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Hi Kraig, One of the reasons why regular forklift forks work so well is the steel is heat treated for hardness and then tempered. This would require an oven that would be able to hold set temperature for 24hrs at +-100º. One way to test a design is too use a 3/8" chain (blanket covered) accross the length of span with a hydraulic jack of the correct tonage rating of the design. What this test will show is web leg length is more important than the tickness of the web. Example: using common HR A36 steel, a 4"channel iron with a 1/2" web thickness with a 2" web leg length will not add that much to the overall design yeild when comparred to a 4" channel with a 1/4" web with a 2" leg length. Using a 4" channel with a 1/4" web thickness with a 4" leg length will dramticly increase the load bearing rating tho. I built a set of 6ft forks for a front loader bucket that used 4" channel with a piece of 3" channel skip welded inside the 4". This design I tested too 1500lbs for a common load of a 1000lbs. Keep in mind that testing too 100% over of design load rating should be common for "any" home built designs as you need a extra safety factor for lifting devices. Lifting with travel requires even more of a safety factor of 3 times. Even at that you want to be extremely careful of having other people around the "load" while it's off the ground. Lift and travel with pallets on a hard surface is difficult enough muchless travel on uneven ground. T_Bone
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