Engineering advice needed

[rambler]

You want to lift vertically high, however you are attaching the boom pole in a way that will put the load far out in front of you. This will get you down to the 100-200# limits others mention. Don't even think about 20 feet long....

If you mount the pole so it is shorter but more vertical, you will be able to lift your loads better, and get you up high where you want to be with less issues.

I don't think going parrallel with the forks will get you where you want to be.

--->Paul

 

[MikeD74T]

RFB I built a 12' pole similar to your design to take down pole barn trusses. Attached to my Case 580CK bucket which is a quite stout loader & very heavy extend-a-hoe for ballast. The peak of the trusses was about 18' so I started each lift with the pole nearly vertical & they lifted easily. The trusses were 50' long 5/12 pitch at about 200 lbs each. I lowered the bucket & kept pole vertical during transport but had to roll the bucket out to lower the last 4' to the ground. I was surprised to find that once on the ground the bucket roll back would not lift the trusses. Ended up setting up blocking to store the trusses high enough to be able to lift later. We added more caution to the job knowing that the trusses could be lowered to a point of no return.
If you evaluate your load at the furthest possible horizontal point lifting should bring you into safer territory.
I used 4" schedule 40 pipe because it was availible and had no detectable flexation. Bolt mounted at center cutting edge of bucket & cable guyed to top bucket corners.

 

[schmism]

Most of the boom pole's ive seen use just a fixed lenght of chain/cable. Thus relying on the roll of the bucket or raise of the arms to achive the neccary height.

Instead consider useing a small 12V ATV winch and a pulley for the cable.

If you built a 20' tall boom extention but kept it virtually vertical you dont add much lever arm to the system so your over all capacity donsnt change much (as indicated by saying if it was nearly horzantal even a 100lb load exerts a large force on the bucket). You simply use the winch in/out to up/down whatever your holding.