Putting the boys to work this week before they go home to mom and making two new winch up feeders. Got the tripods and barrels done today, gonna add the barrel legs tomorrow and paint em before adding the winch and pulleys.

Nice, keep us posted on the finished product.

Nice! I built my first one last year and another one this year, you get spoiled to not climbing a ladder. And we're lazy, we use the winch on the four wheeler to help get them back up, them suckers get heavy when they're full!

I've built several of these. I implore you to consider a Warn electric winch instead of a hand winch. It costs $75 at Northern Tool, and it's safer than a hand winch. You can power it from your truck battery, or go solar with a local deep cycle battery. The feeders are heavy and hard to crank up with 7 50lb bags of corn in them.

Also get you a couple of the deep galvanized drop-on lids, they won't blow off and they don't leak.

Cast, I'm putting double pulleys, think they'll still be hard to crank up? Also the lids that are on them are "locking" type lids, should I still replace them with drop on type? I'm still new to this so thanks for the advice!

Mine have double pulleys.



That's my first feeder, out three seasons and still going strong. Pulley up top and pulley on barrel. It takes two of us old guys to crank it up when full. That's Donald, the youngster at the lease, a Marine. He can do it by himself.



Here's my current build with all the whistles and bells I've picked up along the way. The Monarch feeder has it's own 12v battery and solar panel. There's a nice motion activated hog light up high by the feeder box and a 12v Warn winch down low on that same leg. At it's base is a deep cycle battery that powers the light and the winch.

Notice the tee posts? Don't make the same mistake I did, thinking it would stand until I got around to staking it down. Stand it, stake it, wire it or it will blow down with a light wind. Don't let yours fall on your truck.

The deep cycle battery is charged with a solar panel on the camera pole just to the right of the bike, and out of frame. There is a 2 conductor light weight 14awg wire running from solar camera pole over to the deep cycle battery to charge it, and it works well.

That charge wire is what has me vexed. I don't want to have that point of failure, so I will have to bury that wire in conduit to keep it intact, and I don't like that either. I may add another solar pole to the feeder leg just to charge that battery, eliminating the point of failure.

And yes, the stock clamp on lids are a PIA when it's cold and hard to handle when it's not cold. Get lids like the one behind Donald. Three seasons and it stays put. Went through the monsoon of '15.

About the battery at the feeder, it's only there because of the hog light. I could drive up to any feeder with truck or gator and hook winch power to truck or Gator battery. The Hog Light is way cheaper than thermal optics.

I love my Warn winch! I'm gonna build one more of these for my back forty and upgrade the two I have at the lease to power winches. Then I'm done for a while, I hope. I like hunting/sitting at camp better than building stuff.

There's a guy in Conroe that I buy my top plates from, he build the best one I've seen. He also has lids. Shipping kills me, not a problem for you local guys. I found him on eBay.

Cast, we've thought about using a winch but have always wondered how easily they mount to the legs of the feeder and if they're stable enough to do so? How do you do yours?

Yeah, that worried me too, I posted here about that very thing. The Warn winch has two bolt holes. I marked them, drilled them, and bolted it up. The tricky part is the cable length, it's barely long enough so you need to lay the winch leg down and mock it up until everything fits, then drill the leg and mount it. It's solid. No worries.

Thanks for the tips.

What's the guy's name in Conroe? I'm up there quite often.

Really like the wench feeders, mostly what I have these days. The ones I prefer I can back the truck inside the tripod and lower the barrel onto the tailgate. Less handling of the corn and not as far to crank the feeder.

Well against Cast's advice, I finished me both off with hand winches and the lids that came with the barrels, but for good reason. I put me up on CL yesterday so I can sell me and build two more with those funds the "right" way.

I'm sorry I'm late getting back. Here's the guy in Spring that makes good stuff

Look at this on eBay:

http://pages.ebay.com/link/?nav=item.view&alt=web&id=181822211938&globalID=EBAY-US

Deer Feeder Winch Up Top Plate

Those look really great. What did the square tubing cost and how long again? I get my round tubing for $17 each, square was more expensive and stronger.

I like the way you added bolts at the top. I'm gonna start locking the winch pole to the top section with a thru bolt. That should make it easier and less scary to set the death traps up. What method do you use to set it up?

I have all the pulleys already attached to the cables with their mounting hardware. Assemble the tripod and lock down the legs then run the cable out and attach the pulley and the end of the cable to the cap. Pull out enough slack on the line for the pulley that mounts to the barrel, stand up the tripod, attach the pulley to the barrel and voila, ready to roll.

I added those set bolts to the leg sockets out of necessity. The first time we disassembled the tripod I almost took a leg to the head, luckily it just hit my shoulder and only left a nasty bruise.

The legs are 12' one piece 1 1/4" square tubing. I bought three 24 footers and has the steel shop cut them down to six twelve footers and it was 46 bucks. All the rest of the steel was stuff I had laying around the garage.

Thanks for that link. I'm almost outta spare metal so I may have to buy some parts for my next ones.

Just a thought and not knocking your feeders, but I'd beef up the top plate to 3/8". The one you have in the photo already shows some flex and under a load, may be a bad thing. The long legs can sure add a lot of leverage.

No offense taken. I had already noticed that myself and have taken notes for the next round. Like I said, this was just what I had laying around. I'll definitely beef up the top plate on the next ones.

The guy in Spring makes the best top plates I've seen. I'm going to have him weld nuts on the next one, I'll get the one I have in development modified to add the nuts. He put some thought into it. His top pulleys can swivel. He's got lids too. I buy the pulleys on eBay cheap. Small Warn winch at Northern Tool.

I'm sorry I didn't mention the death trap in setting these guys up. It really should require a hard hat and shoulder pads. Locking the legs down means I can use the FEL to stand them up. Nice touch but cost you a sore shoulder huh?

You can say that again.

Learn by experience....

I'm gonna have to change out the cap pieces, what I had just isn't gonna cut it now that I've set them up completely. The local steel supply has some square plates I can use, but they don't have 3/8" only 1/4". Y'all think that'll be enough or should I try harder to find 3/8"?

I've had great luck building a triangle out of heavy 3" angle then attaching the leg sleeves to the triangle. I also use stupid heavy drill stem because it's cheap for legs and my tripod feeders double as Engine Hoists. You will be just fine with hand cranks I prefer not to have to worry about running power.

However an older guy on my lease builds receivers on his feeder legs then he can use one electric winch for all of his feeders and he runs an extension cord of the battery so he can power it.