Small Jib crane for firewood bundles....

[Oldpath05]

Old P is that an old Husky 50 or 55 you've got in your hands? I had a dear and best friend pass away back in 1985. He gave me his hardly used 50 knowing he wasn't going to be using it much. Never met this man's replacement. I have this saw to this day and it is a working implement. With an 18" bar, it makes for a very nice felling saw.

That is a very nice construction. Me? I just would have built a shute.

Close sort of, it's Jonsered 2171 with new 24" bar, had 18" but quite couldn't reach through the bundles, always nice to have a tool to remember somebody by, I have some myself.
Shute wouldn't really work for what I want to do, I have a 8' shelf next to the saw crib that I hope to stack atleast 3>>2'x2'x8' bundles, cut up in 20'' smaller bundles. This shelf is 4' above inside garage floor, there's a window right there to reach through, get a arm full of wood, take it over to the stove. The worst idea was my son kept saying, never mind making a crane, just use a wheelbarrow, I said if you say wheelbarrow one more time, your fired. I'm over qualified to operate a wheelbarrow and I dont have a wheelbarrow operating licence, not getting one either...

 

[Oldpath05]

I really like the concept - love lifting things with equipment instead of my back

This is just my opinion, but I'm pretty concerned about the screws pulling out.

Screws do good with sheer loads, not so good with holding a pulling load like your lever has created.

When they go, they likely will fail quickly.

Still, kudos for making cool stuff.

"love lifting things with equipment instead of my bach"<<<< you and me both
The top crane hinge has 2> 3/8''x12'' bolts going through the wall and through 2 doubled up 2"x6"x22" nailed together, they are nailed and screwed to in between the 2x6 wall studs<<are 2'ft on center, these are inside laying flat ways, then there's 3 more double up 2x6s inside down the wall laying flat ways, the outside plank is lag screwed into them also, not quite OSHA approved but think it's secure, more test needed.

Where I wanted the crane to fit didn't quite line up with inside wall studs, so I double up some 2"x6"x22" to fit in between them, if your not kunfused yet, I'll get my son to take a few more pics. this weekend, I have some more bundle to cut.

 

[DaveK OR]

Your construction of the beam sounds solid enough to me. The glue joint itself between the lower flange and the web should be enough to hold the weight you need to support. I've just seen too many places where people have thrown things together without thinking about how strong the connections are, and what kind of loads it will actually receive.

 

[arrow]

Close sort of, it's Jonsered 2171 with new 24" bar, had 18" but quite couldn't reach through the bundles, always nice to have a tool to remember somebody by, I have some myself.
Shute wouldn't really work for what I want to do, I have a 8' shelf next to the saw crib that I hope to stack atleast 3>>2'x2'x8' bundles, cut up in 20'' smaller bundles. This shelf is 4' above inside garage floor, there's a window right there to reach through, get a arm full of wood, take it over to the stove. The worst idea was my son kept saying, never mind making a crane, just use a wheelbarrow, I said if you say wheelbarrow one more time, your fired. I'm over qualified to operate a wheelbarrow and I dont have a wheelbarrow operating licence, not getting one either...

Oh man, you're not thinking this through. The shute holds the wood that you place from the outside. You go inside and open the shute door and the wood falls right into the wheel barrow. Because the wheel barrow is inside the house, no one will know you are not a licensed driver for such. I've been doing this for years and never got pulled over once. I love shutes cause when you stand at the correct end, everything comes to you. It's how the wife ended up in my arms by accident when we first met. I had it all planned out for our first date to be at the playground.

Now when you're a logger alone in the woods, you get to think about all sorts of ideas. It is where I developed the idea that eating cake for lunch is considered healthy if you first dip the fork in some olive oil.

 

[Oldpath05]

"The shute holds the wood that you place from the outside. You go inside and open the shute door and the wood falls right into the wheelbarrow"

A chute will work in some instances, use to have one in my old garage, but a chute wont stack firewood, my crane will stack 7' high-ish. I plan on putting 1/2 +cord on a 8' shelf, then open window, grab arm full of slabs walk 16' to stove. This coming fall I'll buy a hand truck, lay it down, put casters on other end, with 4 stakes, stack some wood on that, wheel that over to the stove, place it behind stove, I prefer 4 wheels, cant stand wheelbarrows.

 

[Xfaxman]

I prefer 4 wheels, cant stand wheelbarrows.

How about a 2 wheel wheelbarrow?

How about a 3 wheel wheelbarrow?

 

[MossRoad]

HA! Saw a wheelbarrow picture while typing in the dirt moving thread and posted to this.... can't keep my threads straight. :laughing:

 

[Oldpath05]

That two wheel wheelbarrow will definitely get another look later.
Before this thread gets rusty, some final pictures, I finally emptied my firewood crib this past weekend that was sitting for over a month. Had two> 2'x2'x8'-ish sawmill slabs in the saw crib, marked out 20"-ish long, got the bathroom scales, check 2 sawed up bundles, weighed in at 125lbs ea. I got 8 bundles from the two bigger bundles, had 3 already on my firewood self, the last bundle had to be put up with tractor FEL. So during the course of an average winter, this will have to be done 3-ish times. I'm ok with that, right now I have 35> 2x2x8 ft. sawmill slab bundles stacked up outside, some are 2 years old.

When making this slab wood shelf, I first figured in my mind there'd be around 500 lbs on it, while jibbing the bundles over to the shelf, my son started doing some weight calculations on smartphone, 8+3=11>bundles = a bit more 500 lbs he said. So halfway through unloading the saw crib, did some post and beaming under the shelf just incase there was some building shortcuts in making this firewood shelf.

All this construction and production was supposed to be done 5 months ago, needless to say I'm slightly behind schedule, but I'm still under budget.