yea, its ok on your own, would be even better with nylon as apposed to wire rope as you need to help it wind on,
how do capstan work then?
does it connect to the crank?
pics would be good, i suppose you could have overdrive with that also?
capstans initially designed for pulling boats out of water. driven off the
crankshaft front pulley, they have a dog clutch that engages with a
modified cranking handle dog. a lever pulls a linkage in and out to engage / disengage. (currently not fitted on mine as the dog's a unf thread and i have a metric thread 19j engine fitted).
same gearing principle as yours, but turning a vertical drum. idea being a rope (there is a particular diameter, but i can remember it) is wrapped round once, one end tied to the thing your hauling and the other is held by the operator. as the operater applies tension, the rope bites onto the drum and pulls, if the operator lets it slack off, the rope slips on the drum action as a crude clutch.
i didnt know this before i bought and fitted it, and found out thru trial an error.
nearly had a nasty accident when pulling a ton and half concrete pipe into position for someone.- had parked agin a tree to stop landy being pulled down a hill, pipe tied to winch, pulled into hill (endways), pipe fills with earth, keeps coming, tried to disengage dog clutch, too much tension, snaps lever, unable to turn off, 24mm towrope i was using is like a bowstring, runs round an jumps in landy an switched engine off.
pipe stuck, rope under massive tension, tree in way, cant reverse..........
very carefully positioned rope over capstan so a good pull will release it from the drum. kept well away from all slack and tugged. fair flew with the whiplash as 20 foot of rope dissapeared back thru the rollers.
fitted an engine kill switch on the front after that, but still dont like using it really. takes too many hands to operate for owt other than pulling boats. (which is what it were designed for really, guess i'm just abusing it cos its there)
oh, and for the capstan people, the shear pins had been replaced with steel, instead of brass ones. (not by me....)
edit.
yep, can be used with overdrive, and will take some piccies next time i'm in the workshop.
