Tell you that there crane looks like you married up one of them boomer rigs they had on the docks down in New York City with a loader tractor except them boomer trucks had a pully thing built right into the end of the boom. I seen outfits like that when I was working for the railroad, big tractors with them tracks on em with a boom hanging off to one side, and they could pick up one end of a boxcar with them.
Thing is I can't understand why you went to all that trouble. Fellow here builds all sorts of barns and has himself a piece of aluminum pipe with a pully thing on one end and about a 5 foot piece of pipe on the other end that sits kind of like a capitol T but upside down so the T part is on the ground. It sort of looks like clothes drying posts except the part the laundry lines hang on is sitting on the ground and the part that's in the ground is sticking up. Back when he had a lot of work and help he'd use a block & tackle on that post, but since things slowed down its just him and his boy, so they went over to Harbor Freight and bought a winch, and now the winch does the lifting. That Harbor Freight is quite a place I tell you, seems like they have more stuff in there than Sears used to have in their farm store before Sears closed the stores.
Now this fellow has a 2 wheel cart with a pair of wheels like them fancy garden carts that got wheels that look like a bicycle wheel, and he and the boy just lift the truss one at a time and clamp the wheels onto the truss at the pointy end and push that sucker right into the barn. They got considerable practice and can position the end of the truss slicker than you ever seen. The pointy end is still down at the ground, and one of the eave ends is sitting on the wall.
Then they hook the winch cable to the pointy end of the truss and hit the switch. They got this plastic box with a battery in it for the winch and a cable from the box to the winch. Tell you what, in less time than it takes to write this all out that piece of pipe with the winch flips the pointed end of the truss up where it belongs and the other fellow is on the ladder over by the end that ain't sitting on the wall. and ready to go. When the end that aint on the wall gets just to the right height he gives a little push and then pulls and the other fellow who is running the electric winch powered by the battery in the box flips the switch the other way and the dang truss sits right in place on top of the walls. Then the fellow who runs the winch gets on his ladder and puts nails in the end of the truss that was sitting on the wall, and they both climb down and take that cart of theirs over to where the trusses are piled up and get another truss.
He was telling me his first idea was to just use a boat winch but for just a few dollars more he got the electric one and he ain't near as tired when he finishes for the day and gets home.
Another thing this fellow swears by is wind straps on them trusses. They take some of that steel strapping like you use on pallets and about 4 1 1/2 roofing nails and strap the end of the truss right to the top beam the truss is sitting on. He says this makes the connection a lot stornger and he never yet had one flop over like some do. It makes sense.
