on the spool. This is the issue that myself and a couple other guys are having. We believe it is something simple that we are missing but just haven’t it figured it out yet

I've never operated a capstan but always thought it was the essence of simplicity with 2-3 wraps on the drum and your input was only how hard you pulled to aid the "grip" of the rope to the drum, it's like you are the clutch controlling the power and to some extent, the speed. What is this bind you are having and could it be the type of rope? That is it's amount of stretch possibly?
I had thought about building a capstan but my concern of keeping the rope in order (as it comes off the drum) helped my wallet open up to buy a conventional hyd winch.

iointerrupt · May 10, 2019

My winch build is here: https://www.tractorbynet.com/forums/build-yourself/392375-pto-capstan-winch-scratch.html

As for binding, and the scary self-feeding that follows, it certainly has happened to me. Two things about that:

#1, is strict attention to watching the rope on the spool and varying the amount of pull on it. Most of the time I don't even look at the tree, I only look at the spool to see what the rope is doing. This is naturally not a great answer, as now you have a different safety issue (what is the tree doing!).

#2, is I think I reduced occurrences of it happening when I increased the size of the end flange massively. Most of the times I get binding, is when the rope rode up off the end of the spool and things got ugly from there. Keep the rope on the spool and everything tends to be fine. The larger end flange also made the winch able to transmit much more power through the rope. Before I could only pull gently, before the rope would want to jump off. Now I can put all the force I want into the rope, and winch will respond in kind. Snapped a bunch of older ropes after the change.

(I didn't feel like re-machining a new spool, so I made the new end flange just bolt on. Rope always rides in direction of the flange, so no need to put one on both sides.)

Rustyiron - As the rope comes off the spool, I mostly just neatly pile it near my feet, but not near enough to be a tripping hazard. Also possible to feed it directly into a 5 gallon bucket, but little more annoying to pull off. Hasn't been a big deal, but I mostly winch 50ft or less at a time.

Stomper · May 11, 2019

Looking back and studying the potable winch videos, It seem that the small rope guide that comes with the portable winch capstan when you purchase them, is the key to having the rope not bind. It holds the second wrap of rope from working down towards the incoming rope and prevents the binding. Makes total sense to me. In the video below you can see what I mean. There is a good picture of the part that I am talking about at 30 seconds in.
Gasoline Powered Portable Winch PCW5 With Forestry Kit - YouTube
CAPSTAN DRUM 85 MM WITH ROPE GUIDE - PCA-11 | Portable Winch

Stomper · May 11, 2019

I just forund out that one of the other fellas that built a similar winch and was having the same rope binding issues as I am having, has installed the rope guid and his winch is working great with no binding issues.