How to Make a Chainsaw Winch

How to Make a Chainsaw Winch

A winch is an indispensable device, both in the household and in the garage. Raise a roll of roofing material on the roof, throw a couple of bags of cement into the window of the second floor of a private house under construction, pull the engine out of the hood, and drag the broken car into the garage. This is an incomplete list of cases that can easily be done alone with it.

Drum-type devices for lifting or moving weights differ in the way they transmit torque. From the school physics course, we know how the shoulder works. Losing in speed or distance. we win in strength. The phrase of Archimedes: "Give me a fulcrum, and I will turn the Earth" just describes the principle of operation of the winch.

A hand winch, with the help of an applied shoulder, increases human strength so much that one operator can move cars or lift weights of several hundred kilograms. With the same (from the point of view of mechanics) principle of action, these devices have different ways of execution.

Hand drum winch. varieties

A hand winch with a drum is a classic of the genre. In addition to the common element. the pulley, on which the cable is wound, the devices have various types of drive.

Single speed gear drive

A large, main gear is firmly attached to the drum. The whole load falls on it, and on the mount. Therefore, the reliability of the elements must be up to standard. In gearing with the main one, the leading small gear is located.

The ratio of the number of teeth is the value of the gear ratio. Simply put. gain. The pinion gear is integral with the drive shaft. Since we are talking about a hand tool, a handle for rotation is put on the shaft.

The length of the lever also affects the degree of reinforcement. The larger the shoulder of the handle. the less effort must be exerted.

Using such devices, you can single-handedly lift a few centners of cargo or move a car weighing 2-3 tons. over, the rotation speed of the drum is quite high.

Multi speed gear drive

The design consists of two or more pairs of gears, each of which has a tens of times gain. With successive gearing, these coefficients add up, repeatedly increasing the force.

The reverse side of the coin is a proportional decrease in speed. Having such a winch, you can carry out a slow vertical lifting of loads of more than a ton, but if you have to work with two bags of cement, the lifting time will stretch for tens of minutes.

Therefore, manufacturers provided the opportunity to use each pair of gears separately. Having fixed the handle on a straight pair. we get an average effort with high speed. Throwing it to the second pair. we lose in speed, but double the force.

An obligatory element of all winches with a manual drive is a stopper, or "dog"

It works on the principle of a ratchet mechanism. After stopping the supply of force to the handle, the sprocket teeth abut against the stopper, preventing the cable from unwinding under the weight of the load. This increases safety, but the mechanism has a drawback.

When climbing, it works perfectly, but during the descent it is completely useless. During the reverse rotation, the “dog” is simply thrown to the side, releasing the ratchet.

Worm drive

Видео: How to Make a Chainsaw Winch


To increase the force, a worm gear is used. The principle of calculating the transmission pair, in comparison with flat gears, is slightly different, but the technique is the same. A small diameter helical gear rotates the main gear fixed to the drum.

The design advantage is a large gain. Another plus is the self-locking design. That is, if you do not apply force to the handle, the machine will stop. This increases safety and comfort.

The handle can be rotated in any direction, raise and lower the load. without fear that he will break.

A serious design flaw is the large friction in the worm pair. The mechanism needs constant lubrication, otherwise the wear will be catastrophic. When working “on dry” steam can simply jam.

Given the mechanics of the process, there are weight restrictions that you can work with. But the tool is compact, and is often used in the household.

Planetary reductor

With outstanding compactness (the gear mechanism is actually located inside the drum), the number of gear pairs can reach up to ten. The gain with this design can reach hundreds of times. The only drawback is the high cost of the product, so it is rarely used in everyday life.

The unit needed to operate the winch

A hand winch mounted on the floor or workbench can only move objects horizontally. To lift weights to a height, an additional device is necessary. a block. It is a pulley with a suspension, through which the cable is thrown.

The drawing shows the mechanism of action of a set of winch and block.

over, this device has additional features. Each block added doubles the strength on the cable.

This property of block drives is widely used in rigging. With a compact design, a block amplifier comes to help the winch.

All of the listed devices are sold for a considerable amount of money. And any of these products can be made independently.

Homemade Winches

Ratchet from Kamaz
How many people know how to make a winch out of a brake ratchet? And actually, what is this rattle itself?

In many trucks (KamAZ products are popular with us), a self-leveling mechanism is used to adjust the brakes, in common people. a brake ratchet. Inside the device is a worm gear.

It remains to adapt the handle to the end of the worm pair, and the drum is ready for the main axis and the winch is ready. The gear ratio is 1:20. The drum can be mounted on a standard brake axle by cutting off its angle grinder. If you apply a block connection with one knee. the power will double. Do not forget to lubricate. and the device will serve you for many years.

Such a winch in the garage will not help you pull out the engine, but it will save a lot of energy during repairs. This device is especially useful for lifting heavy objects from a pit.

Video. how to make a winch out of a ratchet for Kamaz with your own hands.

Chainsaw in a winch
If you are busy building a summer house where there is no electricity yet, you can build a winch from a chainsaw with your own hands. Initially, such a device was invented by lumberjacks to facilitate the procedure for tying felled trunks.

The photo shows the classic "Friendship" with the body removed. A motorcycle chain is connected to the drive sprocket. It is not difficult to make a drum. A large asterisk from the wheel of the same motorcycle is attached to it.

We get a double gearbox. our own on a chainsaw, and a chain of two sprockets with a gear ratio of the order of 1:10. This design will serve for many years, extending the life of the components of which it was made.

Manual lever winch
The simplest device for moving goods is a lever winch. With its help, you can tighten the load into the body, drag the carcass of a beast killed in the hunt with a drag, and pull out the stuck car.

The device is not very expensive, but even Chinese models cost some money. For lovers of doing things with their own hands, we offer a drawing of a lever winch, from which the principle of its operation is extremely clear.

A drum with a ratchet sprocket is fixed inside the frame. On the lever is an emphasis that rotates the sprocket. The longer the lever, the more effort you exert.
This is only a small part of the designs that can be made from improvised materials. Perhaps you will come up with something completely original.