Heavy Duty Hand Tools: The Cable Pullers
By admin | June 11, 2010
Not long ago we had been fighting with a large Balsam Fir which had been partially blown up and ended up hanging on to another tree, and it was on a steep slope within less than 10 feet of our garage, we bought a 2 ton cable puller and ended up destroying the puller, we had to buy a cable puller with 4 ton capacity , and this time it got the job done without breaking anything .
Cable pullers are great multipurpose and heavy duty stretching tools that any handy man should have them around in their garage and work places. The cable pullers usually have 1 ton to 4 ton pulling capacity, the lifting capacity is half of the pulling, and pull reach can be 6′ to 12′, 4 ton puller typically has 6′ reach but extra heavy duty ones may have more than 11′ reach. People sometimes call these cable pullers “Come Along“, but come along refers to a lot of different hand tools besides cable pullers, such as chain hoists, chain pullers, hand winch, strap pullers, and more, in a word, a come along is a hand operated ratchet lever winch. What makes cable puller different is that it’s capacity can be as strong as 4 ton, or 8800lbs, it is considered heavy duty tools, while regular hand winch has 400-4000lbs capacity and mostly used to pull boat out of or lower boat into water from trailer, sometimes also called boat trailer winch.
You have to do your homework before you go out to buy a cable puller, get to know it’s features. A regular cable puller will have a cable guide , which keeps 2 wraps of cable on ratchet wheel, and you can release loads one notch at a time, this way you can release a vehicle or a boat safely, it usually has a laminated steel ratchet wheel, rust resistant plated steel, safety drop forged slip hooks, 4 ton model will feature 5/16” galvanized aircraft cable, and all the cable pullers will have to meet OSHA and ASME specs. Typically the cable pullers will have two slip safety hooks with latch, but some super heavy duty ones have 3 safety hooks for enhanced protection.
The cable pullers are ideal for stretching, pulling, lifting and lowering. You can pull or release vehicles onto and from trailer respectively, hold or drag trees when you’re logging, to lift or lower heavy stuff in your house, pull the stuck trees out of somewhere, compare to electric powered winch, e.g. electric winch , cable pullers are cheaper handy tools.
