Posted by Northern Calif Dave on Monday, August 16, 2004 at 3:00PM :
In Reply to: Winch cable posted by Brian in San Mateo on Friday, August 13, 2004 at 1:35PM :
Although the traditional look for a winch on these old trucks would be wire rope, the new synthetic lines are much safer.
When a synthetic line breaks, it has no stored energy like a wire rope does. When a wire rope breaks, you have two pieces that snap back and can cause some real damage to persons and vehicles. The synthetic lines break and fall to the ground, relatively harmlessly. For the person standing next to the winch, this means he most likely won't get hurt or killed. Nowadays even tugboats use synthetic line for this reason. One last thing, the breaking strength of synthetic line is higher than wire rope. This is good and bad. Good because its stronger, but bad from the standpoint of the winch pins shearing before the line does, of course this is good because you would rather replace a winch shear pin rather than your legs or head.
Also with its lighter weight, its much easier to carry and be used, and similarly priced.
So you need to think about the look of the traditional wire rope versus synthetic and how often it would be used.