GRCS Self-Tailer Problem

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Congrats on the purchase IAN, you're stoked.

A lot of the problems I encountered with the lines wrapping I found were caused from bending the fairleads that causes the rope to lead fair into the bollard.

Used the GRCS for several years; recently bought a HOBBS and I'm stoked. Not to take anything away from the GRCS, it's a great device but for our uses the HOBBS was the better choice.

jp
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I have been thinking about buying the GRCS, we have a Hobb's right now and has done everything we needed it to do as well. Not many companies have the GRCS around me so i haven't personally used one.
 
Thanks guys! Yeah I just started to use it and I know this device is going to help me out in a lot of situation. Steve we met at the crane convention and were talking a lot about the GRCS. I offered you one of my famous peanut butter sandwiches over by my car! I would love to go surfing sometime in the future, Stay warm out their! Chris totally pumped that I finally got it! What happened thought you were going to the crane convention? Hope your recovery is going well! If you guys have any vids using the Grcs I would love to check them out! There not to many up on utube that I could find, beside the one the Greg Gave me. Keep me posted on how things are working out with this device and how you are using it!
Back to Abror X saying you can run the rope over that silver peace what is the conclusion to that, Have Boaters been using that Pease to let line out and is it safe to do? Did Greg ever get back you guys again about that?
 
The GRCS definitely over-wraps on itself as soon as it goes from tight wrap- to slack -to tight wrap. Even when you use the approved rope size
 
when cranking over a log or top and you notched it and cut the backside...

as you crank the GRCS, you are hoping the hinge wood holds well and doesn't go fast at any point.

Well, some species and the time of the year, that hinge wood doesn't give much, then all of a sudden goes fast (shown in red arrow).

well at that point, the grcs fails, it will over-wrap and jam up the wraps on the capstan winch. pretty much every time.

when jammed up, the groundperson can't let the log or peice run any when it comes off...

This is bad and creates a bad situation...

the groundperson wants to un-jam the wraps to lower the thing that is holding up the job.
It's a dangerous situation actually, if the grcs is on the same tree as the suspended log.

The wraps are so intense, we havent' been able to un-do them very often.

I stop the ground people from trying, as I worry they might unwrap it and loose the log; dropping it on them.

So we have to take the time to put on another rope and transfer it to a porta wrap or hobbs.

I still think the GRCS is a good device.
Later,
 

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Ian, I was planning on going to the crane workshop before my surgery, but then the dates changed due to the storm and I had my surgery and then my family had plans for that weekend, so I could not attend for even part of it.

I had some people ask about going as spectators, but when they heard the price of between $125-$150 just to stand there and watch crane work without even being able to ask questions they said forget it.
 
Isn't the capstan wench supposed to be used for lifting only? I have never used a GRCS and because of that reason.

Self tailing is fine and a wonderful idea, but having to change a barrel out seems a bit time consuming.

We have a similar problem with the Hobbs. When the binding occurs, we make sure we are a bit greater than 90 degrees from the barrel and give it a little rope. Bind comes right out, usually...
 
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Isn't the capstan wench supposed to be used for lifting only?

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I believe the SWL is 2000 lbs. I use mine for lowering all the time, just not for bombing big wood into. Pretensioning helps avoid shock loading it as well.

-Tom
 
Greg recommends that you use the aluminum bollard if you are just lowering, but I see no problem using the harkin drum for lowering, and as Tom points out the pre-tensioning aspect is a definite plus. Switching from one to the other would be a hassle on every limb and the value of the tool would be diminished because of that.

I think the problem with the line jumping has alot to do with the levelness of the drum when mounted and the way the line is wrapped versus the way it is rigged (angle and block location). plus using the top rope guide will help correct the problem as well.
 
We use ours to lower pieces but the pieces are never dropped into the GRCS. Our usual scenario is either a hung limb that needs to be raised out of it's position or, we'll tip tie a piece that needs to be raised then the butt lowered. The SWL is 2000 lbs. If we're bombing wood then a porta wrap is the way to go.
 
I just acquired a GRCS a couple of weeks ago, and have yet to use it. I do have a job lined up that will involve several long limbs being tip-tied and winched back from over a church building. Mine, too, came with the Harken 48. I ordered mine with the drill adapter, and bought a second-hand visor. Hopefully I'm set!

As to the wraps locking off on the winch, in the GRCS video, Greg always snatches the slack as the piece comes off the cut when negative blocking, thus, (it seems), preventing the lapping of wraps on the drum.

Being the tightwad that I am, I will use the bollard for big pieces, as I want the Harken to last as long as possible.
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I just wanted to mention that the peeler arm--the chrome bit before the self tailer--should not be used in the process of letting down the piece. Greg would throw a fit if he saw the winch being used in this way. The only time the self tailer is used in lowering is when you are over your limit.

I totally sympathize with the problem, though.

If the wraps are getting doubled over each other on the winch, you may be letting the piece down too rapidly. Although, to be fair, I have watched on two occassions when lowering very heavy wood, that despite our best efforts, the piece just snarled up. Its scary and on both occassions, I was lucky to have double tied the piece so that weight could be offloaded onto another rigging system. The occurrence of this should be very rare and if it is occurring often, there is undoubtedly user error involved.

I think that the snarling situation occurs when heavy wood takes all the elasticity out of the rope. When the groundie lets line out, the stretch is reintroduced and the piece bounces down until all the stretch is taken out again. This can create a jerky and bouncy effect when lowering a piece, perhaps allowing one of the wraps to hop up on the other and begin to snarl--a situation not unique to the GRCS, but also any bollard. I've done it with a Portawrap, too.

That snarling situation would surely occur in the situation that X describes above, where you are tip tying from a severe side angle, (perhaps letting the piece shock load the system) and then trying to lower the pieces in one fell swoop, even as the piece is bouncing on the rope.

Although advisable to avoid rigging situations like that, you sometimes have few choices. In that case, just have to crank the piece (and/or pretension it), and then get out of there. Once the piece is under control (stopped swinging), slowly take the wrap off the self tailer and lower slowly!

Where did people get the idea that you can't lower pieces off the winch? I wish Greg would post a pic of the original GRCS--the unmarked one--and you could see that the chrome coating can take years of sustained heavy abuse and still keep on ticking.
 
One key advantage of lowering big wood in tight quarters with the GRCS Harken winch is that, unlike the porty or Reg's devices (bollards), you can suck slack and thereby slightly reduce the distance of free fall of the piece and can get the brakes on quicker. And sometimes that, too, matters.

Born2climb has a Harken 48! More power to you!

I found that the plate on the 48 won't fit into my old GRCS (Harken 46) housing. So...Greg changed the plate to accomodate the larger winch. Love to see whats brewing in that shop these days! Something is in the offing...
 
My two cents. I have a TON of experience using the GRCS as a groundman and thousands of hours of climbing and using it from that perspective too. As X said, the problem comes in when you have the rope go tight to slack to tight as you lower the piece. This situation is rarely necessary. I can think of rigging a negative block down and using the swing to land in the landing zone, but how often are you really doing that manoeuvre? I suggest that the person on the rope learn to regulate their grip on the rope so that the situation outlined by X is avoided most of the time. I used the GRCS for six years as a ground man and a climber and never saw this situation occur until this past summer working with an outfit that had zero experience of any kind. My opinion is that a person who is trying to do it correctly would face this scenario almost never. Again, my two cents.
 
We have rigging situations where both the hobbs and the grcs fail to keep up with the desired performance needed.

Maybe I am reading your post wrong, but right now it seams that you are saying that it is opperator error. I do not agree with this.

For increased efficiency (for taking large material) and safety, there should be a device that can handle all of the tasks asked from it.

I am talking about long heavy logs or limbs, that need to be cranked; then while cranking, their weight takes over and fast movement occurs, where the opperator can't keep up with the fast movement, the device needs to keep up with the movement without creating wraps over themselves...

to be continued...
 
OHHHHHHHH. Right! Got it. That one sucks too. And you are right. Using the techniques outlined above are the only (albeit second rate) options available. I know it goes against the spirit of "go big or go home", but perhaps the length of the piece could be kept shorter so that when the tip comes over center, it doesn't have so far to fall uncontrolled. I believe that there is a technique that could help avoid this situation in the future, and that there is a lesson in here somewhere.
 
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Chris,

I read this a few days ago and thought I'd better get a picture.

I used the Hobbs for many many years and almost everyday before we got the crane.

then I picked up a GRCS pretty cheap.

anyway, we haven't had it too long and haven't had a lot of experience on it.

anyway, when just lowering, we were having a problem having the wraps bind over themselves too, until Ed showed us one day what we were doing wrong, one wrap doesn't seem to matter much, but two or more wraps, you MUST put the rope over the chrome channel near the pinching groove before you go to the pigtail, you must.

Maybe you already know this and do this, I didn't mean to offend, i'm just saying it and admitting that we didn't know and if you're use to the Hobbs and didn't bother to watch any grcs videos, you might not know either.

If this is your problem, it will be solved using this channel before the pigtail.

see picture attached.

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I just bought mine,and have been using it quite a bit in the last 2 weeks, we ran into the problem of line binding a few times (PITA) Thanks for the pic! Will show it and demonstrate it to all my guys. Some others are saying not to and to control the slack, so we will try both, but like you said most of the pressures on the first few wraps anyways, shouldn't put that much force on the chrome channel. Other then that man the GRCS is awesome compared to the Hobbs I used in the past! Sure changes how we can rig now!
 
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