Here's the story of how I've been moving timbers around when I don't have help. Even when I do have help, often one or both of these tools are used.
First, I started out with the cheapest shop crane/engine hoist/cherry picker I could find. I then welded some 5/8" bar for axels and mounted 10" turf wheels.
(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/12865/crane1.JPG)
The timber cart is made from (2) 2'x4' garden wagons welded together and placed on a frame built on top of a riding lawnmower transaxle. The extra 4 turf wheel went on crane.
(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/12865/crane2.JPG)
As you can see, the open design of the crane allows it slide right under the cart centered on the transaxle.
(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/12865/crane3.JPG)
Up, up and away...
(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/12865/crane4.JPG)
Then, the whole thing rolls back. (No steering yet).
(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/12865/crane5.JPG)
I did these pictures today with a 6x6x16', but this setup has done quite well with the biggest timber in my project which is an 8x14x22'. I did everything here for about $300 (the riding lawnmower transaxle was from a scrapped mower) so I'm well under the $6000-10,000 I might spend on 4x4 tractor with a loader. But if I had the $$, I'd buy a tractor loader in a hearbeat.
I do have a few minor modifications planned to this setup, including:
1. adding steering to the crane from using the leftover steering mechanism from the garden wagon.
2. adding an electric reversable motor to timbercart.
And then this one. But first....
WARNING: What I'm contemplating next may cause serious injury to myself and others if I don't get the engineering correct. ;D I ask that any FF members (especially those trained in mechanical engineering) that read this next part, please please please please comment here with relevant formulas or concepts I might have missed.
I'm thinking about making a modification the crane and creating a portable gin pole using a 25' light pole. The idea is have the ability to quickly move and reposition the pole with minimal setup time.
Here's about what it would look like:
(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/12865/boom1.JPG)
I'm going on the formula D1F1=D2F2 but I'm trying to figure out where the fulcrum would be. Under the front wheels or at the point where the boom is hinged? (or both?)
(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/12865/boom2.JPG)
Also, how much weight can I reasonably expect the light pole to handle without reinforcement at 55 degrees? If needed I could modify it to go all the way up to 70 degrees (20 degrees off plumb)? This is 4"x4" steel tube about 1/8" thick (11gauge?)
I did something similar but did not work out the physics. I mounted an extra 3x5 (SYP) timber to a pallet using an extra anchor bolt. This provided a pivot point. The pallet was placed on the "fork lift" attachment on the back of the Farmall Super A. I placed a pulley at the other end of the timber with another anchor bolt and attached a 1/4 steel cable from the timber end to each of the front cultivator arms. A hand winch (2 spd boat winch) allowed the lifting of 8x8 by 12 timbers approx 10 ft in the air so I could set them as headers on top of a CMU wall. By adjusting the front cultivator arms I was able to move the timbers back and forth enough to set them on the anchor bolts.
(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/12879/mobil%20gin%20pole.jpg)
(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/12879/timber%20header.jpg)
Steve,
Been a long time since I did any math like that (civil engineer, not structural or mechanical). ANyway, your pivot or fulcrum point is the front wheels of the crane. If the weight at boom tip is sufficient to overcome the counterbalance, the hinge point becomes your front wheels. This creates an additional moving load because your front wheels are mobile and not fixed, thus the entire crane assembly will tend to move backwards.
If your counterbalance offsets the tip load, and assuming your wheels are fixed in position, and the tip load exceeds the bending stress of the light pole, your hinge point will become the point at which the hydraulic jack attaches to the lift arm. I'm not up to running the calculation right now, but I'd GUESS that your tip load at 19' will be less than 300 pounds, maybe as little as 100 pounds. Light poles aren't made to take a lot of bending stress - they break easily - more like a whip than a column.
If you take a close look at the engine hoist - the tip doesn't extend past the front wheels. Your load will always be behind your hinge point. Most engine cranes are rated for 1000 lb, some times you can get a 1500 or 2000 lb rated crane. Lets say that the steel cross-section of the crane boom is the same as the light pole. Lets say that you have a crane rated for 1000 lb. So at maximum extension of the boom, lets say 5 feet, you have a 5000 lb bending load. Divide by the 19'. You have a max tip load of 260 lb now, your "shock" load or live load will be MUCH higher because you have a much less rigid boom (more of a 'whip'), and you have also put your load way out in front of your hinge point. There is no longer a direct correlation of tip load to boom length because you have introduced other complications like the unbraced length of the light pole and the shift of your pivot point.
Professional crane operators and riggers know that the further out from the center of the machine that the boom extends, the less of a load that it can pick up. You don't have the footprint (outriggers) or massive weight helping you out. I have seen a 13-ton truck crane, with all of its' weight and full extension of outriggers, have a difficult time lifting a ONE-ton load at full boom extension where the angle from ground to boom was greater than 50 degrees.
I don't think you will be successful with that setup. It's certainly not safe. What might be a better idea is to build a "real" gin pole and just use the wheeled job, as is, to move timbers so that they can be picked up with the "real" gin pole.
(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/10186/Picture%201838f.jpg)
(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/10186/Picture%201834f.jpg)
(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/10186/Picture%201820f.jpg)
To tell what a pole will handle you find what square timber is in there and use the value for the timber. So if you pole is 9 inches on the little end you can have a 6x6 timber and look up the value for the type of tree it was made from.
The piviot point is the front wheels of your cherry picker. My bet is if it will lift the timber the frame of the cherry picker will fold in front of the jack. The leverage of the pole makes it work agin the picker . So if you lift 500 lbs of timber over 20 ft of pole you will exert a force of 10,000 lbs on the piviot point. You have to remember that the end of the pole where the timber is tied on is the handle of a lever and the cherry picker is the piviot. Putting the cable over the pole will help keep it from bending but add nothing to lifting capacity of the picker.
The pictures at the top are of my boom for raising frames. I can lift about 1,600 lbs. The boom is a 8x8 white oak timber 16 ft long and it is tied onto a 63 hp 4x4 tractor with a loader that can lift about 2,800 lbs. Height is about 22 ft to the top of the lifting hook with the loader all the way up. Back wheels get light some times and if it were not for the 4x4 drive would not move most of the time on large loads.
Now if you made some 2x2 steel "A" frame legs to go about 4 ft back of the tip of your pole you could move into place and set the legs and lift the timbers in place with a bock and tackle. There are cheap 5 line ones that will lift 1,000 lbs and it would make lifting safer. Hate to see you fold up that cherry picker which is a neat way to lift and move timbers solo.
Thanks all,
As usual, this place provides fertilizer for the garden of ideas (and some well placed weed killer when needed) ;D
I'm going to abandon the light pole -> gin pole idea, and just go with an simple (smaller) gin pole using a 16' 6x6 since I only need to go up about 10' for the ones I'll be doing myself. For the bigger (and higher up) stuff, I'll leave that to boom truck.
-Steve
Joel Eisner's tractormounted gin pole sounds like one idea that should be investigated, at least it may work for lighter loads.
Would it work to make some kind of iron frame that fits the three point hitch and that can be lowered to the ground when lifting? The pole would have an iron shoe that is pivoting on that frame. The ground contact makes it possible to avoid the sway caused by the rubber tires. The frame should be made wider than the tractor to give sideways stability. The ground contact would function as the fulcrum and the whole tractor as counterweight.
It happens now and then that small trctors fall on their side when lifting heavy loads with different equipment......
I have not tried to do any calculations about this idea yet.
Does anybodu have any thoghts that would fertilize or kill this idea?
If you have any kind of a fork lift here is a crane extension that can be added:
(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/10095/MVC-006F-s.JPG)
The part that slides over the forks is tube steel so that the crane extension can't tip off.
I hope to create one of these someday for my forks for my backhoe.
Jim Rogers
(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/10026/tom-tommy33bd.jpg)
I've always been pretty low tech.
This is what I used until he
got married and moved away. :D :D
Well, I finally gave in an bought a tractor (like I should have done years ago). Now, my strategy for moving timbers has completely changed for the better.
My first project after getting the tractor ( a Mitsuhindra 2015HST) was to adapt a quick attach to the FEL.
(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/12865/fl2c.jpg)
This allows me to use a 3PH pallet fork attachment and any other 3PH implements on the front.
(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/12865/fl1c.JPG)
But, as I quickly found, I needed some weight on the back to keep all four wheels on the ground.
(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/12865/fl3c.JPG)
This is all good for moving stuff around, but what about raising things up in the air? This is where I got a little creative.
I took a standard 3PH Boom pole and did some modifications. The picture doesn't show it well, but there's a Harbor Freight 440/880 hoist mounted at the base which goes to the to a block mounted at the end of a 9' hitch tube (2x2x 1/4"). It's kinda like a big fishing pole. :) The only drawback is that I need to be near a power source. BUT, I'm thinking about getting a 1500 watt inverter for this and other power tools.
(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/12865/bpc.jpg)
The system can easily lift more than just the two CMU's shown. I've designed it to lift 800 lbs up to 22 ft, but so far it's only been tested with 250 lbs at 12 ft.
-srj
Another use I found for this set-up is that it can get me up to places that would otherwise be inaccessable with a ladder.
(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/12865/lt1c.JPG)
Now, if I could just get over my fear of heights.... :D
(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/12865/lt2c.jpg)
-srj
What happens when ya have a breakdown while in the air ??? ;D
Arky how is the back part hooked to the fork frame?
Will
QuoteWhat happens when ya have a breakdown while in the air?
I keep a cell phone in my shirt pocket. :) Actually, worse case, I'd swing over to the boom and climb down.
Quote
I built an economical device for lifting logs. I had much of the items on hand so it probably cost me around $150 to build it. It does NOT lift full length logs by any means. My logs were milled flat on 2 sides and were approx 10" x 10" with lengths from 8' to 16'. Most were 12' in length.
I was able to build my log cabin entirely by myself. I DID have some help building the lifting device, mainly holding the items in place until they could be securely fastened.
I used 2 x 6 framing & 5/8" plywood for the base. The 10" industrial castors with air tires I purchased on Ebay went on the bottom. Because I had 4 of the castors, I used the extra one directly behind the front wheel of the tripod. The "jammer" section was built with some 4 x 6 douglas fir I had. The vertical piece was also 4 x 6 douglas fir. It was secured & braced with 20 penny nails.
I then attached one of those cheapie 800# electric hoists that I had purchased from Harbor Freight. Then the lifting tongs went on & I put it to the test. I immediately found out a dozen or so 10" blocks provided excellent ballast.
It worked fine. The thing sure did grunt & creak when I lifted those 16 footers. This undoubtedly was at (possibly over) the limit of what could be safely lifted.
I'm certain someone with a higher degree of engineering (my understanding of engineering borders on bankruptcy) could build a far better, bigger capacity, and safer unit.
I'd be happy to answer any questions.
Photos of this may be seen at Please use the forum gallery for photos (admin) in the Log Cabin section of photos