waterbuoy

I have a Brownchurch one that might suit the bill for you It was custom made for my 300Tdi Discovery (ie Disco 1) - has full side rails but a clear front and back so I could use it for ladders etc. A 50mm (I think) welded mesh base, and a full width roller at the rear for putting on ladders, pipes etc. Less helpful - I'm working in Ireland this week, but will be back on the 'mainland' on Sunday and can take some 'photos if you are interested? From memory, it was about 8ft long - at least I remember I was able to transport over 20 sheets of 18mm ply on it, which made cornering an 'interesting' experience! Don't let my location put you off - I work all over the UK - eg I have some work to do in south Cheshire next month. PS It is galvanised

I don't know about Opepe but in the case of both Iroko and (I think) Cedar you might be best not to try and paint them but leave lightly oiled with (say) Danish oil. The natural oils in the wood makes it very difficult for most paints to effectively bond,but is the reason they have such longevity.

What type of powered winch do you have in mind?

6mm galvanised (7 by 19 with a steel core) (ie not fibre) when new has a SWL of c. 500kg and a MBL of 2.5 tonnes; for stainless it is a little less than this. This gives a FoS against the quoted 30kg of significantly more than the 5 which is required by the various regs (ie LOLER and, in some cases, PUWER) The 6mm is more than man enough for the job in hand. The only downside over using this instead of (say) 10mm is that whilst it will sit higher when not under load, it will stretch more when loaded. In this instance this should not pose a problem.

I'm based just south of Oban, but travel all over the UK - Northern Ireland via Glasgow and Coatbridge this week. If you have any contacts in these parts I can leave some cable with them for you to try. Sadly I chucked away some 150m lengths of 6mm a couple of weeks ago, but have a 65m length of 6mm sitting outside that I removed last week, and probably more if I rummage around. The fuel costs are likely to be more than the cable is actually worth so it makes sense to try and collect from a mutually convenient mid point - I have to head up to Fort Bill in a few weeks time for example. As others have advised, the sag will increase proportionally with span. However, my previous comments and calcs were based on a level cableway. If you are running your '30 kg' timber down a steepish slope then the sag will be less as there will not be a static load, which is what we use for our load tests when setting the cables.

We install and load test cableways over rivers for flow measurement purposes. I'd suggest that you don't need to use a 'full size' steel cable for the majority of your span - 6mm (7 x 19 will be flexible enough) should be more than sufficient. Make up an eye in each end so it can be shackled at each end - one to a fixed strop around a tree etc, and the other to a strop which can then be used to tension through the tirfor or similar device. That way you can easily carry the coil of 6mm by hand rather than having to lug around a large coil of 9/10/11 mm cable. Tension wise, we set all our cables to sit with a sag of 2% of total span with a working weight of 50kg, ie a 1m sag over a 50m span. We can set the cables to this tension using a simple 750kg chain hoist. Unfortunately I am some way south of you on the west coast as I have literally miles of scrap cable here which would be suitable for your purposes!

I think you'll find it is a drill bit from the Rotabroach mag drill which is in the same shot - the 'nail' is the centre bit which slides inside the cutting bit to activate the lubricant