Portable gin pole experiment

[Jim_Rogers]

Ok, so you all know from your reading all the threads here on the FF timber framing section, right? :P that I made myself a gin pole, some years ago.

And, I was wanting to take down the frame in my yard. I needed to be able to reach up and lift off the rafter pairs from on top of the plates and lower them down.

I figured the easiest way to do that would be to mount my gin pole into my backhoe bucket and use it like a crane.

So I fit the gin pole base to the bucket and tied it off with the lines I had on hand and one new line:



 

Here is another angle of the rig:



 

Yesterday I drove over to the frame to see if it would reach the top:



 

Which it did nicely with more reach available.

Today, my friend "Dave" showed up to help me with the disassembly.
Here is a bad shot of a pair of rafters on the gin pole crane:



 

Sorry about the quality of that shot. I was taking it with my phone and the sun was at a bad angle.

Here is the longest reach I had to make:



 

To get the last pair I drove around to the other end of the frame and lifted them off.

After we got all the rafter pairs down, we lifted off the two plates. One at a time of course.
Those were the heaviest pieces I had to lift. It worked for those ok, but we should have had a "tag" line on them to stop them from swinging around.

This gin pole rig has been used to put up many frames. And I think this is the first time I've used it to take one down.
We will be using this to put up a couple of frames this summer as well.

Jim Rogers

[D L Bahler]

Great Idea Jim, thanks for sharing.

This is the perfect solution to a problem I see facing me in the very near future, will have to keep this in mind.

I'd like to see a closer detail of how the ropes attach to the bucket, if I could.

[Migal]

  Great Idea but being the timber framer you are why don't you put a tee with angle braces on the end that goes in the bucket to prevent side movement of the pole for safety Just a Thought of why Women live longer than Men Hmmm!  8)

[Jim_Rogers]

I have disassembled the gin pole from the bucket to use the forks to move lumber around today.

So I don't have any good photos of the rigging.
The hooks are just the hooks that the rail on top of the forks hooks onto. And I just made a loop in the line on the two side lines and slid the loop over the hook. For the center back line I tried a different way to do it. I made a loop in the back line and put the end through the loop and then around the hook. And I just lifted up the gin pole and propped it up with that stick you see and then tightened up the line. I just tied it off to the side hook using two half hitches and put all the extra line in the bucket.



  

In the above picture you see the 1x4 holding up the gin pole so that there wasn't any tension on the lines overnight. But you should be able to see the lines tied off on the hooks.

The base of the gin pole has two braces on it out of wood already. There isn't much side movement when it is standing up on it's own:



 

I had to cut the base back a bit to get it to fit into the bucket. It is very stable from left to right. I was more worried about going to straight up and have it come over and land on me. I don't have any roll cage on my machine. And I was a little worried about that long reach lift, but the load wasn't that much.

Jim Rogers

[shinnlinger]

I like it jim!

I have a pipe I slide over one of my forks that I can do something similar with from time to time...

[Stephen1]

Nice idea Jim. I will keep that one in mind also.

[Migal]

My bad Jim I see it already has a Tee in the first pic's it looked just stuck in the corner of the bucket.

[Satamax]

Hi vrybody!

Jim, when i saw this one, i thought problems ahead!



Well, don't tip your tractor.


(tho, the same goes for my crane thingy)

[beenthere]

Jim
It works, and that is good.  8)

Now what is the plan for that moment when it doesn't work ?? 
        i.e. one rope breaks and where will the load go and who will be under or around it?

        i.e. operator doesn't feather the control for 'tilt' just fine enough and the tip of the pole moves a long way fast (up or down)?

Just thinking it is hard to use this pole without a helper either on the tractor or on the structure hooking up or unhooking the rigging to the pole.

As mentioned, I see potential for trouble (and not saying I wouldn't try the same rigging to getRdun). ;)

[Jim_Rogers]

Hi everybody!

Jim, when I saw this one, I thought problems ahead!



Well, don't tip your tractor.


(tho, the same goes for my crane thingy)

The new back line, to the center hook, was only rated for 402 lbs. So any load over that would most likely break the line before the tractor/backhoe would tip over.

Jim Rogers

[Jim_Rogers]

Jim
It works, and that is good.  8)

Now what is the plan for that moment when it doesn't work ?? 
        i.e. one rope breaks and where will the load go and who will be under or around it?

        i.e. operator doesn't feather the control for 'tilt' just fine enough and the tip of the pole moves a long way fast (up or down)?

Just thinking it is hard to use this pole without a helper either on the tractor or on the structure hooking up or unhooking the rigging to the pole.

As mentioned, I see potential for trouble (and not saying I wouldn't try the same rigging to getRdun). ;)

First of all no one should ever be under the load.

And I would calculate the load first and figure it out so that I shouldn't ever over load it.

This was a one time thing that I did so that two people could disassemble this shed. I called around to lots of people who said they would come and help me but none were available when I wanted to do it.

When I built this gin pole, and tested it:



 

Above it the test shot.

They told me to never lean a gin pole over more then 20°. We leaned it way over on purpose to see what would happen.
Next we were going to lift one of these plates. An 8x8x16 which I figured was 249 lbs. In the above picture you see two plates. Or roughly 500 lbs. We overloaded it by 100% to try and break the rope/lines, pole, blocks/pulleys or anything so that we could find the weakest link and replace it before the actual raising day and using it in front of a crowd of people.

We couldn't/didn't break it. So I figured it was safe to use. Which it was and we've used it at least three times to raise a frame and once to bring one done.

When I was planning on using it to lift one plate, I drew the gin pole inside the frame and leaned it over by using the computer drawing program to a 20° angle:



  

Then in the program I measured how far the base "T" portion, was away from the post. So when in real life we raised up the pole we would measure the base off the post and then lean it over the pick point. This would/should give us a 20° angle.

Normally in a stationary position like this we use three lines, two side lines and one back line. When Jack Sobon showed slides of raising his own barn alone, he added a forth line. He called it a safety line. It went in the opposite direction as my back line. This line was to prevent the gin pole, which in his case was nearly straight up with very little lean, from getting too top heavy and falling over backwards.
In his rigging set up he lifted the 30' or 40' plate straight up the side of his barn frame and then leaned the gin pole over the tenons on his posts by loosening the back line from it's tie off point.
To shift if left or right he loosened his side lines. Once he had the plate over his tenons he lowered it down until one end touched and then tied off his lift line to a peg he had in the side of his gin pole.
You rig your lift point a little off center so that one end is a bit lower then the other to allow you to engage one tenon on one end of the frame first. Like a gable end tenon, then the next tenon down the wall which would be a brace tenon, then the next bent post tenon and on and on until you get it all the way to the other gable bent. It is called "stitching".

I have found that this method works very well.

Jim Rogers
PS. thanks for all your comments and advice.

[WmFritz]

It looks well thought out, Jim. Thanks for the illustrations.

[jander3]

Jim,

That reach looks crazy.    Glad the load was light.   Not sure I would boom out a pole like that.  I think it really starts to put a load on the guy lines the further out you lay that pole.

On a number of times I have lashed a pole to my bucket and used it for a gin (albeit a little more upright).   Front End Loader, wheel weights, and liquid filled tires really improves my reach.

Jon

[Migal]

Ive worked around gin pole (oil field) trucks and cranes a lot and I think you done a fine job. Figuring load and knowing how much wt you were to lift the pole is compressed not bowed like a fishing pole or squirt boom crane imo

[isaacpopp]

Really interesting idea.
I am sure it saves on time not having to set up and take down the pole for each lift.

[Jim_Rogers]

Really interesting idea.
I am sure it saves on time not having to set up and take down the pole for each lift.

That was the point of making it portable. We dis-assembled that much of the frame in two hours.

Jim Rogers