Winch Hook Question

[battallion14]

A friend and I were discussing synthetic rope tonight and we wondered what would happen if a metal hook broke on a synthetic line. Have any of you folks seen, experienced or heard of this happening? I am curious to know what the behavior of the hook was when it broke. Thanks!

[Tumbleweed]

It said, " I knew I should have been one of Tough Stuff Products-Safety Thimbles."
http://www.toughstuffproducts.com/je...y_thimble.html

Seriously-I have never heard of anyone breaking just the hook with synthetic rope. I can't see why it would not act the same as if the rope broke, and fall to the ground. If you take a rope line that is taught and cut it with an axe-it falls to the ground. If you could do the same with a hook on rope, taught; and sever the hook-would it not also fall to the ground?

I have seen several metal hooks fail and break when they were hooked improperly. They were on chains; and went into flight.
Almost always hooked into frame slots. Some can't grasp the fact that a regular chain hook is only designed to hook on it's own links and nothing else.

[battallion14]

Thanks Tumbleweed! I will have to pick up one of those thimbles. Thanks for the link!

[NAILER341]

http://www.4wd.com/

you can get your thimble here.
just type in thimble in the search.
i have one with a good 40-50 pulls on it, and it is good as new

[Tumbleweed]

Let me add some to this. Every winching situation is unique. Yes, a rope with a hook can fly back at you under certain conditions. If you anchor your rig with a snatch strap to a tree, you have given the rope some "elascticity". If you anchor your rig with chocks, and pull downward; your suspension can give it "elascticity". There are too many variables to accurately predict what might happen. This is why every winch pull is unique. Same thing with a winch cable weight; where do you put it? Where is the cable gonna break? It is nearly unpredictable.
Trly to remember that if you have 60 ft. of cable out for a pull, everything within 60 ft. of any spot on the cable is at risk.

Many thanks to Blaine for some insights on this.

BTW: a Jeeper on this board invented/developed the safety thimble ref: above link.

[Joe Dillard]

I like this picture - but there needs to be some blood.

[battallion14]

Thanks guys! I was mainly looking to see if anyone had observed a hook breaking while winching with synthetic line and what then happened (i.e. did the broken hook just drop, did it snap back a few feet, etc.). I know each situation will be different due to all the variables that exist but I am still curious to know what one should expect.

[Scott Hill]

I have used a safety hook on a synth line and it was a used line and never failed.

I fact I still have it on my old rope.

I do like the saftey thimble setup it works really nice.


Scott

[Scott_KY_98TJ]

I do recovery at UROC East and WERock East events. One observation to note is that it only takes one piece of the puzzle to store energy. We always use our own gear doing recovery so there is no unkowns (see where this is going?). However, I had a hard pull on a comp rig that was wedged (against the frame on both sides) in between two large boulders. By the time I got positioned and the rope pulled, the spotter had one of their straps already around the cage at the right pull point, so we used it. Mistake... see comment above. While under heavy load (I have a 9500i) the strap gave, and it launched my hook in what seemed like slow motion about 70 feet through the air. Fortunately, it went parrallel to the crowds right down the middle of the obstacle and hit nothing but rock.

While a rope will have some recoil (yes we've broken them) it's not bad at all. Just keep in mind the other factors. Had the hook broken in the above scenario, I am confident it would not have taken that nice arc through the air for that distance.

Sorry for the novel..... EDIT: We do many hard pulls and use our gear regularly. We have never had a hook fail. We all use self locking safety hooks.

[Scott Hill]

same hook that I have vever had problem with brakeage of hook or rope but I had a small amount of the rope melt to the drum, so it was safer for me and those I wheel with to have a new one I will use the good part of the rope as an extension. or 2



Scott

[battallion14]

Thanks again guys!

[Matt Pascoe]

The pictured item on 4WP.com shows the older model with the round hole for a d-ring.

Does anyone know if their current stock is the new design with the ovalized d-ring hole?

Originally posted by Matt Pascoe
The pictured item on 4WP.com shows the older model with the round hole for a d-ring.

Does anyone know if their current stock is the new design with the ovalized d-ring hole?

got mine from them couple months ago and it was an updated design

[Iceman]

on mine I've got the hook that the Amsteel rope came with
winch rope with hook ...