Rigging & Moving Heavy Loads — Mechanical Advantage, Anchors, and Getting Things Where They Need to Go
Sooner or later you have to move something heavier than you are. A tree across the drive. An engine out of a truck. A beam onto a wall. A stump that is not coming out by hand.
People solve this one of two ways: more force, or mechanical advantage. This book is about the second — blocks and tackle, levers, rollers, skids, ramps, gin poles, shears, tripods, winches, and the anchors that let any of them pull against something.
It is also about the arithmetic that catches people. A load on two slings spread to thirty degrees puts the entire weight on each leg, not half. A 4:1 tackle means your anchor is holding four times your pull, which is why anchors fail right after someone adds mechanical advantage. Both get a diagram and a worked table.
This is the most genuinely dangerous subject in the series and the book treats it that way. Seven rules sit in the front matter before chapter one: never under a suspended load, never in line with a tensioned line, know the weight, use safe working load rather than breaking strength, inspect everything, one person directs, never shock load. Every one of them exists because somebody died.
Adapted from public-domain United States Army rigging instruction, rewritten in plain English for farm, workshop, and homestead use.
What's inside
- 35 pages, 13 chapters, 3 appendices, 15 diagrams
- The six ways rigging actually fails
- Safe working load, breaking strength, and why the safety margin is so large
- Rope, wire rope, chain and slings — and how to inspect and retire each
- Estimating what a load weighs, with a materials table
- Sling angles, the arithmetic that catches people, and hitch capacities
- Blocks and tackle: counting mechanical advantage, friction losses, and what the anchor really carries
- Levers, jacks, and cribbing — the technique that makes the job survivable
- Rollers, skids, and inclined planes
- Deadman anchors and the 3-2-1 picket holdfast
- Gin poles, shear legs, and tripods
- Winches, come-alongs, and vehicle recovery
- Hand signals and working safely as a group
- Worked examples, an inspection checklist, and a quick-reference card
Who it's for Farms, homesteads, workshops, boatyards, disaster response, and anyone who owns rope and a problem.
Note on scope General rigging, not life safety. Nothing here qualifies anyone to rig something that will hold a person — climbing, rescue, and suspended work are separate disciplines with rated equipment and certification, and the book says so plainly.
Format Instant PDF download. Letter size, prints cleanly at home, reads on any device. Yours forever, no subscription.
