Have an upcoming job where we'll be spooling out several thousand feet of 1~1.5" HDPE duct and waterpipe.
Such arrives on big reels, typ up to 9' dia and 40+ wide, with a
3" dia. pivot hole. Weight up to 2500#. We need an unspooler.Most places use a special trailer, but we lack same. We do have the use of a local large off-road forklift. (There's also a HD11 dozer, a smaller dozer, backhoe, road grader, a lowboy, a ditch-witch and other toys...)
So I am envisioning something like this.
Assume the forks are 5" wide, and 1.5" thick. (I'll get someone to measure them...)
Take 2" sq hollow rectangular stock, cut 6" long piece. Split it half lengthwise. Cut 5-6" piece of 3.5" ID pipe.
Weld the half-squares to pipe:
_______ _______ [ ]
where they are spaced apart to slide over the forks. Then drill/tap stock, or weld nut onto half-square so you can run bolt into fork, wedging in place.
To use: Straddle reel, slide on brackets, run 3" pipe through both brackets and reel. Lift and tighten bolt{s}.
What say folks here... is there a better approach?