Wooden Gear Winch

This was a project in my Machine Design class. We had to make a super basic winch, which is boring as all get out. So I decided to make the gears out of wood, it was battle to convince the team, but totally worth it.

I used a band saw to carve them out of 5 ply construction board. They worked great and the winch made a great clacking noise when it ran.

We ended up being the only winch that worked perfectly on the first try. We also lifted the maximum weight available. We still don't know what the winch's limit is but it is well over 200 lbs.

It was ugly as all get out, but we were in a hurry. Function over form in this project. It only costs 35$ of pulleys and raw materials.

The large flap was  a widow-women brake