overhead hoist

Mine was sold new by Grainger, according to the stickers on it. Lots of internet dealers. Google is your friend.

I have two decent floor jacks and lots of jackstands, but even something as simple as packing the wheel bearings on the front of my Ford 2000 tractor is difficult, the jacks just don't go high enough without blocks and cribbing, The gantry crane will make that kind of stuff easy, just pick up the whole front end!

See, I did squeeze mention of a tractor into this thread, on a tractor forum.

Charles

I bought my portable gantry crane used, but there are a number of manufacturers of them. Mine is an adjustable A style, but there are a variety of them. Do a Google search for "portable gantry crane" and you get lots of choices.

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The particular model I have is an AHS 4-12-12 and is no longer made, replaced by a AHS 4-15-12. Mine is made by T&S equipment which appears to be Vestil Manufacturing (possibly they merged) mine is 4000 lb/12 ft wide/12 ft high. First no. is weight capacity, second is width, third is height. AH means Adjustable Height.

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I paid $1450 for this used, and the seller included a new 4 ton trolley and a new 3 ton Larin Chain hoist. This would have cost me in the neighborhood of $2000 - $2500 new for all of this, retail. It was a fair price, not a gimme.

Hope this helps you.

Charles

The H beam is commercially called a W beam and rhe flanges are perpindicular to the web.

The S beamis more commonly used with a trolley. How much load do you want to pick up? In 20 feet span there is a measurable sag in its own weight but should not be significant. As I told in an earlier post I usually did not do the actual calculations mathematically but used the SWAG method. As a military draftsman I always told that the SWAG ebngineering method is Silly Wild A%$# Guess.

Most likely you will use about a 1.5 ton hoist and that beam should be ok by SWAG calculations.

• Hobby farm

1.) Design of footing and columns to support the beam

2.) Beam connection to columns

3.) You should have an engineer check what you propose to build and do some calculations to figure out what size beam to use, any other pertinent details and what the safe working limits are, including a safety margin above that.

4.) 20'-0" is a significant span, I'm not aware of any quick reference material that may help narrow it down, for a particular shape and size beam, the reason I always mention using a design professional to do the necessary calculations, is because when you overload it without realizing it, there is a strong possibility for failure and serious injury. Even if the span is not going to carry any real haeavy weight, just takes that one time when you think it's going to hold. This is really a life safety issue, others may disagree, but for what a design professional charges, it's worth every dime, once complete, the web of the beam ought to have the max. load stenciled onto it, so there is no mistake about it.

Simple thing to do is provide the engineer with the details of what you propose to build, include all additional rigging, your hoist and accessories, you might be suprised at the size of the beam required on that span. With the use of temporary shores, you could reduce the span and increase it's capacity, but being that it's not a permanent component of the building, might not be acceptable for a designer to sign off on.

I doubt a 4" wide by 8" high beam (which is a W series beam, sometimes called an H beam due to its shape) will be sturdy enough. You really need to find an engineer and pick a max load you want to lift and pad that amount some and then let him figure out what size beam will handle that load for the span. 20 ft is alot, I suspect it will take a pretty good sized beam. Don't forget, you also will need some sturdy posts or supports for it.

Also not sure how you plan to get it in place, but those darn things are heavy!

You might do well to do what I did, and buy a portable gantry crane. Mine has 12 ft clear between the uprights and as I noted rises to about 13 ft high. It is rated at 4000 lbs. The beam across it is a standard I beam (an S series beam) 8 inches high. The entire rig rolls very easily and weighs almost exactly 1000 lbs.

Charles