ROPS

[Timj]

What about the plastic from one of those white smooth sided barrels, the ones without the ribs. Make a light frame work like that Walmart canopy. Don't know how it would take paint.

[thebuildist]

What about the plastic from one of those white smooth sided barrels, the ones without the ribs. Make a light frame work like that Walmart canopy. Don't know how it would take paint.

Yep, good thought. If I could find a white one, or even one of those white poly square water tanks in the metal cage, I could use it, and just leave it translucent white.

Good idea. I'll poke around.

Bob

[Jancoe]

Looking good so far. But let's be honest, anything with those bends looking to fold is not a rops. It's nothing more than a roof over top. Its just to block the sun and give us a way to mount some lights to. Those bends with a pipe bender is not gonna do it. The radius is already crushed. Mine is made out of 3/4" or 1" emt? Simply a sunshade and light bar. One day I will have a true rops. (When I find time to properly bend up tubing with my bender.) Too many projects under fire. My roof is from a cb34 cab. The plastic windows were toast when I got the cab and decided I needed a roof and lights on my 6018lbh. Nice to keep the sun off you when your hard at work. The cb34 would have been a great roof if not for the backhoe controls. (Can get a little wet as the roof isn't long enough).

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[thebuildist]

Very nice looking, thanks for posting that.

You're right, this tubing was never truly stout, and the bends haven't helped. But give me a choice to rollover with or without it, and I'll definitely go on the "with" side.

But I'll admit I'm grasping to refer to it as ROPS.

I thought someone was saying you had used a golf car canopy, and I've seen those for sale used. But they seemed too large, so if one looked good I wanted to see what it looked like.

And yours does look good. Really nice neat work with clean bends, nice hardware and paint. Well done.

But as you alluded to, it isn't a golf car roof, so I still think a gc canopy is too large.

Thanks again,

Bob

[Jancoe]

Just for a reference. My 2006 Club car ds roof is 42w x 59l. The CB34 roof is 35.5w x41l. The cb34 roofs width is perfect and since i have the backhoe i couldn't get it to cover the controls. Its been on there for 2 years now. Cant imagine not having a sun shade and lights. Looking at the golf cart in the yard, that roof would look big and out of proportion. I'm sure there is some things out there that will fit and can be cut down. Is this what you had in mind doing?

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[thebuildist]

Exactly. I mean I'd love to just buy it, but I don't want to spend the money. IF a 55 gallon drum could be unrolled cleanly (and the more I think about it the more I think you'd need some kind of a slip-roll kind of mechanism) then it seems like you could produce that exact curved surface.

And then just bolt/screw/rivet it to a couple of brackets.

I have some 6" emt that I could cut to about 48" inches, insert some bearing end caps, and insert that in some kind of frame. And then create a couple of smaller countermanding rollers and make their gap adjustable so you can roll the tube through and every pass would cause the "tube" to flatten out just a little bit. Cycle it through ten or 15 times and you have a canopy lid.

But that's a lot of work and materials and effort just to save a couple hundred dollars.

Unless I went into the NorthWest Georgia Tractor Loader and Canopy business.

But I'm not feeling it.

Bob

[thebuildist]

An English wheel with a v-groove upper roller. That would do it. That would flatten out a barrel cleanly.

You'd need a smaller wheel on the upper and a larger wheel on the lower, and as those wheels squeezed nearer each other, they would force the curve out of the barrell "tube".

I do have some decent sized cast iron pulleys that would serve as rollers. Then I just need a heavy steel frame. Surely I have enough junk around here that I could cobble together something large and strong enough. I think I shall consider it for a bit.

Bob

[thebuildist]

Looking at this video: https://youtu.be/bV1gRu6bc_w?t=207 I think I'm overthinking it.

Cut the ends off, slice it lengthwise, and flatten it open with your two hands. It's not as strong as I imagined. You can just pull it open.This guy isn't being too careful, but if you were careful it looks like you can leave it in a very clean gentle arc.

I think I may actually try it.

Meanwhile, I have a bead on a set of 42" forklift forks. The forks I have are homemade from 2.5" steel bars standing up on edge, welded to a back/vertical frame. They're pretty strong, I've picked up at least 600 or so lbs with them. But when that base corner weld does fail, at whatever force it takes, it will be instant, the broken off fork will basically fly off of there. And that could cause damage or injury. So real forks would make me more comfortable.

And real forks taper to an edge so you can slip under heavy things. My current forks are 2.5" high even at the tip, so you can only get under things that already have a gap underneath them.

BUT: They're 42" long. That's longer than I really want. But I think they'd still be workable, as I wouldn't pick up anything truly heavy until I had gotten it to the back of the forks. But does anyone have any experience with that kind of thing? Any advice?

Bob

[Toolslinger]

I've got 42" forks on my 646. When I was in the market, I was closing down my warehouse, and both my machines had 42's on them, so that is what I was used to, and also what I was used to loading pallets for. On a 6xx, they're a little long when you're in tight quarters, but I still think they were the right choice for me. I can't lift any more weight with the longer fork, but the extra 8" over a 36" option will keep more pallets from their tipping point. Since I work off road, tipping is more of an issue than max weight these days...

[Harry]

I've seen some pickup rear bed caps get repurposed for trailers and I was thinking of cutting one down for a tractor. To many projects in the way to get to it. I see them for free quite often in my neck of the woods!

Keep the Peace
Harry