loader capacity test

[thebuildist]

It's been 3 or 4 years now since my loader build. And for the first time I've had an opportunity to officially determine it's lifting capacity, at least with the pallet forks installed.


I'm about to put a roof on this house, and I'm planning? to use the loader extended boom to lift the shingles up onto the roof.


No guarantee it'll work but I'm going to try it and see.
First I had to get the loader to the house. And this is the first time I've transported the full rig. It wasn't too much for this trailer. But it was right at the limit of what you'd want to do.

But once I got there and got the loader unchained and off the trailer, I pulled up to a pallet full of shingles and tried to pick it up with 33 bundles of shingles on it. At 65 lbs per bundle, that's 2145 lbs. Not even close. The back end popped right up in the air, 400lb counterweight and all.


So then I simply removed bundles of shingles until it did pick it up.


And the answer is 21 bundles. At 65 lbs each, that's 1365 lbs. Not to shabby.


The back end is pretty light, so you could only drive around on a hard and level surface. But that's what it can pick up.


I think you could only drive around on turf with 800 or 1000lbs on the forks, which is well within the original design and expectations. I'm very pleased with it.

I'll post pictures later of the shingle lifting operation, if it actually works.


Bob

[propane1]

Quite a lift Bob. It’s lifting more than subcompact and some compact tractors. I think

Noel

[Harry]

Great to hear from you Bob. The pics were nice. Harry

[DavidBarkey]

Good lift rate Bob , How did you get roped in to shingling a roof . Did someone come asking for dads help ??? Good to see you getting some seat time out of it .

[thebuildist]

We're helping out our youngest, they just bought their first house. A real fixer upper, nobody can afford anything else these days.

Just finished new HVAC. Redoing the main bath. Expanding the master half bath into a full bath. And tons of general paint and drywall and repair.

But next thing is the roof. 23 squares, uncomplicated roof deck. No big deal.

Bob

[thebuildist]

While we're at it, my crazy idea worked. I took my old 3pt hitch-based pallet carrier and added a boom to it so that it'll hang level when suspended from a shackle.

The pallet carrier boom just pins in the upper 3pt hole and extends out over the load. 2 chains run from the boom back down and outward to the lower 3pt holes. Being chains made it so I could adjust it on the fly to get the platform leveled with its load in place.

It even passed inspection with Grandpa's helper.

It actually doesn't have to be incredibly strong, it'll never carry more than about 300lbs max. Today's load was 130lbs.

Then I installed the pallet forks and extended boom pole onto the tractor, and used a single shackle to attach the carrier to the boom pole. If I had used a chain, the carrier could have swayed and twisted too much. So the single shackle made the carrier maintain its front facing orientation and minimized swinging/swaying.

If the roof had been 4 inches higher, it wouldn't have cleared. But with everything at full height, it presented the shingles right where they were needed.

So I backed up about 15 feet, dropped the boom, got up and loaded two bundles of shingles, and then carefully/slowly lifted the load to full height and drove up to the building. I was tempted to try 3 bundles.. It probably would have worked. But I was already pretty nervous having that much weight slung that high with all that leverage. There's a real concern of tipping over sideways, only the rear tires are giving any sideways stability, and they're pretty close together with not very much ground pressure. I decided to leave well enough alone.

Slow and steady, we ran 30 trips and put 60 of the 68 bundles up there. I'll carry the final ones up by hand when the time comes. I just wanted to make light work of the bulk of things.

I'm very happy with how it turned out.

Bob

[DavidBarkey]

We're helping out our youngest, they just bought their first house. A real fixer upper, nobody can afford anything else these days.

Just finished new HVAC. Redoing the main bath. Expanding the master half bath into a full bath. And tons of general paint and drywall and repair.

But next thing is the roof. 23 squares, uncomplicated roof deck. No big deal.

Bob

Good for them , and good on you Bob . I have always felt that you value something you have worked on to get where you want it more than bought ready to go .

[DavidBarkey]

She is a cutie Bob . How many grandkids do you have now . ?

[thebuildist]

I'm up to 5 now. And I'm getting pretty good at it, I could have 5 more with no trouble at all!

Bob

[DavidBarkey]

I'm up to 5 now. And I'm getting pretty good at it, I could have 5 more with no trouble at all!

Bob

That awesome Bob .
If I new then what I know now I would have gotton grandkids first and not bothered with my own kids . They were just too much dam work .