Rural Heritage June/July 2025

Thirty inches of clearance from the ground to the winch is ample for most pieces. The higher the winch, the more the load will lift the tongue. A heavy steel ratchet purchased from a truck supply store is the heart of the arch. Truckers use them to tighten their loads down. They are inexpensive, very workable and nearly indestructible. A pipe welded into the spool lets you stand beside the cart to lift the log. Mine has a wheel attached for leverage, but a cheater bar would work, too. The winch spool’s diameter is 2 inches. The wheel is 24 inches across. This twelve-to-one advantage allows me to lift approximately what the team can comfortably pull. Steel tube 1½-by-1½ by-3/16-inch wall frames the rest – not too heavy, but strong enough. This ratchet is welded to the front side of the arch frame and lifts from the front side of the spool. The load is lifted from about 4 inches in front of the stub axles and about 20 inches above them. At this 1-to-5 ratio hitched 30 inches above the ground, light to moderate loads pulled entirely by the winch strap didn’t lift the tongue once all weekend. A heavier team on this same light cart might pull loads heavy enough to lift the tongue. A simple bracket pinned to the tongue socket allows the load to be drawn on a direct line of draft from the eveners. No lift on the tongue. I have used several materials to connect winches to log chains. Chain is very expensive and bulky. Cable (wire rope) must be wrapped on a large drum to keep it from fraying. It is very hard on hands. Nylon rope works, but I couldn’t get many feet on the spool before it filled the winch frame. My Amish neighbor and harness maker sewed small loops in the end of a piece of heavy duty black 1-inch nylon strap. The strap is 10 feet long and doesn’t fill the spool. He said he thought it was 6,000-pound test. It is light, easy

A simple bracket, painted orange to make it easy to find if dropped in the woods, is pinned to the tongue and allows the load to be in line with the tongue.

The yellow-green chain, also easy to spot in the woods, is fastened to the log to provide the pull, and the flat 1-inch nylon strap is used to winch it up, exactly above the imaginary axle line, and thereby avoids lifting the tongue.

A chain grabber is attached to the frame and held in place by spring tension.

Bob demonstrates how the chain is pushed under the log to grab the end of a chain and pull it under the log.

Rural Heritage

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