Sunday 3 August 2014

The new winch arrives

We've taken delivery of a new Ace wire rope hoist/winch, wire rope, some associated lifting strops and snatch blocks. It is the same style as a Tirfor winch. The equipment has a lifting capacity of two tonnes. This purchase was in preparation for the work necessary to tidy up the river bank and the woodland at the Turnditch orchard.




In the river we'll use the equipment to lift a fallen tree from the river bed, The winch will also be used to haul out the elm tree trunks we'll be cutting down as described before. Our first action will be to cut a couple of stout 4 metre Ash spars from the woodland. These will be used to form a sheerleg lifting frame. The sheerlegs will be combined with the winch to form a crane to lift the heavy items.


Fallen tree on Ecclesbourne at Turnditch
Fallen tree creates partial blockage on Ecclesbourne river bed
Later in the autumn we'll be using the wire rope and winch to prevent trees from falling in the wrong direction when we fell them as part of the coppicing work.

End of day update: I tried out the winch combined with ropes,slings and the snatch block. It worked extremely well. I was able to fell an elm tree and drop it through a two metre gap, thus avoiding damage to the newly laid hedge.

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