We had a tree stump in our lawn , it’s diameter is about a little bit more than 4 feet, it had bothered us for a few years, we’ve tried chainsaw on it but nothing can go through it, lately we bought a 4 ton rated cable puller, hooked onto a pickup and pulled the stump out like a decayed molar in a few minutes!
Cable pullers are great multipurpose and heavy duty stretching tools that any handy man should have them around in their work places. A typical cable puller has 1 ton to 4 ton pulling capacity, the lifting capacity is half of the pulling, and pull reach can be 6′ to 12′, 4 ton puller typically has 6′ reach but extra heavy duty ones may have more than 11′ reach. People sometimes call these cable pullers “Come Along”, but come along refers to a lot of different hand tools besides cable pullers, such as chain hoists, chain pullers, hand winch, strap pullers, and more, in a word, a come along is a hand operated ratchet lever winch. What makes cable puller different is that it’s capacity can be as strong as 4 ton, or 8800lbs, it is considered heavy duty tools, while regular hand winch has 400-4000lbs capacity and mostly used to pull boat out of or lower boat into water from trailer, sometimes also called boat trailer winch.
Before you buy a cable puller or similar product, you should know it’s features and applications. A regular cable puller will have a cable limiter , which keeps 2 wraps of cable on ratchet wheel, and you can release loads one notch at a time, so you can lower a vehicle or tree safely, it usually has a laminated steel ratchet wheel, rust resistant plated steel, safety drop forged slip hooks, 4 ton model will feature 5/16” galvanized aircraft cable, and all the cable pullers will have to meet OSHA and ASME specs. Typically the cable pullers will have two slip safety hooks with latch, but some super heavy duty ones have 3 safety hooks for enhanced protection.
The cable pullers are ideal for stretching, pulling, lifting and lowering. You can pull or release vehicles onto and from trailer respectively, to pull or tear down trees, to lift or lower heavy stuff in your house, pull the stuck vehicle out of ditch , compare to electric powered winch, such as electric winch, cable pullers are inexpensive handy tools.
