OP
PistolPete
Member
- Joined
- Apr 9, 2021
- Messages
- 45
- Tractor
- John Deere X590
Challenges for the weekend were to adapt the column baseplates and then figure how the heck to lift them into place.
The anchor bolts were jigged to maintain spacing and distance from the edge of the slab. Unfortunately that assumed my foundation was perfectly straight! Well she’s close but not quite. Loses about 3/4” in width around the middle, then picks up that plus a 1/2 by the far end. So I needed to slot the base plates to allow some scooching of the columns to keep the building square and the correct size. Several hours with the die grinder and some carbide burrs got er done
The worst one I had to slot about 1/2”. Several less than that, and 4 or 5 were good to go out of the box. Hard work grinding such thick steel.
Next step was to get the columns vertical and moveable so I could set on the anchors (solo - that’s the real challenge) My FEL will lift 8’, and the columns are 12’ long (and very top heavy!). I tried a bunch of different rigging schemes with various failures. Finally I thought “why I don’t I just shove it up, and then lift when vertical?” So I bolted a 2x8 “bumper” to my forks, and threw a strap around to keep it from flying away, and then using that strap to lift it just a bit so I could swing it around. The bumper is two pieces thru bolted, and whacked as far up the fork taper as it would go. Nice and study for 150 lb posts.
Here she is - suspended just an inch or so above the ground. Successful test! Took all the columns down to the site, placed one, and then my sunburn got the best of me. That’s all for today!
The anchor bolts were jigged to maintain spacing and distance from the edge of the slab. Unfortunately that assumed my foundation was perfectly straight! Well she’s close but not quite. Loses about 3/4” in width around the middle, then picks up that plus a 1/2 by the far end. So I needed to slot the base plates to allow some scooching of the columns to keep the building square and the correct size. Several hours with the die grinder and some carbide burrs got er done
The worst one I had to slot about 1/2”. Several less than that, and 4 or 5 were good to go out of the box. Hard work grinding such thick steel.
Next step was to get the columns vertical and moveable so I could set on the anchors (solo - that’s the real challenge) My FEL will lift 8’, and the columns are 12’ long (and very top heavy!). I tried a bunch of different rigging schemes with various failures. Finally I thought “why I don’t I just shove it up, and then lift when vertical?” So I bolted a 2x8 “bumper” to my forks, and threw a strap around to keep it from flying away, and then using that strap to lift it just a bit so I could swing it around. The bumper is two pieces thru bolted, and whacked as far up the fork taper as it would go. Nice and study for 150 lb posts.
Here she is - suspended just an inch or so above the ground. Successful test! Took all the columns down to the site, placed one, and then my sunburn got the best of me. That’s all for today!