Tools to Move the Big Stuff

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by Steve Maxwell

If you haul timber, move boulders, drag or hoist heavy objects or salvage stuck vehicles, then you will want to own some pulling tools. Thanks to the magical mechanical advantages provided by clever combinations of wheels, levers and gears, three small-scale tools — the block and tackle, ratcheting winch and chain saw-powered winch — allow you to move very heavy objects all by yourself. An inexpensive and easy-to-use block and tackle can multiply your personal pulling power by as much as 900 percent!

Here are my three pulling favorites, which I use regularly working my 90-acre property, along with tips for finding and using them yourself.

BLOCK AND TACKLE

If you only have the budget to add one pulling tool to your collection, you should buy a good block and tackle. It's one of those things that has many more uses than you originally imagined, and it can cost as little as $100.

A block and tackle includes a series of pulley wheels called "sheaves" ganged together in one wooden or metal housing called the "block."

I bought my first block and tackle in 1986 to hoist timbers and stone while building my house. It includes two sets of triple-sheave blocks, plus a 250-foot coil of five-eighths-inch braided nylon rope that I keep on a spool and use only for this purpose. Five-eighths-inch diameter rope is a good choice on which to base your pulley block system because it's large enough to grab easily by hand, yet small enough to store easily. It costs about 75 cents per foot.

During the last 15 years, I've used this equipment to lift machinery, building materials and timber frames, and to help direct the fall of large trees away from buildings. The main operating points to understand are the correct matching of rope and block, and how leverage works with changes in the number of pulley sheaves employed. Doubling the number of pulleys allows you to lift twice as much weight, for example.

Single-, double- and triple-sheave blocks are the most common arrangements. By rigging rope back and forth between pulleys in the blocks, you multiply pulling force only as much as you need. Just because you have three pulleys in each block doesn't mean you have to use them all.

RATCHETING WINCH

A block-and-tackle system offers strong, long-range pulling power, but it's also time consuming to set up, take down and store correctly. That's why — for quicker, short-range pulling — a ratcheting winch is more effective. Often called a "come-along," this tool offers serious force multiplication with only a hand lever and cable drum. Some models also include a built-in pulley wheel to double the force generated.