unspooler project

Forty FEET wide? How about a couple of sets of rollers; maybe big casters mounted upside-down, and rest the flanges of the spool on them?

You might need some mechanism to keep it centered.

Have Fun! Rich

What are you going to do to keep the pipe from sliding out as the reel turns? 2500 pounds can put a lot of force on the pipe and make it move sideways.

Make the pipe a few extra inches long. Put through holes at each end of pipe. Put hitch pins through holes.

The general idea sounds OK, but if I'm reading the picture correctly, it looks upsiode down. The pipe should sit on top of the forks. You could, instead of the above-mentioned pins, bolt directly through the pipe, fork and half-square. Stick a plug in the pipe to keep from crushing it.

You'll probably also want some spacers to keep the reel from rubbing against the forks.

If the pipe is welded to the C channels wedged to the forklift forks which are straddling the reel, it's pretty unlikely the pipe will move.

Instead of the split undersized tube, how about getting a couple feet of something like 3x6x.25 tube to fully enclose the forks?

If the pipe is welded to the C channels, how are you going to get it through the 3" hub of the reel?

Do you monitor Craig's list? There have been several of these trailers at almost give-away prices in the Bend Oregon list.

Paul

You weld the 3.5" pipe to the channels, the 3" pipe slips inside of the

Sorry; the " unit got morphed in cyberspace. The reels are about forty inches wide.

_______ _______ axle axle axle axle....... [ ] fork level

Yes, that was my thinking, the actual axle would have hitch pins.

It does. As seen above, the fork comes out of the screen toward you; and slides between the two [ half squares. The axle will run across the page R-L, rotating in the pipes.

I REALLY doubt the fork lift owner would approve of us drilling holes through the forks. I did think we might tack them into place and grind off after, but even that is iffy.

Yes, thought of that. Need to see actual reels to scope out. Maybe make pipe longer so reel hub hits them.

Could, but what's the cost difference?

The gas alone from SJO to Bend and back makes it unattractive. But we could look locally. I don't know how well it will work; we're trenching through woods.

Have fun with it. I would build a set of tripods to carry it on a large trailer, like is used for this work.

At the shop where I sit, they use MONGO C-clamps on the forks.

Have Fun! Rich

Whew! ;-)

I've seen pipe like that made and spooled, but the only time I've seen anything get unspooled, the rig was already in place.

How about just an A-frame?

Or, if you're trenching, just roll the spool over the trench. ;-)

Cheers! Rich

The Osha requirements on Forklifts are pretty severe. IIRC anything done to the forks requires the manufacturers approval. I would design it so C clamps could be used to hold the mechanism to the forks. That way you can use any forklift.

Dan

I've never seen such a thing. Every commercial use of these large spools is on a dedicated trailer with one or more permanent supports (not tripods) for the spools.

Actually, there is a better approach I just thought of. Use just the 3" pipe axle and a couple big U bolts with cross-plate to clamp it to the forks. You don't even have to drill the pipe if the U bolts are big enough to span the fork and the pipe diagonally.

Or even big C clamps if the pipe length just spans the forks so you can stick the C in the end of the pipe and clamp it to the fork.

Sorry, I meant 'Triangular'. The long side bolted to the floor, and a notch in the peak to accept the axle. Ours had heavy steel plates that were bolted over the ends of the axle to keep it from coming out while being towed down the road.

We worked with slightly smaller but a lot heavier reels in building CATV systems.