Re: metal WORKING today

On 5/18/2025 6:46 PM, Jim Wilkins wrote:

"Bob La Londe"  wrote in message news:100dvck$18gr0$1@dont-email.me...
 FYI:  Slip on bucket forks are really handy on a front loader.  If you
only need them once in a while its no big deal to put them on and take
them off, and they are pretty cheap.  They have a couple issues, but if
you don't use them often you can live with it.
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My younger neighbor has slip-on forks for his loader and tried to use them to stack the logs the tree company left in a tangle in my yard. He found they were useless for lifting all but the smallest logs, though he could knock the larger logs around so he played with them for a while.

Bucket forks or even a bucket swap fork are still limited to the capability rating of the tractor.  Typically for a compact, but real, working tractor that's 750-800 pounds.  Basically more than the weight of a bucket full of dirt.  There is a safety margin.  Having pushed mine to its limits I know it will lift around 1500 lbs through its range, and lift 2000lbs a few inches and stop.  This does not mean its inferior to your home made stack up.  It means it has design limits.  Your stacked up tool may be able to lift 4000lbs or even a lot more, but it might not be practical for "knocking around" an 8500 lb container.  You bump an 8500 pound container with a 6000+lb tractor and the container is going to move.  Bumping around is a legitimate way of moving things.  LOL.
The home made stackup might not be so good at lifting pallets off of a truck.  That can a new compressor out of my pickup bed for the shop, and placing it right where I want it a couple hundred feet around back by the door where its going.  It could be a pallet of salt for a water softner, or the better fork attachment that will replace it.  Sure you "can" unload things with non optimal tools.  I once unloaded a welder from a semi truck with a cherry picker, by running a pair of lifting slings through the pallet.  The tractor forks with its paltry 750lb "rated" lifting limit would still be the better tool for the job.
I recently lifted/dragged a boat off a trailer and set it on the ground in order to repair the trailer.  Sure I could have done that with a home made stack up, but it was much easier and faster to do it with the tractor.  When I pull the engine on the Bronco I'm considering making road worthy again I may use the tractor, I may use a chain fall and an A-from, or I might use the cherry picker.  Its going to depend on what is most convenient at the time.  A the moment there is an outboard hanging from my cherry picker, so it would be the least convenient.

I weighed one he could barely lift at the specified capacity of his tractor, proving its hydraulics were still in good internal condition, if not so pretty externally.

They can generally lift twice their rated capacity if you have a counter weight on the rear to prevent nose diving, and air up all the tires to prevent 3 wheeling.

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.
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Bob La Londe
CNC Molds N Stuff
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