Using A Winch For Tub Hauling.

[Mark]

This was the winch Tom Proctor built and we used it for many years, it was a modified motorcycle back wheel with drum brake not sure where it ended up Will Whalley took it off our hands a few years ago

 

[sjt]

We have been using a block & tackle with a hand-jammer/foot loop to essentially prussik the kibbles up the shaft in one dig, which works extremely well even with very muddy rope.
The top gin wheel is clipped to a Y-hang bolted into the wall above the shaft.
If you were concerned about dropping the load, or reducing fatigue, you could incorporate a locking/progress capture pulley into the system, but we haven't found this necessary.

 

[The Old Ruminator]

Hooray it worked perfectly hauling heavy loads. The upright pole and base jack needed a bracing pole . We could not dissemble the pulley to get the hook through so ran it over the supporting pole. The winch cable was rewound on the drum to change the winding direction All go for next week.

Mike Wise fitting the pole and winch.



Nigel Cox coming up out of the shaft.

 

[The Old Ruminator]

Templeton South Pot Team have an electric winch powered by a surface generator. The tub has wheels running along scaffold pole rails fixed to a ladder. There is a manual deviation as the track goes around a bend. But then Templeton is one of the most engineered digs in the UK.

 

[Jester]

Templeton South Pot Team have an electric winch powered by a surface generator. The tub has wheels running along scaffold pole rails fixed to a ladder. There is a manual deviation as the track goes around a bend. But then Templeton is one of the most engineered digs in the UK.

Minor correction - not one, but three electric winches.

Our associates in the North side of the cave also haul using electrical power.

You'd be welcome to come take a look on a digging night!

 

[Jester]

There's a poor video of the newest section of the South Pot hauling system in operation at the bottom of our recent blog update

2025 Round Up - Templeton South Pot - Railway Video!

Although there has been no blog post since 18/11, work in the South Pot has not stopped, with the work to mechanise the lowest haul contin...

templetwats.blogspot.com

For most of the video the skip is out of sight, so fast forward to the end to see that.

 

[Ad W]

You'd be welcome to come take a look on a digging night!

Is that an open invitation @Jester ? I'd be happy to do some grunt work in return for a look around.

 

[Jester]

Is that an open invitation @Jester ? I'd be happy to do some grunt work in return for a look around.

PM sent

 

[The Old Ruminator]

Found this in a field today. Mounted on a box frame with a drum added maybe ?

 

[Maj]

Sadly no Dave. Have you got a photo please ?

Our Fernhill surface winch.

 

[HardHat]

We have been using a block & tackle with a hand-jammer/foot loop to essentially prussik the kibbles up the shaft in one dig, which works extremely well even with very muddy rope.
The top gin wheel is clipped to a Y-hang bolted into the wall above the shaft.
If you were concerned about dropping the load, or reducing fatigue, you could incorporate a locking/progress capture pulley into the system, but we haven't found this necessary.

how have you found the wear on the teeth of the jammers? we found we’re ripping through a jammer almost every session even with perfect angles. It may be due to the sandy nature of the dig though.

 

[speleokitty3]

If you take an aluminium swivel scaffolding connector then it is relatively easy to remove the pin and this can then be bolted to the winch to provide an elegant solution for mounting to a scaffolding pole.

For surface digs I find that the best way was to bolt this to one of the legs of the bipod and feed the cable through a small pully suspended from the top of the bipod. If you support the bipod with a back rope and also have a slack rope in the opposite direction, then you can easily swing the load away from the hole and into a safe location by pressing down on the back rope.

This is so simple to use that I was easily able to operate it with one arm and wrist immobilised in a cast.

 

[The Old Ruminator]

The real issue is where its used . Surface or underground. Space at QWUH is very limited so its just the small winch in use. How long it will last I dont know. Will hitch it up to the pulley on Tuesday. Do folks remember the big quadpod we won in a competition on here ? We still have it.