# Home made jib crane with photos



## Davo J

Hi, I hope this is the right section to put this in.
I posted it else where as well but thought the members here be interested.

I have been having a hard time lifting things on and off the mill and the lathe for some time and usually had to get a hand off someone (usually my son) to give me a lift. The problem is not age but a broken disc in my neck and after a MI scan and surgery (the operation was unsuccessful) the doctors told me I had an 80 year old spine at the ripe old age of 38 that was 4 years ago. About 12 months ago I had the son in-law help lift the 250mm (10) rotary and he nearly dropped it, so I decided to build a crane to do the lifting as I still wanted to lift things on my own but safely.

After some research on the internet (not much out there) I built this jib crane last year but only put it up at Christmas. It was made of scrap that I picked up in a dumpster and the main post a mate gave to me. 
The beam is 150mm x 75 (6"x3") and is 2.3 mtrs (7.5ft) long made up of 2 pieces welded together. The vertical leg is 1mtr (3.2ft) long.

The bearings retainers are from the rear diff of a Nissan 720 4x4 pickup with a standard 30mm inner bearing in the top retainer and the bottom one with the original taper bearing from the axle. There is a 40mm (13/4) square trailer axle machined at both ends to suit the bearings welded to the back of the crane. I made plates up to go around them and welded them to the crane as extra insurance.

I made the brackets up to hold the bearing retainers out of 10mm (3/8") plate and they bolt onto the 100x100mm (4"x4") thick wall post. They bolt on to the post with 4 x 20mm (3/4) HT bolts top and bottom. I welded the nuts to a 300mm x 90 x 6mm ((1x 3 1/2x1/4) plates top and bottom and then slid the plates inside the post while it was laying on the ground. A couple of small countersunk bolts hold them in place until the post goes up and the bolts go in. The top plates are 150 x 150x 10mm (6x6x3/8) with the same 20mm bolts and the bottom plate is 300x175x20mm (1x7x3/4) with 5x 16mm (5/8) pins into the concrete. I made the dummy bolts at the bottom because it has to be removed to another location latter. They have a hex head but no thread and are hammered 75mm (3)into the tight fitting hole in the concrete.

You will see in the photo that I made up some temporary angle brackets with thread bar to do the final adjustments to the post when the crane was up, before welding the bottom. I was lucky I did that as when I first put it up it needed to go higher than I thought. So I lifted it 150mm higher and had to redrill more holes and plug up the old ones.
The beam trolley is made up to suit the electric winch my wife bought me for a Christmas present. I had an old beam trolley that I got the wheels off.

Just after getting it up I decided I needed a cable festoon for the electric wires so I found a deal on eBay plastic wheels and made some trolleys up out of 3mm (1/8) plate.
I made it so the controller is separate from the winch and left provision for the power controls that I will be fitting latter to move it in and out and side to side.

I havent used it much as I am doing renovations on the house but it will be a big help in the future.
All up it only cost me $25Aus dollars and that was for the stickers and the festoon wheels.

This is the first time I have put together a post so I hope I havent left anything out and I hope its understandable.
Davo


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## Davo J

Some more


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## Davo J

Some more


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## Davo J

And last.
Davo


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## BigBore

Very inventive. I'm going to need something like this myself in the not too distant future. Do you have plans on lifting anything that approaches your 500 Kilo capacity?

Ed


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## Davo J

Hi Ed,
I will only be lifting about a 100kg with the rotary table, mounting plate and chuck,
but thought I would rate it at 500kg like the hoist. It is capable of more but I wont be lifting that much. Also I doubt the Chinese hoist would lift 500kg anyway. I would need to put my manual chain block on for that sort of weight. 
Any heavy lifting is done off the shed trusses. My father in-law, who has passed now, was a chief draftsman at the mines and designed them to be capable of lifting 3 tons.
One tip is when building a crane like this is, you have to allow for flex. Instead of the crane being square it's opened up about 5mm in 2400mm too allow for the flex when loaded as it will bring it down to be level. I picked that one up off one of the manufactures web sites.
Davo


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## BigBore

Good stuff. Thanks.


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## shred

Cool. Looks good to me. I've been noodling with crane ideas for a while, and you're right there's not much out there.

With a weak ceiling that limits my options as does the massively cluttered shop (it takes much cleaning just to get the engine hoist out), I'm thinking some sort of cart-with-a-crane that can pick up ~150 lbs off a machine and deposit it onto the cart is what I want. The Skyhook people make something like that' but it's pretty large $, and as yet nobody's put a patient lift on craisglist for a reasonable price (there was a HSM article not too long ago about converting one to a hoist) nearby I think I'll end up fabbing something myself as well.


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## Davo J

Shred,
Have you seen this one? It seems he had the same situation as you have with the ceiling.
http://images.google.com.au/imgres?...e&start=60&um=1&hl=en&sa=N&ndsp=20&tbs=isch:1
Davo


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## shred

Thanks I saw that one, but I don't want to put any weight on the ceiling or rafters, so an overhead is pretty much out of the question without major re-beaming of the garage (the roof sags just due to the weight of the drywall  .. I suspect they may have been smoking something in 1968 when they built the place). A floor-standing gantry or jib would work, but wouldn't cover all the area and take up a lot of room. Since I have a 2-ton engine hoist, I'm thinking a little version to run around and move a less than a tenth of the weight around would do nicely. 
Something vaguely like this I think:


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