Lifting truss with FEL

[BryceSteiner]

I'm building a small shelter for my RV. The scissor trusses weigh about 50lbs. I need to to lift them 17' at the top of the truss or 14' at the underside center.
My plan:
Use 3 14' 2x4 screwed together (poll) and ubolted to 1 pallet fork with a hook on the 14' end.
I use the front end loader with the pallet forks to lift into place.
Weight of the trusses and "Pole" is about 92lbs.

Can a tractor/front end loader that can lift 1000 with the forks on have the ability to lift the 50lb truss at the end of a 14' pole?

I have other ways to do this, but this sounded fun and a challenge.

 

[chim]

My guess is at 14' it's not going to work. That's a bunch of leverage. My loader is rated at a ton and I wouldn't try that.

I'd go with having a pulley at the top of the pole and a winch on the fork frame. Get the pole vertical THEN lift the truss.

I removed a bunch of limbs from a tree in my creek a few years ago. Wanting to catch the big chunks before they ended up in the water, some Rube Goldberg crane actions were taken. For rigging, a 10' piece of 3"EMT conduit on one fork for my boom. To add support there were two chains from the business end of the conduit to the fork frame. When tree chunk cane loose, it applied quite a bit of force to the "crane". It pushed the conduit back toward the forks with enough force to have a reinforcing gusset peel the pipe open as seen in the second picture.

My forks are bale spears welded to a QA frame. You can see the amount of deflection with the load on it, and the spear did return to its normal unbent condition. A real testament to the strength of that steel.

 

[not2old]

My guess is at 14' it's not going to work. That's a bunch of leverage. My loader is rated at a ton and I wouldn't try that.

I'd go with having a pulley at the top of the pole and a winch on the fork frame. Get the pole vertical THEN lift the truss.

I agree with this.

 

[scootr]

We used to assemble steel buildings with a Bobcat that had a pole and hook affair for the rook members. But that SS had a 1700 # capacity.

 

[4570Man]

I expect it would work especially considering you could use the pole in a more vertical fashion reducing the horizontal distance but a triple 2x4 boom doesn’t give me a warm fuzzy feeling. A boom that long won’t be very smooth and a shock load will be drastically more than the 50 pounds static weight.

 

[grsthegreat]

Silly question, but where i live, when they deliver trusses they set them on top of the structure with the same crane they unload the trusses with. No charge over delivery charge. Then we walk the trusses into place.

 

[4570Man]

We used to assemble steel buildings with a Bobcat that had a pole and hook affair for the rook members. But that SS had a 1700 # capacity.

Skid steer ratings really don’t compare to tractors. The skid steer is usually rated at 1/3 or sometimes 1/2 of tip load where the tractors rating is it’s actual hydraulic capacity. A 1700 pound rated skid steer is more like 5 times as strong as a 1000 pound rated tractor.

 

[bcp]

Lots of people doing it.

tractor boom trusses at DuckDuckGo

DuckDuckGo. Privacy, Simplified.

duckduckgo.com

Bruce

 

[BryceSteiner]

My guess is at 14' it's not going to work. That's a bunch of leverage. My loader is rated at a ton and I wouldn't try that.

I'd go with having a pulley at the top of the pole and a winch on the fork frame. Get the pole vertical THEN lift the truss.

I removed a bunch of limbs from a tree in my creek a few years ago. Wanting to catch the big chunks before they ended up in the water, some Rube Goldberg crane actions were taken. For rigging, a 10' piece of 3"EMT conduit on one fork for my boom. To add support there were two chains from the business end of the conduit to the fork frame. When tree chunk cane loose, it applied quite a bit of force to the "crane". It pushed the conduit back toward the forks with enough force to have a reinforcing gusset peel the pipe open as seen in the second picture.

My forks are bale spears welded to a QA frame. You can see the amount of deflection with the load on it, and the spear did return to its normal unbent condition. A real testament to the strength of that steel.

That was my other thought. I have a winch on the tractor and could easily put a pulley on top of the vertical pole. Right down the road they sell old telephone poles that could possibly work well.

I was also recalculating - I only need it 10' long instead of 14 since the FEL can lift to almost 8'. Perhaps 2 boards screwed together at 10' long would get me there. I think I have a 50#bag of feed - maybe I'll put that on the end just to test.

 

[pmsmechanic]

I had a 15 foot steel pipe adapted to my fel. It was 2 7/8" drill stem. I fastened it to the loader with a chain about half ways down the pole. I could easily lift 32' 2x4 trusses onto 13' walls. I have no idea how much everything weighed.

 

[chim]

I borrowed one of the smaller duct jacks from work when I built the shed for the L4240. The peak is probably 13 or 14 feet. The picture was taken during a test run for concept - just wanted to verify the jack was tall enough before starting the lifts.

 

[ovrszd]

Silly question, but where i live, when they deliver trusses they set them on top of the structure with the same crane they unload the trusses with. No charge over delivery charge. Then we walk the trusses into place.

I've never heard of this. Trusses are unloaded here by rolling them off a truss trailer onto the ground. I'm guessing your trusses are very, very expensive if the builder of them is required to set them on your structure?

 

[ovrszd]

Lots of people doing it.

tractor boom trusses at DuckDuckGo

DuckDuckGo. Privacy, Simplified.

duckduckgo.com

Bruce

Built my own.

 

[Lineman North Florida]

I'm building a small shelter for my RV. The scissor trusses weigh about 50lbs. I need to to lift them 17' at the top of the truss or 14' at the underside center.
My plan:
Use 3 14' 2x4 screwed together (poll) and ubolted to 1 pallet fork with a hook on the 14' end.
I use the front end loader with the pallet forks to lift into place.
Weight of the trusses and "Pole" is about 92lbs.

Can a tractor/front end loader that can lift 1000 with the forks on have the ability to lift the 50lb truss at the end of a 14' pole?

I have other ways to do this, but this sounded fun and a challenge.

I wouldn't hesitate to give it a shot, I believe it will work, we set much heavier trusses down here with a 10' joint of 2" galvanized pipe slid onto a bale spear.

 

[MAX-24-Dean]

I've never heard of this. Trusses are unloaded here by rolling them off a truss trailer onto the ground. I'm guessing your trusses are very, very expensive if the builder of them is required to set them on your structure?

Common practice in the Pacific Northwest. I've also seen it on some track home builds in Arizona and California.

 

[4570Man]

I've never heard of this. Trusses are unloaded here by rolling them off a truss trailer onto the ground. I'm guessing your trusses are very, very expensive if the builder of them is required to set them on your structure?

I’ve never seen it done that way either. I’m not sure how you would go about setting a whole bundle of trusses on the roof either. Dumping the trusses on the ground by a roller trailer and then setting them on the building usually with a telhandler or crane is the only way I’ve seen it done.

 

[chim]

Common practice in the Pacific Northwest. I've also seen it on some track home builds in Arizona and California.

Common in my area as well.

 

[Farmer495]

These were 4-12 32' span, lifted onto 14' sidewalls. Unsure of the weight, didn't care. Top of boom was over 21' in air as I lifted it clear of side walls as I drove it in.

Just a piece of pipe on end of a manure tine. Chains running rack to bucket back in a "V" to carry the tension load. 8500lb tractor, level ground, zero issues lifting or driving while in air, I did have to carry them a distance low to the ground to get between where rolldeck slid the trusses off and where the building was.

 

[robstaples]

I may have missed it, but you didn’t include the distance that the forks are above the ground when in high position . So the 14’ might need to be only 10’ or less which makes the lift easier on the fel. I think it will work. The back up plan is a pulley on the end of your boom and you winch up once you’re in vertical position.

 

[BoylermanCT]

We built a truss boom with an electric winch on it to set our barn trusses on 12' walls. Worked great.