Bins again...the good score!

Dave H (MI)

Well-known Member
Last week I received an email from a fella here on the forum. He had read that I needed some bin jacks. A friend who farmed and sold bins as a side line many years ago had some in his barn he would sell for a reasonable price. So I called the man and arranged to head down to his place outside of Toledo. Very nice man, I had a long conversation with him while we loaded the truck. Let me look at the barn his father had built...nice barn. Talked to me about moving bins. The picture is not great but what is there is 8 good heavy duty bin jacks, a center support jack for the roof collar with two different size tops, steel sectional concrete forms enough to make a circle up to 32', a ratcheting cable lift that fits over the roof hole and can be used to lift a stirator or similar, and three sections of scaffolding for working on the roof from inside the bin. My Spring project just got a lot easier/safer. I don't know the fellas handle who referred me, but I sure do appreciate it.
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I had a friend loan me some scaffolding last summer,if I ever give it back, I may have to by some,it sure makes life easier 14 feet up.
 
Wow! I remember the first bin I helped assemble, in my youth, was 18' diameter, and we only used a jack on every other seam- 3 jacks!
The biggest bin we have assembled is 30'. I think all we ever had for the center roof support was a cobbled up wooden cross! Then we worked off step ladders to build the roof. In 1988 we built the first 30' stir drying bin, and I was smart enough to install as much of the mechanism as possible before we raised the bin.
 
When the time comes to assemble your new (to you) bin, assemble the top most ring on the location you want the bin, then build the roof onto that. You can do all the work from the ground with no scaffolding needed. Once you have the roof totally assembled onto that ring, attach your bin jacks to that ring and lift the ring and roof up about 3 feet and assemble the next ring to the bottom side. Since you need a person on the inside as well as the outside, make sure to have a ladder so they can get out and back in for the next ring. There will be rings with cutouts for the door. Put the door opening where you want it on one ring and match it on the next. With an 18 foot bin 5 rings tall it took my wife and I most of a day to assemble it. We ran a bead of caulk down each connection to make sure it sealed.
 
I actually bought the scaffold for a barn project. Specifically setting up end to end and enabling me to lay block that would normally be over my head without all the lifting. With the help of the loader tractor I can lay block 8 ft high without hurting my shoulders or back. The roof ring support jack was a lucky find, though. Makes that part a tad easier!
 
Yeah, those stirators can be heavy buggers. I think I heard around 500# for some. We will likely only use 3-4 of the jacks on each bin. Nice to have the rest around should I ever need something bigger.
 
This scaffold better be rock solid or I am not going up over the first section. I was a fireman 5 years and they never figured out I was scared of heights.
 
It was/is, and I got to visit with a nice guy and spend the day out with Mrs H. Shared a plate of pancakes at iHop. :)
 
I don't know why we only had half enough jacks on the 18' bin from my youth. When I got to building my bins, I found that one jack per sheet/seem was standard. 30' bin- 10 sheets, 10 jacks. 24' bin- 8 sheets, 8 jacks, and so on. Notice a pattern there?
 

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