Has anyone used Lebus International http://lebus-intl.com/ for their grooved sleeves for winch drums on their yarders? I understand that Madill 120 and 124 come with grooved drums either standard or or as an option. We have a Thundebird TSY155 with smooth drums and am considering the sleeves to help line wear and to just get the line on better faster. Any thoughts?
Interesting, would you have the drums grooved or purchase a shell?
I've put Lebus lagging on Madill machines many years ago. It's not difficult to install and doesn't take very long to do. It's welded to the drum flanges and plug welded to the drum core. I wasn't involved in ordering it but I know the fit to your drum is vital. both drum width and core diameter. Your rope anchor has to be positioned exactly right also. As I recall it works really well. Madill did use grooved drums on some of their machine series but I don't recall which models. I don't think they were used before we got into building the models on hyd carriers and maybe not right at the start with them. As for grooving the existing drums I'd be surprised if the material was thick enough to do that without the drum core crushing and then they really don't spool. Regards d.d.
We had lagging on haulback drum on our 122 , never had any real issues , but sometimes it was hard to get the line spool right on the second tier if the tension wasn't just right on the lagging , If the line is worn down a bit there would be small gaps between raps and second tier won't lay in right . Not sure what brand of lagging we were running. I do remember hating them some days . new or old line . We had a shell Scott S with a cover hatch for knob to go under into drum .
we put lagging on a egg shaped haulback drum, solved the spooling problem just had to make sure the line size matched the lagging. A good preson to talk to is Wes at Island Ropes in Parksville B.C
If we do it I would do the shell. 124 thanks for the contact I will call him monday. Put a new haul back on today, looked great till the third layer, then we got a big gap going to the forth layer. A stick got us going but those layers will be coming off as we are going farther back. I am hoping with lagging/grooved sleave we can use most of the rope length, instead of leaving the whole last layer or two on the drum.
I also have been evaluating Lebus shells on my yarders, and had some thought about spooling issues whit worn line. On a none grooved drum the line throw over two lines when it's changing direction and that tends to make pretty much wear for every turn at the throw-over place. As i understand the Lebus it makes the line throw over one line at half a turn and one line at next half, and this will substantially reduse throw-over line wear. In my experience swaged ropes are much more durable to all sorts of spooling problems, but because of high cost and some bad experience I haven't been using that for some years. I guess Lebus and swaged is the best combination.
Born2clearcut you mentioned the need to have the tension just right on the first layer with the lagging. Can you explain? We use a cat with the line doubled through the blocks on the blade corners. This gives good tension but are we enough or too much?
We get it as tight as possible, we even make a full layout and pull it tight with another drum. We lube the bare drum and hammer every wrap down also. Scott S
Sounds like what we do minus the lube on the bare drum, we have talked about that but have not done it.