For a satisfying Youtube watching session there is noting like some quality machine shop work, and that’s exactly what [Made In Poland] supply with their conversion of a small 12V winch to power from a chainsaw. The finished product contains not much more than the gearbox and shaft components from the original, but the mesmerising sight of rusty steel stock being transformed into dimension-perfect components which come together to form an entirely new assembly is as always a draw.
The conversion starts with the removal and disassembly of the motor to reveal its shaft and the locking mechanism for the drum. The shaft is then turned down and a collar manufactured to couple it to the drive spline on a chainsaw. We’re pleased to see that the chainsaw isn’t modified in this build, instead the blade is simply unscrewed and the winch attached in a reversible process. Finally, the original drum is deemed too small for the application, so a new drum is fabricated. We see the result on a Polish farm, happily participating in some forestry work and even pulling their pickup truck when it became stuck.
This is by no means the first time we’ve featured [Mad in Poland] in these pages, not least with this electromagnetic circle cutting jig.
‘made in Poland’ – not ‘mad in Poland’.
It’s hard to notice the difference in Poland these days ;)
I wouldnt want to be the one holding the chainsaw if the rope breaks.
Could be worse, steel braided cable anyone?
The video does say “synthetic” rope, which I’m guessing it’s nylon rope. Not much is going to happen.
Nylon is a terrible fiber for a winch cable! It stretches and will whip back on you HARD if it snaps under tension. If you pulling hard with a lot of line out then the load decreases (load topped a hill? snag came free?) the nylon will recover and pull the load with no control. It is also not very strong. More likely it’s Dyneema or similar, a very high strength, low stretch synthetic material that doesn’t store much energy under tension.
When I saw the lathe, I knew this was going to be a nice build. Well done.
Winches tend to have one key safety feature, that is that they can be controlled from several feet away. This could probably be remedied by using a bike brake cable and handle.
This is awesome. You could take this deep into the Wilderness and use it to lift logs in place to build a huge cabin by yourself as long as you had gasoline.
Really cool idea!
If you did it right- you could make this a portable human lift as well, I think. Attached to a safety harness, you could shoot yourself up into treetops slowly like a elderly Batman hahaha
Great build.
Now queue the people who will say that if the nylon (the video says synthetic) rope breaks it’ll slice a human in half so this is very unsafe.
Oh, and let’s not forget, he was using all of that power equipment without protective gear.
hmmm, I has broken winch, and old unsafe chainsaw with no brake, I refuse to use. Solution to unknown problem.