MANUAL CHAIN HOIST
In some form or other, man-powered hoists have existed for thousands of years.
The weight of the chain – there is more of it to be
lifted at the start of the operation than at the top of the lift – and frictional losses slightly complicate the maths. As a typical example, the Industrial TRC-0050 0.5 tonne lifting capacity hoist from Northumberland-based Tiger Lifting requires 21kg effort to lift the full half-tonne capacity load; the five tonne-capacity TRC-0500 model requires 37kg effort to lift its maximum weight.
Gaining the advantage Nothing in life is for free, however. A small force lifting a large load must move a correspondingly greater distance: the operator has to pull more metres of chain through his hands. And that in turn takes a correspondingly longer time. Even so, some very high-capacity chain blocks are available. Harrington Hoist’s CB range, for example, which is their rugged, industrial-duty design, is available in capacities from 0.5t up to 100t – which is a remarkable load to be lifted by manpower alone. Other manufacturers can also supply that capacity, either off the shelf or by special order. A main application, say Chinese manufacturers Dawson Group, is in shipbuilding. Another potential application is on offshore oil rigs, where a cable for electric power might not be easily or safely available. For most manual chain hoist loads, however, with rather saner capacities lifting speeds are perfectly adequate, and any slight disadvantage is more than outweighed by all the advantages of independence from an electric or pneumatic power source. Their simplicity means that they can easily be made
spark-resistant for use in hazardous atmospheres; and freedom from an outside power source is almost a necessity for one application: as a safety back-up system for when external power is down. A manual chain block can operate vital lifts in such emergencies. A typical example of everyday use is vehicle repair shop work. A typical car engine might weigh 250kg. It is too heavy for one person to lift; as well as ungainly and awkwardly placed. It does lie happily in the ideal capacity
range for small manual hoists though. For removing an engine from a chassis a manual hoist works just as efficiently and conveniently as an electric one – more so in fact, since there is no trailing cable to step over or watch out for or to uncoil before use and to coil up again afterwards. There are now variants of the manual hoist – you could call them hybrid designs – that are powered by a cordless electric drill that can be made to grip the spindle; these also would seem to tick all of the above boxes. They are available from, among others, Tiger Lifting with their ETCB Power PRO Hoist, which comes in capacities up to 10t. Tiger suggests that a drill of maximum 2,500rpm be used to operate the unit. Dutch manufacturers Gebuwin
A Tralift 0.5t chain block from Tractel.
www.hoistmagazine.com | May/June 2026 | 21
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