I do a lot of pig hunting by myself and I don't know if the pigs are getting heavier or I am getting weaker, but they are getting revenge on me by killing my back.

I had a game hoist but it has seen better days.




With help from a friend doing the welding, I started the build of my back saver today.
It is being primer right now in the garage and hopefully I will have it painted by the end of the 2nd day and have all the pulleys attached.
I am going to use a 2500lb electric winch for the cable.

Bottom section

So I mounted the winch in the truck bed today, put the first coat of paint on the hoist, mounted the pulleys and gave it a small test to see how well it works.

I have a few minor issues to work out but the structure is strong.

Does it swivel? I'm going to make one before it gets hot, and was thinking of a way to make the top part spin so I can sling the animal into the bed.

I made the upright into 2 sections and put a pipe in the middle so it will swivel. The problem right now is the cable pulley does not swivel with it when under pressure.

When raising the ranch hand, the upper section turned real easy putting a bind on the cable/pulley setup.

Makes sense. I'll be using a hand winch, so I'll make sure to put it on the swivel part. Thx

If you add a pulley at the bottom and near the top of the upright piece so that the cable runs parallel with it, it should swivel alot better

Thanks, I will give it a try.
Mike

what size square tubing did you use?

thanks! I have several hundred feet of 1x1 and 1.5x1.5 square tubing and was thinking of building something similar. I might have one 3-4 foot long piece of 2x2 for the interface with the receiver hitch portion. My original thought was to use an electric winch but mount it above a swivel point so as to not have the binding effect you are experiencing.

I have thought about mounting the winch above the swivel point but then the upper section is even heavier and right now it is getting pretty heavy to lift onto the pole.

I may end up making a quick mount for the winch so it can be removed.

I'd put a pulley on the boom & do away with the snatch block.

looks good man. I made on similar, with pipe to swivel and a few places to pin it so it doesn't swivel. I just offset where the hoist breaks down, and put winch on uppper section so it all swivels together. those things are handy.

That dog will hunt!