Need to come up with a "crane" to lift trusses

[DanMc77]

That will make it a lot taller, and heavier.

Yeah, the truss weighs in at 161 lbs.

If it spans 24 feet, and the pitch is a 45 degree angle (12/12), then the peak of the truss will be 12 feet above the top wall plate. With 10 foot walls, that puts the peak up at 22 feet.

My 4600 tractor with the 460 loader reaches 9.3 feet high at the bucket pivot according to the JD specs. So I would need a boom of about 16 feet beyond the pivot to be able to lift the truss from its peak. But (I think) the trusses are designed to be lifted from the collar tie at points 5 and 7 seen on the drawing. That's about 8 1/2 feet from the top of the wall. So maybe the truss could be lifted by a beam that grabs those two points from the bottom edge. If the cutting edge of the bucket extends 2 feet (swag) beyond the pivot, then an 8 foot boom extending from the bucket should be sufficient. I have hooks welded to the top edges of the bucket, so chains could be run from there to the end of the boom. Cool. This might just work.

 

[Reb954]

Do the locals call them mountains, or hills? 9500 is a serious mountain.

We call those mountains. Those are on the west side of the valley. On the east side we call them hills due to only being about 7500 feet high.

 

[Deerherd]

There are a few places that sell things like this: 84 Inch Open Hoop Boom Pole by Construction Attachments - 1BP84CL

 

[ray66v]

This doesn't have to be real complicated.

The best system I have seen for one time use is, build a "ramp" out of 2x's on one side of the building, and simply drag, or winch them up it.

If you have some scaffolding, or planks to work off of inside the building, you can let them hang with the pointed side down, while you slide them into place from the middle. Then, you use a simple 2x4 pusher from the ground, to rotate the top up.

The guy in a video I saw once, had pulleys set up so he could pull the trusses up the "ramp" from the opposite end with a utility vehicle. He put them all up by himself in a very short time.

If your trusses are 12 feet tall, it's not going to be as easy. Because you have to keep them on their side. Perhaps you can build a temporary "wall" down the center to support the tops.

If you do lift them, you need to brace the center bottom connection, because they will tend to want to bend there. If your trusses don't have a connection there, it's not a problem.

 

[JK22]

The tractor is a 5055E with the pallet forks and a 20' "H" beam. I had to reach from the side of the building over an 8' porch to the center of a 24' wide building. The trusses were just under 200#.

Caution: The further out you go, the more dangerous it gets for 2 reasons. 1) The torque (lever arm) increases rapidly and you'd be surprised at how little weight it can lift at 20' even if it can lift 3000# at the forks. 2) Tiny movements are greatly amplified at the end of that beam. A 1 inch movement at the pins of the forks results in a 2 foot movement at the end of the beam.

View attachment 603174

That is sketchy. And really cool.

 

[quicksandfarmer]

I would think about what you're going to do once the truss is up. Presumably you are going to nail purlins to tie them together? You're going to need some place to stand at least 15 feet off of the ground while you nail them in, and until they're nailed the truss won't support you or a ladder. So you need something -- a man lift, scaffolding, a really tall stepladder -- to get up there. With the two eave ends of the truss supported by the top plates, lifting the peak only takes about 50 pounds of lift. So however you get up there, you could probably just lift the peak into place with a rope once you're there.

If the trusses are on 2' spacing you could sit on a finished truss while you attach the next one. If that's the case, you could pull the peak up with a rope from there. You'd have to figure out how to do the first two.

I'm not saying the tractor wouldn't be handy for moving the trusses around.

 

[bcp]

Maybe there would be some useful ideas here:

Setting a truss without a crane - YouTube

Raising and setting wood trusses.- Wood truss building construction. - YouTube

Lifting 44 foot roof trusses without a crane - YouTube

how to raise a truss by yourself - YouTube

Clever and safe way to lift roof trusses - YouTube

Bruce

 

[jmc]

So, I'm thinking about what to add onto my 4600 tractor to serve as a small crane. It has a 460 front loader and the backhoe on the other end. I have pallet forks, so I'm thinking of slipping some square tubing over the fork tines to get a little more reach. Maybe join the tubes at the end and also add some hooks out there.

If you plan to fab something for lifting higher, have you considered fabbing something for the backhoe rather than the loader? Your BH's loader and arm will be more rigid than whatever you extend the loader with. And you'll have east/west truss tweaking.

 

[quicksandfarmer]

Maybe there would be some useful ideas here:

Setting a truss without a crane - YouTube

Raising and setting wood trusses.- Wood truss building construction. - YouTube

Lifting 44 foot roof trusses without a crane - YouTube

how to raise a truss by yourself - YouTube

Clever and safe way to lift roof trusses - YouTube

Bruce

The one "Raising and setting wood trusses.- Wood truss building construction" is pretty much what I had in mind in my post above. Set the truss upside down on the top plates. Put a scaffold in the middle and roll it up into place from the scaffold. Nail it in place. Move on to the next one.

Looks pretty easy if you have 3-4 guys.

 

[4570Man]

If you plan to fab something for lifting higher, have you considered fabbing something for the backhoe rather than the loader? Your BH's loader and arm will be more rigid than whatever you extend the loader with. And you'll have east/west truss tweaking.

The backhoe boom is almost certainly a better crane but the problem you’re likely to encounter is you can’t transport much weight with the stabilizers up without tipping backwards.