Posted by David Sherman on Friday, August 29, 2003 at 10:36PM :
In Reply to: GIN POLES DONE !!! posted by cliff/utah on Friday, August 29, 2003 at 9:52PM :
Looks good! I'm sure that A-frame will be handy for lots of things. I built a 14' A-frame for my M35 as soon as I got it and it's been very useful, especially for lifting logs for building. I have yet to figure out a good way to erect it, though. It's too heavy to lift by hand so I have to lean the poles up against a tree branch or roof and rig the block and tie-back line from there. I can do it by myself, but it takes a solid hour.
I hope you designed it by good calculations for real loads at all points and made sure that the forces on the A-frame's legs go straight down their centerline. A little bit of sideways or twisting or anything that starts to make them bow out can lead to a sudden collapse. A copy of the AISC steel tables will show safe loads for pipe columns. It'd be good to cut those numbers in half to account for jerky lifts, sudden drops, and the like.
When lifting something pretty heavy, stop the winch when you get the load just a little bit off the ground and make sure the winch brake will hold it with the PTO in neutral. I'm not sure why your winch is making a worse noise going down than up. Maybe a bearing is worn and the worm is going off to one side and rubbing on something or not meshing properly on the way down. I hope you took a good look at the innards of your winch. My M37 has a functional winch on it, but the teeth on the gear are worn to the point where they don't have any flat tops on them at all. When I got it, I pulled the drain plug and got about a cup of bronze powder and water out of it. Somebody didn't bother with oil, during the years it was used for setting up tents at the state fair. I would not want to take a hard pull with that winch.
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