From: muratlanne@gmail.com   
      
   "Bob La Londe"  wrote in message news:100fpbc$1nkoc$1@dont-email.me...   
      
   On 5/18/2025 6:46 PM, Jim Wilkins wrote:   
   >...   
   > Then I set up my manual hoists and neatly stacked all of them on blocks to   
   > cover for winter, including two at ~25' long and over 4000 Lbs each.   
      
   Sounds like a good tool.   
   Bob La Londe   
   ------------------------------------------------   
   I can lift to the limit of ground support with tripods light enough to   
   carry, but not move very well. Dropping the load, stepping the tripod   
   sideways, then lifting again moves at best a foot at a time. I had to set up   
   the sawmill beside and parallel to the log pile and straddle both with the   
   gantry, centered lengthwise over the bandsaw mill track. Then I could move a   
   1 ton log from stack to track with one lift, or a 2 ton log in an hour or   
   two, carefully, a few inches at a time. The hoists and gantry make the job   
   possible though not nearly as fast and easy as with a forklift.   
      
   The goal is to save wide, knot-free furniture grade oak from trees that grew   
   straight without branches in a forest. Anything else becomes firewood or   
   shed beams.   
      
   Otherwise I have a 1 ton engine hoist modified as an off-road trailer, a   
   half ton truck bed jib crane and the platform stacker which is like a   
   manually operated forklift, and might be your answer for heavy dies and   
   chucks. Those are the survivors after trying less successful gear and   
   methods. Shear legs of 2" pipe worked well until the trees around the house   
   that anchored them came down as storm risks. Now they are the gantry's   
   movable center support.   
   jsw   
      
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