Heat and synthetic winch line
In researching, I get some somewhat conflicting opinions on the importance of addressing heat sensitivity and degradation of synth winch line. Some sources emphasize the usefulness of "fire line", or a heat resistant segment of rope (first link), around the first cable wrap around the drum. Elsewhere, the problem is down played and suggested to only be a problem on long payouts (2nd link). However, I've noticed heat buildup on hard pulls too.
Just wondering if there was some opinions out there as to which school of thought is the most realistic based on real world experience. Is it worth the extra dough for combo line?
Re: Heat and synthetic winch line
The main source of heat in a winch is from the drum going against the drum brake, IE winching out under power. Winches with an external drum brake (Warn 8274) don't have this issue. Their are a few heat resistant ropes on the market today, Technora, Vectran and Liquid Crystal Polymer (LCP), but each of these ropes have a downside which creates a problem when you try to make a full line out of them. Most of the heat resistant ropes have a hollow fiber, which creates a problem when you try to run these ropes through a snatch block or around a corner, the hollow fiber will fail more easily and therefor is not good to use. You will see some companies or individuals selling full lines made of heat resistant fiber, but I would never sell or run this because of the issues that heat resistant fibers have.
At Master-Pull we have a few solutions to the problems that Sk75 Dyneema fiber has when it gets hot. Our first solution, and the easiest to use, is a 10 ft nylon heat guard. This is meant to go on the first wrap of the drum to protect the line from the heat caused by going against the drum brake. You will see people using these 1 inch diameter sections of heat guard as a chafe or rock guard to protect the line when you winch over an abrasive surface, but they are meant to be used to protect the first wrap on the drum.
Another solution we have is our LCP line, this rope uses 20 feet of high heat resistant fiber (LCP) spliced onto 80 feet of regular Master-Pull winch rope. This allows you to run a regular Dyneema rope (that wont be damaged in a snatch block, and still have a high heat resistant end on it. This is a picture of the splice that connects the two:
The splice we use is a variation of how we splice eyes onto all of our lines, and will not come undone. As you can see it tapers down in both lines so that is will not be caught if it runs through your fairlead. The LCP rope is the yellow looking one, and the gray is our MP Basic Rope.
I have heard of some guys wrapping the drums of their winches with electrical tape to help alleviate some of the issues of melting the lines but I have never had good success with this practice.
In summary, wrapping the nylon heat guard around my drum has protected every line that I have used against the heat created from the drum. I have used AmSteel Blue, MP Superline and currently am running MP Superline XD. If anyone needs some of this heat guard for their lines please contact me, I will take care of you.
-Alex
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