home made man basket

[Courierguy]

From time to time I need a pin in the end of the boom type man basket. I already have a factory built certified 2 person suspended one, complete with test weight. I surfed around the web and got some info off the Guffrie Bros. site: a custom basket tip adapter to pin into my National boom tip was $1499.00 not counting freight, or how long it would take to get my hands on one. I should mention I needed one NOW, one of my large solar arrays, 60' up, had rotated on it's pipe base (due to a screwup by the welder I hired that day, he failed to tighten the 5/8" set crews at the base socket), and my cable hung basket was of no use due to the over hanging solar array.

Then I checked out their 1 person tip of boom man baskets, $2395.00. Then, for $238.88 I bought some steel at the local steel yard, drove the crane home over the weekend, and got to work. I had only Sunday to do the work, one day, and that day it was blowing 30 mph, and raining, and as my shop was full of other current projects I didn't want to move, I drove to the rear of the shop, and just extended the boom tip through a man door. Using MIG of course you need to be out of the wind, when you're using shielding gas, which I prefer. I built the tip adapter in 4 hrs, basing the design by eyeballing the illustration on the Guffrie site. The basket took the rest of the day, all in all it was about a 10 or 11 hr day. Yesterday I used it to get that solar array squared away, and it worked perfect. Now I have to decide if I use it on a job site for others, this other use was personal. It's obviously not certified, whatever that means. Anyone in there would be wearing a fall protection harness clipped to the designated hole in the boom, and I sure as hell know that it is plenty strong enough, it's not going to fall apart in the air. I need to placard it no matter what, 300 lbs sounds about right. Then do a test pick with weights at double or triple that weight, and document the test with paper work and pictures. Then keep paperwork showing it's inspected and "re approved" every 6 months. As I am what OSHA considers a "qualified rigger", I feel I can make the determination that this is a legit way to go, having the paper trail is almost the most important part of that. It goes without saying that a lawsuit in case of injuring someone would negate all of this, but that's a given no matter what. I'll post a few pictures in a day or so.

 

[classictruckman]

Do you ever have somebody inspect the welds on your crane? Have them do it too?

 

[Dougfir]

We built a couple of boom end buckets with engineered drawings. But with the cost of engineering and any required special inspections, I think your cost would be right up to what a commercial bucket would cost.

I wonder what the effectiveness of this is. You are opening yourself up to substantial liability with no fall back to others E&O, for something that your customers should have bid with a JLG. So any money saved is going into their pocket at your own peril.

 

[dbl612]

We built a couple of boom end buckets with engineered drawings. But with the cost of engineering and any required special inspections, I think your cost would be right up to what a commercial bucket would cost.

I wonder what the effectiveness of this is. You are opening yourself up to substantial liability with no fall back to others E&O, for something that your customers should have bid with a JLG. So any money saved is going into their pocket at your own peril.

almost anybody can duplicate the trash that guiffre designs, fabricates and sells.

 

[dbl612]

OSHA and ANSI are quite specific on the design specs and test requirements of all man baskets that are fabricated. look it up on their sites. all manufacturers must follow them to be approved.

 

[Courierguy]

This is just something I put together for my own use, after just paying 3400 bucks for my counterweight (and that would have been a piece of cake to fabricate) I wasn't in the mood to pay out the nose for what turns out to be a little over $200.00 of material and a days work. I will probably just use it again for my own use, and maybe helping a neighbor trim his tree, that kind of thing. I have zero concerns over it's safety, and fully agree it wouldn't fly in the real world due to lack of engineering etc., but that was never the intent. I would have done a few things different, but it's more then strong enough now, that angle iron on the sides was thrown on at the last minute, I could easily pick 1,000 lbs if I could get that in there. Keep in min this was done on a Sunday, and I live 20 miles out of town, so I worked with what I had. I didn't have any expanded metal for the lower half, like is shown on the Guffrie one, but don't think it's much of an issue for my use. That's heavy wall 1" sq. tube for that back part, that's welded to the main frame. The floor are those MicroLams behind, they just lay in on top the 1" sq. tube, I may use steel if I come across some bar grating, but 1 3/4" Micro spanning 28" is super strong. It's what I use for my dunnage also.

On second thought, I won't placard it for capacity, no reason to, not to be used commercially anyway so what the hell. It will be stored at home, inside out of the weather, and probably used once or twice a year if that, always with the fall protection harness.

 

[dbl612]

This is just something I put together for my own use, after just paying 3400 bucks for my counterweight (and that would have been a piece of cake to fabricate) I wasn't in the mood to pay out the nose for what turns out to be a little over $200.00 of material and a days work. I will probably just use it again for my own use, and maybe helping a neighbor trim his tree, that kind of thing. I have zero concerns over it's safety, and fully agree it wouldn't fly in the real world due to lack of engineering etc., but that was never the intent. I would have done a few things different, but it's more then strong enough now, that angle iron on the sides was thrown on at the last minute, I could easily pick 1,000 lbs if I could get that in there. Keep in min this was done on a Sunday,View attachment 36738 View attachment 36739 View attachment 36740 and I live 20 miles out of town, so I worked with what I had. I didn't have any expanded metal for the lower half, like is shown on the Guffrie one, but don't think it's much of an issue for my use. That's heavy wall 1" sq. tube for that back part, that's welded to the main frame. The floor are those MicroLams behind, they just lay in on top the 1" sq. tube, I may use steel if I come across some bar grating, but 1 3/4" Micro spanning 28" is super strong. It's what I use for my dunnage also.
looks like a nice shop to work in. is there pivot pin that extends thru nose adapter for the basket to pivot on? bear in mind that is your weak point. the height of the pivot pin needs to be at least 66" above floor of basket to give comfortable stability from swinging as you have no brake.
On second thought, I won't placard it for capacity, no reason to, not to be used commercially anyway so what the hell. It will be stored at home, inside out of the weather, and probably used once or twice a year if that, always with the fall protection harness.

 

[Courierguy]

I went across the Port of Entry scales for the first time yesterday since installing the counterweight, and I passed ! I did cheat a bit by running the boom out over the front a couple feet further then I usually do (and too far to park in my 40" crane shed and be able to close the door) to take some weight off the rears, but I was only indicating 18 K+ on my rear most axle so I will good to go next time with my boom in it's usual retracted/get it in the shed length. This was very good news, so for me anyways the CW was a win/win and I am really liking the more stable feeling when working off to the side, especially when all the tires are not off the ground. I am still using the LMI as it was originally setup, at some point I MAY see if I can have it re programmed for additional capacity and reach, reflecting the counterweight, probably not though as I understand that cost several thousand dollars.