On Sun, 01 May 2005 22:34:24 -0500, Richard J Kinch
wrote:

Grant Erwin writes:

The answer is to fabricate one, which I can certainly do. I'm
wondering if other guys have "been there done that" and can give me any
pointers.

I've bookmarked this for a while:

http://www.plansandprojects.com/portable.htm

The problem with this type of thing is that any error in design or
execution is a potential disaster, assuming you use it at the capacities
you're describing.

The problem is one of engineering, so I would be leery of any design that
wasn't "engineered" in the strictest sense of carefully calculated and
tested, not just guessed at or overbuilt.


Around here, most of the serious motorheads have a shop crane..nothing
more than a pair of A legs with a 10' piece of 4" pipe across them.
The fancy ones use a pair of stubs welded as sockets below the 4" pipe
so you can push it over and break it down. Few do though.

Mine is an H frame made of 3" oilfield pipe, , but with A legs,
carrying a piece of 8" I beam 10 foot long. Its 12 ft tall. Socketed
so I can break it down if I wanted to. I actually put the I beam up
with my Carolina 2 ton engine hoist and a short extention added to the
already extended boom.

I needed the height to remove tall machines from my trailer and have
overhead room to lift with the 2 ton Yale electric hoist on I beam
trolly car.

Some of the guys here make theirs in the A frame style, and then put
dollys under them using small boat tires. Move to where you want, jack
it up a couple inches, remove the dolly and set it down, repeat on the
other side. Half the time, they never remove the tires, just block em
so they dont roll.

Gunner

"At the core of liberalism is the spoiled child -
miserable, as all spoiled children are, unsatisfied,
demanding, ill-disciplined, despotic and useless.
Liberalism is a philosphy of sniveling brats." -- P.J. O'Rourke