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

[DanMc77]

About 3 years ago, I had a temporary shelter installed on our land to store the tractor and other equipment. Now after a few short years, the plastic cover is disintegrating. So I'm laying plans to build a 24x28 foot garage with a 10 foot ceiling. Considering the narrow and winding road in to the site, I have my doubts that the lumber company will be able to get their truck with the boom in there.

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.

The trusses weigh just under 200 lbs, so I don't need to lift a tremendous load, but it needs to be strong enough not to kill somebody.

Have any of you done, or seen anything like this?

 

[M5farms]

I have a pipe that I slip over a single prong hay fork and attach to the plate for stability . This did really good when i built the 32x60 x14 . WHen I had to set the 50' span trusses on the other barn I rented a manual duct lift . strapped it to the flat bed on the truck and lifted them and backed the truck where i could bolt them off . cost me 104.00 from friday to monday in rental .

 

[radios1]

I learned my lesson on plastic, now I only use pond liners.. and what you are thinking will work, as long as you use 2 straps, from the wood to around the loader, so the wood or pipes don't slip off. and water pipe is very strong, so use that for the pipes.

 

[cat fever]

Guess it depends, if building a pole barn this is how I did mine.

 

[Diggin It]

Do you think you'll need a hoist/crane system for future work?

If not, consider using 16' 4x4s (or longer) at each end of where the trusses need to go. Use a pulley system on each post. Maybe even set them up as some sort of 'A' frame. You would have to move and re-secure them each time of course. Might be time consuming, but would cost less than most other options. Plus you could use the posts for other projects once done.

 

[flusher]

I used my Mahindra 5525 and the FEL to handle that job for the shed I built for my equipment.



Good luck

 

[buckeyefarmer]

24' at 10 ft up you can do by hand. Or put a pole on your FEL, mine are 30 ft, 12 ft up.

 

[3Ts]

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.

 

[EddieWalker]

For a simple 24 foot span, you can build your own trusses in place.

 

[Diggin It]

For a simple 24 foot span, you can build your own trusses in place.

True. My 24 x 30 garage was built that way. They stick framed the whole thing. I'm planning on using a combination of trusses (to establish and maintain the basic form) at both ends and one or two spaced equally and some stick built ones in between. Probably don't need to do that, but that's my plan.