NW WA Meet / BS Thread

Yup. That was crazy haha

 

We move in the first of February. TW meet at the new crib!

 

I was using this guide primarily from the military and got caught up in the description of tackle resistance. I tried getting a better understanding with this document, but it didn't help.

Van Beest and Crosby are probably the best shackles. They cost a lot more, so keep your eyes on them so they don't end up in another bag. I've never heard of people stealing other people's recovery gear, so don't be too worried

All shackles should have their WLL stamped on them. If they don't, throw them out and save a life.
You want a WLL of 4 3/4 for our usage.
The reason to have Van Beest or Crosby is because all of their parts are tested to ensure they hold up to the shackle's rating. Others, such as no namers, WARN, ARB, whoever, will do a sample testing, where 1 in every X number of products gets tested, and there is that possibility of you getting a faulty shackle. It's kind of whatever you feel comfortable buying, because Van Beest and Crosby are spendy. There's other quality brands, I just know of those two.

Those are tow straps and not recovery straps. Two different applications.

Word to the wise, I tried buying an off-brand. It worked great until I jacked my truck up and the truck wouldn't go back down. Stupid pins wouldn't engage. I was lucky I didn't have it up too high and I was doing things at home; I managed to get things back down by transferring the weight to a floor jack with a chunk of a railroad tie sitting on top of the cup. I've heard stories like mine (i.e., off-branders failing) aren't uncommon, which sucks because the Hi-Lifts are much spendier.

Very important!! If you don't follow this advice, you better have some channel locks or a pipe wrench!

 

So who is the guy in Olympia driving around @Benson X 's clone? Only difference I saw while driving is this guy is a bit more 'James Bond' with "I've got class, but I'm deadly", and Ben is more 'Rambo' where the truck says, "I've killed people and shit them out".

 

Good advice thank you.

 

Well, now you've piqued my curiosity.

It would be interesting to see how much tackle resistance actually is for the recovery gear that we use. I'd imagine that the military stuff is pretty standardized, making rules of thumbs more applicable, but there is a bit of variety between design and materials with what we use. 10% is probably on the high side, but it's better to be conservative than it is to break things. Adding in tackle resistance doesn't look to be too difficult. How many snatch blocks did you wind up using? They refer to it as sheaves, but I think that it's unlikely that you were using snatch blocks with more than one sheave (Masterpull is the only company I've seen that offers multiple sheaves for their snatch blocks, a single sheave is much more common). Just a quick run at the numbers using the formulas from the second link, starting around page 19 (double check my numbers, I've been arguing with a 3 year old on why she needs to wipe her butt and wash her hands afterwards since 0530)

Assuming the LMTV weighs 22900lbs

It looks like the LMTV was buried up to middle of his front hub but not quite as deep on his back hub. This would put the mire resistance at approximately the weight of the vehicle, or 22900lbs. In reality, it's likely less than that since the back wheels weren't buried as deeply as the front.

It looks from the pictures as though he was on level ground, so we can omit grade resistance. We can also omit water resistance and overturning resistance, which leaves us with tackle resistance.

After rereading the original post, I see that two snatch blocks were used. Using the formula of 10% * the weight of the vehicle * number of sheaves, this puts tackle resistance at 0.10*22900*2, or 4580lbs

This puts total resistance (mire plus tackle) at a maximum of 27480lbs

It looks like the snatch blocks were set up in a 3:1 setup (two snatch blocks, which works out to three lines supporting the load), which makes the force needed to be 9160lbs. This is more than the rating of the winch. If we go back to the mire resistance and estimate that since the rear wheels aren't mired as much, say we're at 80% of the full mire resistance, we wind up with a winch load of 7633lbs, which is near the rated capacity of the winch, and might actually be at the capacity depending upon how many layers of winch line are still on the drum.

Tweaking the tackle resistance doesn't change things as drastically, but it still puts you in the ballpark of the winch capabilities.

A couple of other notes that I thought of after re-reading things. There was a question about line speed. Personally, I wouldn't worry too much about it so long as the line is moving. The only time I wish I had a faster line speed is when I'm re-spooling after a recovery. After all the time spent on trying to get unstuck (from the pictures, I'd estimate at least two hours), what's another five minutes for a slow winch? Impatience and rushing rarely ever leads to making things easier. Another thing that was skirted around but never seems to come up in talking about rigging is what is your weakest link? I try to plan my recoveries so that the winch motor is the weakest link, ie, the motor will stall out and stop pulling long before I reach the breaking point of anything else involved. A stalled winch is usually uneventful whereas anything breaking is more excitement than I like during a recovery.

 

Do enlighten us on why you would even bother?

 

If looking at shackles always buy Crosby, its 'Murica made and load tested. Please do not try to match the pins and shackles from other manufactures together to make it work, that's how things fail. In construction, most companies that have a cranes and rigging will always use Crosby over chinese made shackles. Plus rigging have a safety factor of 5.

 

You didn't factor in the mechanical advantage of the vehicle being winched in the opposite direction of travel, or that the stuck vehicle was attempting to drive backwards during the recovery operation, which is probably why the winch didn't blow up Or does it apply to wheeled vehicles? In the first document I linked, I didn't understand what they were trying to say on page 4 where it says, 'number of sheaves is one less than the mechanical advantage', which is why I couldn't figure out how to account for that factor. In the second document, page 2-7 states that, "Resistance reducing factors do not apply to wheeled vehicles; they are only to be used for tracked vehicles", so do we actually reduce anything by applying power? Common sense to me would say not always initially, but would be some sort of exponential growth as the vehicle gets more unstuck.

Having things move too fast even when respooling can be a pain. Being slower allows you to make sure things go on neatly, especially the corners. My 9.5XP is too fast for my comfort.

 

Per the second document (section 2-30, page 21 of the pdf) it doesn't apply to wheeled vehicles

Try thinking of it another way. Basically, your mechanical advantage is one more than your number of sheaves. One sheave gives you a 2:1 advantage. Two sheaves gives you 3:1, three sheaves and you're at 4:1. The way they word it is thinking back from the result that you want, ie, you want a 4:1 advantage you'll need 3 sheaves.

I think that all we're really worried about is the initial force needed to break you free. I don't think that it really matters if the wheels are turning initially or not, at least for the start of the pull. Once the vehicle is moving I think that it would reduce the amount of force needed for the pull, assuming that the tires could get any traction.

hmm.. I've been looking at that winch. I find that I do a lot of bumping when spooling my M8000 to keep the spool rate manageable. I thought about going with the M8000 on the 2nd gen but I plan on having a trailer with me on lots of my travels.

 

Just an FYI but both van beest and Crosby instructions for shackle use are to tighten fully. we just go "finger tight" and don't back off at all and have never had a problem u screwing shackles after lifting things that weight over 100,000 pounds.

As with winches, you want to minimize side loading as well. I don't remember off the top of my head but if the shackle is side loaded more than 5 degrees of straight it's wll drops to like to 80% or so.

Main reason I'll use quality though...I just like knowing they have an actual safety factor to them. might be a 4.5ton wll but can take 60000 pounds as it's safety factor. plus they aren't really that much more expensive.

But that's just me and my opinion

 

I was sifting through our rigging gear at work last night and all the shackles happen to be Crosby. We aren't allowed to use anything from china and I prefer to buy American made anyways. Don't mind the extra cost thanks for the info.

 

Always look at your charts!

And beware of side loading vs straight pull.

 

Move in the first, give at least a week, more like a month to settle stuff in a bit. Just assuming you won't be spending 10 hours a day unpacking and putting stuff away.

 

Thanks for your responses, that is making more sense. The 9.5 would bump fine, but once it gets going, it is one of the faster winches out there. If you would rather have more winch than less, the Zeon 10 series would probably be a better bet, I think they are slower and also use less power. Generational difference.

Based on where you live, I'd give SuperWinch a solid look. I think they have HQ in Spokane.

Not being argumentative, just stating an alternate teaching perspective: The 'backing off 1/8 - 1/4 turn' is something that Bill Burke teaches, and I was assuming him to be a reputable source. Note that having it tighter like you do isn't going to harm anything, and is inherently safer. The difference (of course) is you have to deal with more during removal and might have a situation where you can't un-hook if you aren't prepared.
The different modes of thought are probably stemming from overhead rigging vs. recovery rigging, where there's a difference or relaxation of rules with the latter.

Peace of mind is a great selling factor

 

Probably take about a year to unpack since his better half is prego

 

Haha yeah it might be a few months. Baby Cooper is born Feb 16th. New house, new baby, new job. Still got time for my TW buddies tho!

 

If it becomes a matter of life safety, I'm going to tighten that shit all the way and find pliers later. If you plan for things to go bad, you already have the pliers in the truck. If it is a big enough shackle, there is a hole in the screw pin that you can put a screwdriver through for leverage.

Whenever he is ready...of course the TW house warming party might last for a few days starting with moving day so he doesn't need to rent a uhaul truck, and he has us to help unpack, put away, and haul garbage out while he and the baby momma direct the show.

That is my older brother's birthday.

 

What happ... oh yeah

 

Trees are bad....mmmmkay