Thread: Hand Winch

Seems to be a lot of false info out there about the dangers of breaking wire cable.
First up, it is wise to keep away from a working wire cable, also a good idea to place a safety blanket over cable.
Why, because when a wire cable fails it does not often fail instantly at one particular spot.
Usually the first sign of a wire cable about to part is a single wire (or a few together) start to rapidly unwind (from their twist) with a corresponding whipping sound.
The wire/s will travel quickly away from the break point unravelling toward their respective ends of the cable.
That's why a safety blanket is needed to restrain those fast travelling sharp wires.
If a cable broke instantly at one spot, no safety blanket would restrain it.
Wire cables usually brake at damaged points, kinks, broken wires (spiders) or at a non thimble hook eye.
Snatch blocks cause kinks, too small a wheel dia., groove too wide or too narrow, also binding and improper lay on winch drum.
So remember if you have 50 ft. of winch cable out and it breaks dead centre you will have up to 25' of single wires whizzing around your head at break the sound barrier speeds, or if it breaks at one end you could have 50' of razor wire flailing about.
Gist of the story, KEEP WELL AWAY.
BUT if you're observant, and you should be you will see the early signs of a single or few wires starting to unravel, you should be able to halt the winching or get the **** outta there, chains and synthetic ropes give no pre-failure warnings, Regards Frank.

Originally Posted by Roverlord off road spares

Why would you want to use and dirty your recovery gear, let them use theirs.

A hand winch also puts the operator very close to the cable. Again let them use theirs and do the hard work. and risk getting hit by a cable
Cheers, Mario

Finally managed to replace the lost handle for my Tirfor. I am now one happy camper!