Which winch rope: Dyneema or steel rope

gelandangan

I am buying a winch for my occasional trip to the bush.
Due to whatever, a winch would be good to get me out of trouble.
But what rope to use on it?

Dyneema synthetic
Pro: light weight, do not whiplash, easy to coil, easy to splice in field, floats on water.
Con: Bloody expensive, not abrasive, UV and heat resistant, higher maintenance.

Steel rope
Pro: very abrasive, UV and heat resistant, pretty much set and forget type of maintenance
Con: heavy, difficult to pull, stiff, difficult to splice and could whiplash

Right now I am leaning on steel rope for its ease of maintenance, but dyneema is very attractive too..

What do you think?

PaulS

Steel rope! Get one with the most strands for the diameter and it is easier to work with( more flexible). Lube it when you install it and lube it again if it is immersed in water. It is much more heat and abrassion resistant than your Dyneema synthetic. If it starts to show any wear replace it.
The Dyneema is better if you have to run it over a lot of small pulleys but on a winch, steel is much better.

Dimitri · Super Member Joined: Nov 25, 2005 Posts: 5946

I don't know anyone here that I hunt with that has a winch and runs anything but steel.

Dimitri

gelandangan

Excellent, steel it is then..
Since I am a lazy bugger, I am not going to take care of the dyneema good enough for it to last a long time.

Vince

Make sure you regularly check and lube the winch rope mate. Doing this will make it last a lifetime, barring accidents. Also, unwind and rewind your winch rope after each use to check it for damage and to also wind it back on evenly and without it crossing itself.

The next thing you need to look at is a dedicated recovery kit. It should contain things like:
a tree protector,
various shackles,
a snatch block,
drag chains with chain locks fitted,
a snatch strap, (don't use your strap to recover someone else...use theirs)
a good quality Wallaby jack (Hi Lift),
a good sized base plate for the jack,
a shovel, and
good quality leather gloves.

There are other items you can include, but that is up to you mate.

Aloysius

Geland, I don't have a winch myself, but my nephew does and he always has an extra tick rope in his Defender. He puts it over the steel cable before he starts pulling, just in case the cable should break. The heavy rope hanging over the cable prefends the whiplash.

Donut Slayer

I run synthetic rope and wouldnt go back to steel. Much, much easier to deal with.

Suzanne

Get some welder's gloves to handle it too!!

thought for the day
welder's gloves
no elastic

Tremblay

I run synthetic rope and wouldnt go back to steel. Much, much easier to deal with.

DallanC · Site Admin Joined: Jan 18, 2005 Posts: 3572 Location: Utah

STEEL!!! Here is why, you do not want the outer layers to get pulled into the inner layers and cause a knot. This is much much easier to have happen with Dyneema over steel wire.

You always want your coils wrapped tightly so that this never happens, but there is more flex and shifting with Dyneema than wire and you can knot the rope on the spool easier and you are SOL once that happens! I can tell you from experience.

The advantage of Dyneema is less weight and theoretically less energy in the case of a breakage... however as a popular mythbusters episode showed where they purposely tried to reproduce the myth of a broken wire under extreme tension cutting someone in half, they couldnt do it. The pig they used never even had the outer skin cut... bruised yes, but lethal? Not in their tests (and imo, they did a good job with this one).

You do need to be really careful of snatchblocks and pulleys breaking free underload and becoming projectiles, but that would happen with both Dyneema and wire rope.

Anyway I've had the mis-pleasure of having a knotted up winch spool... its something that I guarentee you will only have happen once, as its such a pain in the ass to fix, you will take extreme care of your cables forever after. I unwind and rewind mine a couple times a year just to make sure the inner windings are as tight as possible.

-DallanC

gelandangan

Ok sound like steel it is going to be.

Im thinking that if I need to hoist an animal up a tree branch to dress it, with steel rope I could just sling the cable over the branch,
but with dyneema it would need to have some sort of rope protection..
(okay I might kill the branch if I do either but .. )

DallanC · Site Admin Joined: Jan 18, 2005 Posts: 3572 Location: Utah

I keep a 16" length of 1" link chain with a clevis. hook that over the limb, run your cable through one of these that is then hooked to the chain. They make short nylon tree savers as well to keep from damaging the tree instead of the chain.

Definitely want to get a couple snatch blocks though... I get them here cheap at the local farm supply store.

-DallanC

tikkat3 · Super Member Joined: Jul 30, 2006 Posts: 800

People have been killed here with winch ropes snapping.
The last one I remember was a child sitting in the back of the car.

radar

Old NZ bush trick, hang a hessian sack over the wire rope, prevents whiplash should it break. Shouldn't break if you look after it though!

dhc4ever · Last edited by dhc4ever on Sat May 04, 2013 11:22 pm; edited 1 time in total

Geland,
Being the spry young mountain goat you are, you will have absolutely no problems running out 15 kg of steel cable up steep hills to winch yourself out.
Me being older , less mountain goat like am quite happy to pull 2kg of dyneema rope up the hill (preferably attached to the fit 6ft tall 15 yr old who insists I FEED[i][u] him 8 times a day and wants to drive the cruiser).
I have only recently fitted a winch with dyneema rope to the land cruiser, I went with the rope due to the weight saving, both on the vehicle and having to pull it up hills when in use, and the lack of recoil if it breaks. There are a pletherer of cable dampers, tree trunk protectors,pulley blocks available at any 4wd store, supercheap, repco etc.
The other reason is I have seen wire rope kink on its first use which rendered it unusable, have had broken wire strands bite me through the gloves etc.
Dyneema is a lot more tolerant to kinking, doesn't bird cage or produce sharp strands to catch on gloves. On the other hand its not tolerant to sharp edges , can get caught in roller fair leads (use a hawse fairlead instead) and is less tolerant to abrasion.
With either steel or dyneema when you fit the winch run the cable out until you have 5 wraps left on the drum and winch it in under load ie pull the 4wd up a slight hill, this will tighten your cable/rope and test out your winch electrics.
Dyneema is a lot cleaner than a lubricated wire rope, you can remove it from the winch and wash it out, with lubricated wire you need to run it out degrease it, inspect for broken strands, regrease and rewind. With either you will need to run out and check at least once a year anyway, and pull the winch apart for a service if you've been through water deep enough to submerge the winch.
As to UV tolerance most dyneema rope these days seems to come with a cover for the exposed end near the hook.
Which winch are you buying?