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.

 

[DanMc77]

Thanks for all your input. The issue that I face is that this is a weekend place, so whatever I do has to be quick. I wish I had the time to build my own trusses, but time will not allow that.

Buckeyefarmer's photo looks pretty close to what I was thinking of, but I wasn't thinking of a wood pole, more like something out of steel. I like the wood though, because then I could re-purpose it once everything is finished. However, I'm certain that if steel was used that was fairly easy to work with, that there would be endless uses for it. Need to keep thinking on this.

3T's beam is pretty impressive and looks like the extreme as far as length goes. I don't think I'd want to be anywhere under that load! Cranes kill people all the time since they tend to be a balancing act.

 

[LouNY]

I have lost the pictures I had when we built the 70x100 coverall and putting those trusses up.
We had two 20' 2x12's set under the loader bucket with a sandwich type plating on those and securing 2x8's inside the bucket,(similar to clamp on forks)
then a chain from the far end of the long 2 by's back to the top of the bucket making a large A shaped boom.
We also had to put a spreader bar on the trusses to be able lift them without buckling, we where reaching 30 feet up to set those trusses.
The chain coming back to the high side of the bucket adds tremendously to the strength and stability of the boom.

 

[Reb954]

Just as others have shown, you can rig up a stinger to attach to the bucket. I rigged this one up to put a safe into my house. As was mentioned, you need to go very easy on the controls.

 

[07wingnut]

You could rig up something like this, only a little bigger. This is on a bx23, so a bit too small for what you have in mind.

 

[DanMc77]

Reb,
Nice rigging, but I'm loving the view! How high are those "hills" there in Wyoming?

 

[buckeyefarmer]

Putting them up by hand, get the ends over the side headers, hanging the truss upside down, then rotate it up by pushing on the peak. Your peak is at 18' assuming 4/12 truss.

They arent that heavy.

I used eye bolt thru top of pole, and bolted bottom to my pallet fork frame.

 

[Birdhunter1]

I've built 2 building for myself, both 30' wide and 10' + ceilings and used one of these machines I rented locally. Once all the trusses were set and braced one person worked out of the bucket on the end of the building lining up roof purlins and I worked across the trusses nailing them on. Also used it to trim out a few pesky tree branches while I had it at my place, I think it was $200 for the day or something like that.
TZ-5 Trailer Mounted Z-Booms

 

[Reb954]

Reb,
Nice rigging, but I'm loving the view! How high are those "hills" there in Wyoming?

The picture was taken at 6400 feet, the hills you can see in the background go up to about 9500 feet but behind those are some over 10,000 feet.

I sold that place 2 years ago but I sure do miss it. I spent a lot of time in those hills.

 

[DanMc77]

My roof is a 12 pitch attic truss so I get a lot of attic storage above (13'8" x 28' with 8 foot ceiling).

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

 

[buckeyefarmer]

My roof is a 12 pitch attic truss so I get a lot of attic storage above (13'8" x 28' with 8 foot ceiling).

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

That will make it a lot taller, and heavier.