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Homemade spreader beam

For my lifting purposes, I sometimes wish I had a spreader beam. The ones I saw at McMaster are kind of expensive.

My lifting is limited to about 1,000 lbs.

I wanted to make a spreader beam by welding together two 1x1 x 14 gauge square tubing pieces (because that's what I have) with the length of 3 feet. They would be welded in parallel.

and then I would add on an eye on top and attach hooks on both ends.

My question is, would such a thing be good enough for 1,000 lbs lifts.

The top eye would be made of, say, 1 foot long 1/8" steel bar welded on top of the two 14 gauge bars.

oooooooooo ========================= ========================= @ @

The @ characters represent hooks. === represents single square tubing piece (so they are welded along in parallel). The oooooooooo line is the lifting eye welded to the top.

Does anyone have any angineering data saying that it would, or would not, be capable of lifting 1000 lbs.

thanks

i
Reply to
Ignoramus19471
Loading thread data ...

Igor, you mean that with all the rich scrounging you enjoy in Chicago-land, you can't come up with a piece of 3x3x1/4" angle iron?

GWE

Ignoramus19471 wrote:

Reply to
Grant Erwin

I have very hard times finding suitable iron pieces, actually.

I mean, my scrounging usually finds random things that may be useful, but are not what I am looking for at the moment. They could be very cheap, but what I find has little to do with what I need.

i

Reply to
Ignoramus19471

Certainly not before you tell us how long it will be.

Nick

Reply to
Nick Mueller

...

Igor - you would be much better off using cable or chain to do actual lifting and the bar just to spread:

? / \ ... ... / \ / \ |=======================| |=======================| @ @

You lose height, but the angle can be much more acute than can be drawn with ASCII graphics.

In this mode the bar is just in compression and not bending force.

Bob

Reply to
Bob Engelhardt

I said 3 feet. Re-read my original post.

i
Reply to
Ignoramus19471

Got you trapped. :-P Do you really think that I would invest 1 minute of work for such an permanently OT-posting creature like you? Go figure, post your crap where it belongs (hint: dev/nul or news:alt/nul), stop OT-posting here and you'll get answers that are worth a human being. But then, you would only have one posting per week and that would hurt your free-speech-knight-ego. Or is it all-speech?

Nick

Reply to
Nick Mueller

I wouldn't do this because it is entirely reliant on the strength of the welds. It should be possible to design a lifting beam in which your welds only carry light loads, and if you're a home shop welder assembling a homebrew design it's a wise idea. It's what I'd do anyway.

A thought I just had is to attach three chain hoist beam clamps to a length of I-beam. Clamps like these (the first item on the page):

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There should be a source for these in the US, and they aren't especially expensive. They're properly designed and come with a rated load, and you could no doubt get away with using a beam much smaller than the one in the picture. If you find a length of I-beam and want to know if it's strong enough, let me know. I can dig out my structural mechanics data book and check for you.

I wouldn't be inclined to use a length of angle. Because the angle is asymmetic (at least in the sense I anticipate you loading it), it will tend to twist which may significantly reduce its safe load capacity.

The idea of a spreader hanging from cables is also a sound idea, provided that it's sturdy enough.

Good luck!

Best wishes,

Chris

Reply to
Christopher Tidy

Sounds like you already invested plenty of time.

I think that I already got useful answers from homen beings, and also some not so useful answers from you.

i
Reply to
Ignoramus19471

human

Reply to
Ignoramus19471

Makes sense.

Absolutely. I would not use angle, only I beams or square tubing.

Yes, that would be the way to go for me.

i
Reply to
Ignoramus19471

At first blush 14 gauge seems like it would be so thin that you would be pushing your luck.

Reply to
Roger Shoaf

I wrote WORK.

Yea! You halfway understood it. You stop your OT, I'll give you answers to your metal-working-related questions.

Nick

Reply to
Nick Mueller

Work will set you free.

Given that you are designing your answers with a hope that I would die from following them, I can hardly be interested in such a proposal.

i
Reply to
Ignoramus19471

Godwin's law.

Nick

Reply to
Nick Mueller

Reply to
c.henry

Don't know who Godwin is/was but that phrase (in Deutsch) made of some form metal (for on topic) is over the entrance to Dachau. ...lew...

Reply to
Lew Hartswick

You're right Lew: "Arbeit Macht Frei". Good memory.

I found it pretty chilling to see that sign in real life.

Chris

Reply to
Christopher Tidy

I do not recall that sign being at the entrance of Dachau (I visited Dachau in 1997).

That sign was at the entrance of Auschwitz, purely as a method of deception so that prisoners would meekly go into the gas chambers (thinking that they will be used for work). Kind of along the lines of gas chambers being disguised as showers, so that people would enter them without resistance. In general, it was a sign posted in many places that did utilize bona fide slave labor, as opposed to being murder factories, and that's why it was used at Auschwitz, to confuse new arrivals. It was (differently phrased) also used at Soviet slave labor camps.

i
Reply to
Ignoramus19471

Just keep the line at less than abt 90 degress and it will not crush . But the ends must not be cantilevered . fasten by a loose method , with a point and not a Y unless you can figure how to keep the force always in the centerline of the Y . Then if you want to lift a lot more wt , simply tie the bar to the load , along it's length and make the load chains pinch the load .

14 gage box is bigger than .068 " wall here in AZ .

BTW Whats the HF 7 by 10 lathe NewsGroup ? I tried everything i knew ......

Ignoramus19471 wrote:

Reply to
werty

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