Winch Line Whip Lock: A Tutorial of the Beowulf Lock (1 Viewer)

[tcmault]

Winch Line Whip Lock: A Tutorial of the Beowulf Lock

Since it is generally recommended that you keep a full wrap of synthetic line on your drum I figured it might be good to make sure that you cannot pull more line off that drum. To accomplish this I actually use one of nylon webbing sewn into an "8" shape (see below pic ). These do work well, but can be difficult to move into place. Since these Line Locks are getting harder to find, I wanted to come up with a way to do the same thing without one. The general use of a Whip Lock for tidying up the end of rope would prove the perfect method. Below I will show the Winch Line Whip Lock, or if you want to call it the Beowulf Lock you can... .

Once tensioned these creates an extremely ridged lock that will keep you from ever accidentally pulling out more line.

Winch Line Lock: Nice, but difficult to move all the way down the other side of the drum to maintain a full wrap. (Stock pics from webstore in England)

Step one:

Pull enough line through the drum to go the width of the drum twice. If you have the Warn attachment from Viking, just undo the line and redo it to have enough of a tail. (Pics of Superwinch EP drum)

Step Two:

Wrap the line over the tail extending down to where you want the Line Lock. I choice to have it all the way at the end of the drum.

Step Three:

Loop the Tail over the last wrap and start to feed it under all the previous wraps.

Now under all the wraps.

Step Four:

Tighten all the wraps as best you can and continue to pull on the tail to tighten up the Lock on the Last wrap. Once done you can cut off the extra of the tail. If you had perfect length you could possibly have it tucked without needing to cut anything.

The finished Product:

Now, if you think the just over once and under the rest will not provide enough tension you can go over the last wrap. Under the next two. Over the wrap subsequent two and then under the rest.

Now here I have shown this with two different colored ropes to highlight the rope placements.

 

[Southeast Overland]

Nice write up and pics. Have you thought about the inability of the line now to break free of the spool and potentially damage the winch if a heavy, potential shock load, hits the line when most is spooled out?

 

[tcmault]

eventhough,

I was hoping you would chime in on this one. That is not something I have ever thought about nor seen happen. I figured the if a shock load happened the line would most likely break somewhere between the drum and the anchor point.

But your point does make one pause and contemplate the various possibilities. If shock loading near the end of the winch line is a concern, I'd say this is not something you'd want to implement. But, if that dynamic is not something you foresee happening with your individual style and location of wheeling, then give it a shot.

Eventhough: thank you for posting a different perspective on things. It keeps me thinking of new ideas.

 

[Mark W]

Personally I have never had a problem with paying attention to my winch when i am using it and simply not pulling the line off. Seems better to me than sacrificing and entire layer of line capacity on the drum.

Nice neat solution if pulling the line off the winch is a problem for you. But it is a solution to a problem that I personally don't have.


Mark...

 

[tcmault]

Oddly enough I easily got the same amount of line on my winch minus the few inches used for the tail. I guess it just gets crushed pretty flat since there are not other wraps next to it. Seems to work without taking as much space as a normal wrap.

 

[Mark W]

re-reading, I see that your goal was to keep a full layer on the drum, not just 4-5 wraps. if that is what you are going for, then, yep, the tail tucked under won't impact capacity enough to matter.

Nice neat simple approach that most would overlook.


Mark...

 

[Southeast Overland]

eventhough,

I was hoping you would chime in on this one. That is not something I have ever thought about nor seen happen. I figured the if a shock load happened the line would most likely break somewhere between the drum and the anchor point.

But your point does make one pause and contemplate the various possibilities. If shock loading near the end of the winch line is a concern, I'd say this is not something you'd want to implement. But, if that dynamic is not something you foresee happening with your individual style and location of wheeling, then give it a shot.

Eventhough: thank you for posting a different perspective on things. It keeps me thinking of new ideas.

Its so nice not to be typing with my thumbs!

I think your idea has promise for working well to keep a full layer of wraps on the drum, and therefore keeping synthetic line from slipping off the drum.

I like for synthetic winch line, or any winch line for that reason, to have the opportunity to slide off a winch if enough single wraps are not in place. You usually need approximately 8 single wraps to keep synthetic line on a winch drum and I recommend 10. If you have less because you have spooled out too far then you run the potential of your line slippling off your winch. Note the spade-type connector often used to attach synthetic winch line to a winch drum is only meant to hold the line in place for spooling, not to hold the line in place for winching.

If I am spooled out too far and therefore have too few single wraps around the drum I'd prefer the line to slip off before it potentially damages my winch drum, or something else in the winch.

The shock load I was thinking of is if you have under the minimum number of single wraps on your drum and are under a static load that is not enough to pull the line off. If you then encounter a dynamic load (vehicle bouncing, sliding backwards after moving forwards a bit and the winch is not fast enough to keep up, etc) then the dynamic load will be more than the previous static load and could pull the line off the drum. With a traditional (weak) attachment the line would pull off - with your new stronger attachment the line might not pull off and 'might' damage the drum, might not.

Now where I think your approach could have some serious merit is in competitions or other events where you might prefer to risk some winch damage rather than having your line pull off your drum. Imagine you are in a competition and are stuck and have to quickly pull line and winch. You pull out all of your line except what you can't pull off due to your new, stronger approach to attaching your line to your drum. You start to winch, bounce, dynamically load your line and bend or otherwise damage your drum a bit but can still winch out, complete your run, and finish the course. If your line were to slip off then you could be totally out of the game. I'm not a super competitive person until I'm in a competition, and then it's game on! I'd prefer to risk damage and be able to complete the competition rather than be stuck, have no attached winch line, and DNF.

Thoughts?