Pallet fork lifting adapter/extension arm
Posted: Tue Nov 29, 2022 11:36 am
You may have seen it on the other site, but used my new pallet forks to carry "George", my giant nutcracker down to his Christmas display location.
But when it came time to install his head/hat up on the shoulders, I could barely do it. The height of the pallet was barely high enough, and without going to get a stepladder, I had to reach everything from down below. If I had a helper, I could have stood on the pallet and been lifted up in the air with the head/hat. But I was working alone.
So I realized it's time to make one of the final accessories for the pallet forks: A lifting adapter with extension boom.
The first thing is a relatively straightforward lifting adapter. It slides over the pallet forks, and pins in place via a hole in the lefthand fork. It serves to join the two fork tine tips together, and then has a chain hook suspended from it. It's easily as strong as the overall fork tips can lift, somewhere around 800 lbs.
But that still won't lift high enough to suspend George's head up above his shoulders. That's where the extension boom comes in.
I took a 10' long piece of 1 inch pipe and welded on a series of top, left side, and right side cantilevered tension braces. It only weighs about 35 lbs. The tension braces are 3/8" all-thread. Then I created a screw-in stub piece up at the lifting end that contains a D-ring from which to suspend a load. Then I welded a piece of flat bar to the bottom of the extension boom right at the fulcrum point where the boom rests on the front flange of the lifting adpater. I drilled and tapped the bar so that it can be bolted to that flange with 1/2" wing bolts. Then I made a "tailpiece adapter", a bracket that slides to the back end of the pallet forks, and captures/holds the tailpiece of the extension boom. So you slide on the tailpiece adapter, and then slide on and pin in place the lifting adapter. Then you slide the tailpiece of the extension boom into the tailpiece adapter, and bolt the boom's bottom plate to the front flange of the lifting adapter.
You now have an extension boom that effectively makes your fork tines about 10 feet long. The boom is strong enough that the tractor will tip forward well before the structure itself will bend or fail.
With the 300lb counterweight on, I could hang all my 220 lbs from the boom's D-ring when it was about 8' in the air and at about a 45 degree angle. If I curled the tines much forward from 45 degrees, my weight was enough to tip the tractor forward.
So in the end, the D-ring can go about 14' high, and has a lifting capacity of between about 100 and about 400 lbs, depending on the tilt and position of the pallet forks.
I anticipate that it'll be a very handy tool to have, but one that could easily cause injury or damage if you try to lift too much and/or at the wrong angle. Just imagine every "crane tipping over" video you've ever seen, but in much smaller scale.
Bob
But when it came time to install his head/hat up on the shoulders, I could barely do it. The height of the pallet was barely high enough, and without going to get a stepladder, I had to reach everything from down below. If I had a helper, I could have stood on the pallet and been lifted up in the air with the head/hat. But I was working alone.
So I realized it's time to make one of the final accessories for the pallet forks: A lifting adapter with extension boom.
The first thing is a relatively straightforward lifting adapter. It slides over the pallet forks, and pins in place via a hole in the lefthand fork. It serves to join the two fork tine tips together, and then has a chain hook suspended from it. It's easily as strong as the overall fork tips can lift, somewhere around 800 lbs.
But that still won't lift high enough to suspend George's head up above his shoulders. That's where the extension boom comes in.
I took a 10' long piece of 1 inch pipe and welded on a series of top, left side, and right side cantilevered tension braces. It only weighs about 35 lbs. The tension braces are 3/8" all-thread. Then I created a screw-in stub piece up at the lifting end that contains a D-ring from which to suspend a load. Then I welded a piece of flat bar to the bottom of the extension boom right at the fulcrum point where the boom rests on the front flange of the lifting adpater. I drilled and tapped the bar so that it can be bolted to that flange with 1/2" wing bolts. Then I made a "tailpiece adapter", a bracket that slides to the back end of the pallet forks, and captures/holds the tailpiece of the extension boom. So you slide on the tailpiece adapter, and then slide on and pin in place the lifting adapter. Then you slide the tailpiece of the extension boom into the tailpiece adapter, and bolt the boom's bottom plate to the front flange of the lifting adapter.
You now have an extension boom that effectively makes your fork tines about 10 feet long. The boom is strong enough that the tractor will tip forward well before the structure itself will bend or fail.
With the 300lb counterweight on, I could hang all my 220 lbs from the boom's D-ring when it was about 8' in the air and at about a 45 degree angle. If I curled the tines much forward from 45 degrees, my weight was enough to tip the tractor forward.
So in the end, the D-ring can go about 14' high, and has a lifting capacity of between about 100 and about 400 lbs, depending on the tilt and position of the pallet forks.
I anticipate that it'll be a very handy tool to have, but one that could easily cause injury or damage if you try to lift too much and/or at the wrong angle. Just imagine every "crane tipping over" video you've ever seen, but in much smaller scale.
Bob