I have this thing. It is obviously some kind of hoist/winch thing. Really heavy duty. Probably weighs 60 lbs. I would like to maybe get it workable in the shop and put it on a gantry or something.
The only ID on it is a casting number which doesn't turn up much.
Can you guys maybe help me figure out how much motor it needs? What RPM, hp, etc? Guesses as to capacity?
All I know is that it'd pair nicely with a chair from the ReStore
Stirrup hoist? 
3/4" input shaft. I pulled the plate off the back and it revealed a massive Timken roller bearing about 2" ID. I pulled the drum off. It's splined and about 1" diameter
Wow. That's quite a shaft you've got there.
Edit: Some sort of industrial gearbox. Worm gear? Have you been inside it yet?
Thanks. It's really hard and very straight.
Judging from the shape of the case, it must be a worm gear. Not enough space for a pinion gear.
curtis has been inside more boxes than the rest of us combined...
Looks like a capstan winch. Used for hauling in line by making a few wraps around the drum and then relying on friction to keep it moving.
Capstan makes sense. It does have a slot in the side of the drum so I would imagine it could be used as a winch or hoist, but maybe not its intended purpose.
This thing looks like it could lift 10 tons, but if it's not rated for overhead lifting then it can officially lift nothing.
If I had a knife slot in my stage I could use it to automate a wagon.
AngryCorvair said:curtis has been inside more boxes than the rest of us combined...
My sex life is like a Ferrari. I don't have a Ferrari.
Looks like its mechanical part to an old style roll up overhead door? One that a long handle and a universal joint would come off of. Whats the ratio appear to be?
Just measured. 30:1 or really close to it.
I thought about that as well with the square shaft end. It also has a slot for a woodruff key so I would assume that is for a belt-driven pulley or a chain sprocket.
I snagged it from a pile of stuff that the local CBS station was going to scrap. Looks brand new. I'm just curious why a TV station would need something like this. They do have a gantry crane hoist that goes to their attic from the parking lot. I was trying to figure out its purpose by what a TV studio would use it for. Couldn't come up with any reason other than something like the mechanism for lifting the antenna/dish on one of their vans, but this is serious overkill for that.
By my reckoning, it wouldn't be rated for terribly high loads because the end of the spool is not supported. Very possibly hand operated?
https://thern.com/winches/hand-winches/worm-gear-series/4600-lb/
Excellent point about the other side of the drum not being supported. If you look at where the case mount flange is, there is a fair amount of leverage all the way out at the end of the drum. So I would agree that it's some sort of winch, not a hoist.
Somewhat similar to this:
https://www.hoistuk.com/products/agricultural-winches/wa-battery-driven-worm-gear-winch/
I'm assuming that is a winch even though it shows a picture of it lifting something on the front?
In reply to Curtis :
Added link to product. It's designed to be used with a cordless drill. Rated up to 200kg.
Curtis said:Thanks. It's really hard and very straight.
Judging from the shape of the case, it must be a worm gear. Not enough space for a pinion gear.
Not going to lift much being a worm gear (they are horrifically inefficient, and machined in such a way the bronze gears wear into each other for break in. I forget how inefficient the worm gear stuff was we did at TWG, but very).
The other type of winches, much more efficient and much more expensive use cassettes of planetary gears.
So I think the question should be.... what do I do with it? I work at a theater, I enjoy off-roading, and I'm a gadget freak. What creative thing can I do with it?
In reply to z31maniac :
I'd think that a worm gear would be an excellent geartrain for a hand winch because it has a fair amount of self-locking, so i your hand slips the handle won't whip around and injure you.
I could see one overheating quickly if a powerful motor was on there. (Cassettes of planetaries? Far out!)
Use it to draw the curtains at the beginning of a performance.
The house lights go down. Follow spot picks up a young lad scurrying to the winch. He cranks it furiously and the curtains open.
Enjoy the show.
The truck winch did cross my mind. I thought about maybe putting a hydraulic motor on it or figuring out some way to use the power steering pump. Ideally, I would have a hydraulic PTO, but no provision for PTO on this trans or transfer case. Not sure I want to trust my truck to a hodge-podge setup though.
I could also put it on a bed-mounted cherry picker with a hand crank.
We used worm gears in my last industry to crank thousands of pounds. 3000lbs was what I ran them for an endurance test. The effiency was around 35%, but with a high enough reduction what difference does it make? Efficiency is unrelated to how strong they are.
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