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They finally found it in the warehouse and I brought it home.

jcdammeyer

John
Premium Member

Last Sunday I went to buy it. They couldn't find either of the two in stock anywhere. Wednesday I got a call. Arranged to pick it up today. Came in a 59" long wooden box. With help from forklift just barely fit in the back of the SUV (with the rear seats down) . It was very noisy on the way home and I noticed it had air holes. I started to wonder if I was taking something home that was alive...

Fold up all the tabs, lift of the lid and unpack the box one piece at a time. Then remove very light wooden box. Now the hoist is squirrelled away in various places in the shop. I first have to clean up and figure out where the assembled unit will live. But at least now I can lift the 18HP tractor engine off the Sears Craftsman Mower and also move a couple of boulders. Then the idea of shortening the legs to make it more small shop mobile is really attractive.
 

Doggggboy

Ultra Member
I added a 10 foot boom to mine and used it to set the rafters on a building expansion 20 years ago. Needed a bag of cement on the back but it worked.
 

jcdammeyer

John
Premium Member
Good to know.
I added a 10 foot boom to mine and used it to set the rafters on a building expansion 20 years ago. Needed a bag of cement on the back but it worked.
Great idea. I have to re-roof one shed and replace another. So a 10' extension would make that easier.
 

Doggggboy

Ultra Member
Good to know.

Great idea. I have to re-roof one shed and replace another. So a 10' extension would make that easier.
It worked for about 80 percent of it. Once you have enough rafters up they begin to interfere with raising the boom. I ended up borrowing the neighbours front end loader and using both his loader and mine to set the last 4 or five. Had to use one on each end under the rafter as the loaders weren't tall enough to lift from the peak. It worked but was a lot of inch it forward, park it, run over to the other loader, inch it forward, park it , run back.
Sometimes it sucks working alone.
 

LenVW

Process Machinery Designer
Premium Member

Last Sunday I went to buy it. They couldn't find either of the two in stock anywhere. Wednesday I got a call. Arranged to pick it up today. Came in a 59" long wooden box. With help from forklift just barely fit in the back of the SUV (with the rear seats down) . It was very noisy on the way home and I noticed it had air holes. I started to wonder if I was taking something home that was alive...

Fold up all the tabs, lift of the lid and unpack the box one piece at a time. Then remove very light wooden box. Now the hoist is squirrelled away in various places in the shop. I first have to clean up and figure out where the assembled unit will live. But at least now I can lift the 18HP tractor engine off the Sears Craftsman Mower and also move a couple of boulders. Then the idea of shortening the legs to make it more small shop mobile is really attractive.
Sounds like you are going to modify that unit for the better. Keep it simple and use ’3’ heavy duty swivel casters. The ‘3’ points of contact with the floor will maintain stability for the crane.
 

trevj

Ultra Member
Shop crane is right up there with the pallet dolly, as a sign that maybe the iron addiction has hit too hard! :)

Those, and a hydraulic press (in my case an ROK brand, 20 ton unit), are the tools I wish I had bought YEARS ago!

The fold up shop cranes that don't eat much floor space, are a GREAT improvement!
 

jcdammeyer

John
Premium Member
Well it worked well to lift up the tractor after I used my almsot 50 year old floor jack to lift the front wheels above the long legs. This weekend I'll try to shift that boulder. That should be interesting.
 

Susquatch

Ultra Member
Administrator
Moderator
Premium Member
Well it worked well to lift up the tractor after I used my almsot 50 year old floor jack to lift the front wheels above the long legs. This weekend I'll try to shift that boulder. That should be interesting.

I'm sure you know to be careful to respect the ratings. I've seen dozens of bent booms. Once it's bent the rating is further compromised. A little math on the boulder weight is worth the time spent.
 

jcdammeyer

John
Premium Member
Well I'll set it to the 2 Ton lifting hole. As long as the legs fit around it I should be fine. After all 4000 lbs is one heck of a big rock isn't it?
 

jcdammeyer

John
Premium Member
I think then the boulder I want to shift slightly is a 3 man at worst. Next time I'm there I'll take a tape measure and see how big it is. I suppose if I get rough dimensions I can estimate volume and therefore weight compared to say a brick...
 

LenVW

Process Machinery Designer
Premium Member
Boulders and stones grew like corn in Huron County of Ontario.
Every year, they just kept re-appearing !!
My brother tried to yank one out of the dirty in 1980, he found by digging around the edges that it was about the size of a refrigerator, we had to skid it to drag it out of the field.
When we pulled it on the truck scale . . . it turned out to be 12 tons !!
 

trevj

Ultra Member
Have dealt with a few pieces of the mountain, that fell off, and rolled downhill to the flats, around here.

One was easy, a fairly new (circa mid/late 1970's) D-8 cat was being trucked to a nearby job, and the owner was talked in to rolling a boulder almost as large as the dozer, out of the middle of the field. Two others, we just farmed around, up until a leasee decided they did not want them where they were, and spent considerable effort in their removal, about three days work on each, for about as large an excavator as could cross the bridges that it needs to, for their removal. All said, i don't think the leasee's got as much a benefit out of the removal, as we did!

@David_R8 , thanks for that size estimator!

Living here alongside the Fraser River, pretty much EVERY piece of flat land you find is either old sediment, or a grown over lake or swamp. I cannot fathom the amount of sheer dogged determination, it has taken some of the early land owners to pick off enough rocks to be able to farm on what there was of the soil between them!
 

Chicken lights

Forum Pony Express Driver
Have dealt with a few pieces of the mountain, that fell off, and rolled downhill to the flats, around here.

One was easy, a fairly new (circa mid/late 1970's) D-8 cat was being trucked to a nearby job, and the owner was talked in to rolling a boulder almost as large as the dozer, out of the middle of the field. Two others, we just farmed around, up until a leasee decided they did not want them where they were, and spent considerable effort in their removal, about three days work on each, for about as large an excavator as could cross the bridges that it needs to, for their removal. All said, i don't think the leasee's got as much a benefit out of the removal, as we did!

@David_R8 , thanks for that size estimator!

Living here alongside the Fraser River, pretty much EVERY piece of flat land you find is either old sediment, or a grown over lake or swamp. I cannot fathom the amount of sheer dogged determination, it has taken some of the early land owners to pick off enough rocks to be able to farm on what there was of the soil between them!
And it’s only been 2-4 generations to get from being homesteaders to city folk

No politics
 

trevj

Ultra Member
And it’s only been 2-4 generations to get from being homesteaders to city folk

No politics
I tell people my family went from Landed Gentry, to Landed Peasants, in two Generations. My Great Grandfather, who was a Surgeon on board a Royal Navy Flagship, and had built a House on Island Road in Victoria, that is now a heritage listed building, based out of Victoria, bought this land, along with dozens of other parcels around BC, starting in the 1890's, partly as investments, partly as development opportunities (he had chose this specific area, to put a Tuberculosis hospital, as the hot and arid conditions were thought to benefit sufferers), and when my Grandfather got cut loose from the Military after graduating from RMC Kingston, he did what well off young fellas do, which is to say, had more fun than his folks were comfortable with. At some point a decision was reached, that he would get plonked down here in the middle of not much, to make his fortune. He did well, though not great. Found a wife (local Anglican Minister's Daughter, IIRC), raised a bunch of kids, and was pretty active in both local and national level Ag Politics. He had great years, and disastrous ones (lost a whole year's production into a lake in a train derailment!)

My father was the youngest of five, of his eventual get.

Peasants or no, I am fortunate that my family has not seen fit to destroy this place and sell it off in pieces!
 

jcdammeyer

John
Premium Member
My Dad lost everything including his parents in Japanese camps in Indonesia. His dad died while working on the Burma Railroad actually. When they came back to the Netherlands some stuff on my mother's side eventually came here. So we have a few things from a great grandfather and pictures that go way back that were somehow salvaged.

Being the son of an immigrant family with a father, who in the 60's when the war PTSD surfaced, changed somewhat. He handled it with a career change and even attempted to build an airplane in his retirement. (Osprey-II).

Still. I can't complain. They supported me and left me to my own devices when I was growing up and assisted us as adults when we needed it.
 

trevj

Ultra Member
Interesting history John!

I think more people have more Historical connections than they know, if only they knew...

In later (too late to ask at source, sadly) I started to see a lot of names that I knew, on Parks Canada signs and such. "Doctor Johnny Helmken" was a frequent annual visitor to our Farm, if i got the relationships right, Helmken Falls was named after his Father, who was a Doctor, as was my great grand. I am pretty sure that Doctor Johnny, was a classmate of my grandfather's, at RMC Kingston.

One of my Great Aunts (sister of my Grandfather) had on her living room table, a silver Dragon on the remains of a Staff. It was, apparently, the Marching Staff of the Regiment in Hong Kong when it was over-run, and the guys had managed to hide it from the Japanese for the entirety of the war. I wish I knew where it was now!
 

trevj

Ultra Member
Oh. My Great Grandfather's house. https://www.historicplaces.ca/en/rep-reg/place-lieu.aspx?id=6767

It was originally on 15 Acres. My Aunt ,<spit> split it up to make some money off of it and to get clear of the taxes, about which I am less vehement!

I would likely feel less inclined to release my bladder on her headstone, had she not been the executor of my Father's estate, during which, she told me outright, that had she any way to accomplish it, I would get nothing of the home I now have!
To the positive, she died afflicted with dementia, and had no ideas who the people around her were. I was happy enough to hear that she died, that she died scared and alone, was a wee comfort to me!
 
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