Using FEL to hang lights

[jimmysisson]

This bends the topic, sorry. Years ago I used the loader on a 1956 Massey to erect a 28' x 10' bent (two posts, beam on top, braces) from a timber frame on a barn-house conversion we were doing. We had a fir 4x4 about 14' long to push the bent up (it was a second-and-a-half floor frame). Guys were walking around and under it as it went up to get ready to set in knee braces and pin it in place. No problems, no injuries, task accomplished. Next day, farmhand next door borrowed it to push some gravel and a hose gave way and it dropped (from 1' up) flatbang to the ground. Gave my young self shivers. Pretty scary to hoist someone with no backup to a hose failure.

 

[JSUnlimited]

Does anyone know Clark Griswold?

 

[EddieWalker]

I use mine as a work platform all the time. Usually I park it at an angle with the bucket where I want it to be, then lower the outrigger to hold my tractor in position.

Then I use a ladder to climb into the bucket.

I don't know anybody that I'd trust at the controls, but I've lifted several different people that trusted me at the controls.

My bucket is good for 4,000 pounds of lift, so my 200 pounds wont matter to much. But when I'm up as high as I can get, it does wobble around a little. Guess that's normal enough.

Eddie

 

[N80]

Mine will go up about nine feet so it can be handy as a lift. I primarily use it as a platform and climb into it with a ladder.

Used it to hang a large farm bell on a 7' post recently. I don't operate the bucket with anyone in it, or let anyone move me around in it.

I guess the two main issues are operator error and hydraulic drop down from sudden loss in pressure. I've eliminated the first but the second is always possible. It would be my luck that I'd hit hte ground first and then get pounded by the bucket!

Before I got my tractor I frequently got on my B-I-L front loader that had forks and a palate in order to work on his new barn. At that point I didn't know any better and just trusted him.

In any case, this got me to thinking. As a young man I worked on a telephone line crew and we spent a lot of time in a bucket at the end of a boom. And while there was no way for the crewchief to actually dump me out, there were still plenty of other ways the boom operator could put you in jeopardy. But what I'm really wondering about is what makes the boom on a boom truck immune from sudden loss of hydraulic pressure and dropping suddenly? In other words, on the surface it looks like a boom truck could be every much as prone to problems as a FEL. Do these vehicles have some sort of failsafe or mechanism that prevents rapid descent?

We did blow a hose to the augur once. Got a very thorough shower of hot (but not too hot) hydraulic fluid. Took hours to get that stuff off of me. Longer to get the smell off.