unspooler project

That was over 10 years ago. They have moved on to some other part of the country, but if it bothers you so much, track them down. You think you know everything, so how hard can it be for you to get that information from RR?

Then you don't know how to use a ditch witch, or which version to do the job. The bigger versions will pull the conduit or pipe into the trench as it works. Watch one put a drain pipe to a septic tank some time. 12 feet deep and hundreds of feet is no problem for them. OTOH, if you have the smallest version that was made to put a phone or CATV wire 12 inches into the ground, it's hopeless.

Cites?

And Cincinnati requires dynamite to make holes for power & phone poles.

Reply to
Michael A. Terrell
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Moving and safely unspooling with 0% damage are two very different things. We never had a forklift in the CATV business. Rolls of cable were rolled down a ramp by hand from the delivery trucks.

Reply to
Michael A. Terrell

This is literally "over the field and through the woods..."

The Prong looks interesting except the load will be WAY out there. I worry about CG.

I don't see I'll need to straddle the ditch as much as run parallel to it.

Reply to
David Lesher

Gee. That's why they use multi axle trailers instead of forklifts. The total weight is spread over a longer and wider base, with less weight per square inch on the tires. The forklift weighs a lot more than a trailer, and has a much smaller base. have you ever seen the results of someone rolling a forklift? It happened in Leesburg Floridda a few years ago, at one of the juice plants. There was another forklift accident at a company in Ocala that made mobile home window components. That accident closed the plant for good.

Reply to
Michael A. Terrell

Then there's this - not caused by rolling, but a spectacular forklift fuckup nonetheless:

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Reply to
rangerssuck

My scheme is strightforward. Approach reel, straddle. Adjust fork height, slide in axle & pin. Lift.

Should we argue if it unrolls top down, or bottom up???

Reply to
David Lesher

Do it however you want to. Don't have your relatives complain here if you kill yorself. I don't want to hear from them that your insurance refused to pay your damagaes for using a non approved method, either.

You haven't thought this through, have you? if you want to minimize the stress on what is on the reel, you want to unreel from the bottom. it also lays better and doesn't try to climb out of the ditch.

Reply to
Michael A. Terrell

A little humor-impaired today?

Reply to
rangerssuck

Indeed.

I don't plan to straddle the ditch with the forklift. For much of the run, we'll be pulling duct off the reel and through the woods, and laying it in the trench by hand.

A bigger PITA may be the HDPE pipe; it seems it does not come on reels but in coils. I'm hoping I can put each on a empty reel of some ilk...

Reply to
David Lesher

OK, a few days ago I got chided for suggesting rolling the spool over the trench - I didn't give a strong enough winkie-smiley to indicate that I was joking - I knew about the dragging the pipe problem because of the different radii.

But a coil? Heh, heh, heh - it sounds like you've got the manpower - why not just unroll it right in the trench? ;-)

Cheers! Rich

Reply to
Rich Grise

Just stand the coil up,one foot on each side of the pipe and roll it like a hoop in front of you. this works unless it is three inch pipe in late October in a cold climate. Gerry :-)} London, Canada

Reply to
Gerald Miller

So I need ~12" of rectangular steel tube with a >1.75" gap in one direction; the other way can be from that up to 5".

This for the unspooler.

There's a Metals to Go place in Glen Burnie, but they handle AL and stainless, not mundane stuph. Is there any place similar that does have steel?

Reply to
David Lesher

Durrett & Shepard in Baltimore is good for structural steel like beams, channel, and tube. Call and see if they have a drop they can cut for you. BMG just south of Balt. is good on some things, give them a call too, and Pennsylvania Steel up in York (they have a truck down here 2-3 days a week). Those three are where we get most of our steel and stainless, plus Copper Brass/Thyssen for aluminum. I'll try to check our stock/scrap pile at work tomorrow to see if we have anything (we are in Laurel, MD).

----- Regards, Carl Ijames

Reply to
Carl Ijames

So a while back I asked for input on building an unspooler. I got both software {ideas} and hardware {steel} donations.

Here's an update.

So the first plan was a clamp for the forklift tines, to hold the axle. Powering this was a old York forklift. It loves to stall, thus you need three feet, not two, on any slope, but.....

But the duct suppliers sabotaged me; both the 1.5" gray and

2" orange arrived on reels too large in diameter for the tine length. We have fork extensions, but they eat into the spacing such that the reels wouldn't fit in-between. %^&@#$%

So Plan B adapted an orphaned trailer of unknown parentage. It has a 7" tall/5" wide I-beam, and a ~6" dia tongue. At some point, it had a 1_7/8" ball receiver pasted on.

We added vertical 2" sq. stock with 3" dia. pipe couplings holding the axle. We gusseted it with more 2" sq. stock, and a few added pieces. {Care to guess we found lying around the shop?}

The height was an issue. Bitten once, we wanted it big enough to hold the largest reel we might get. But THAT was ~1" too tall for the York to lift the reel over the vertical and drop it down.

The first time, with the gray, we backed the trailer, straddling the verticals around the reel; then lowered it into place. That was very tricky considering the York's propensity to stall when you most needed it.

So to swap to the orange, we flipped the trailer backwards, rolled the reel out, and rolled the new one in. Then we flipped the trailer down, carefully. We might have made the rear arms shorter.

The third gadget was a trailer hitch bar for the Kubota. It clamps onto its forks, and has 1_7/8", 2" and pintle ring connections. Originally, we were going to use the pintle hook adapter seen on the van; but that blocked the balls, and we needed it on van. So we made a plate for a large clevis pin that's not shown.

It does tend to slide off the forks, and we might add a arm to the rear.

Added the photo array are some of the other toys around. The flatbed is hardly stressed with that PVC pipe. The winch was used to haul both the yellow trencher, and after it burnt a valve or two, the rented RT45's, up the slopes. The bulldozer was not needed, but there were times I'd have loved to have driven it over the Midmark. Lastly, the IH 3840 would have been a big help with its 27 ft reach, but it's in need of repairs. To get some idea of the size of the beast, that's a portrait of George Washington you can see.

Reply to
David Lesher

Hey, I mentioned a big IH Case loader sitting out in the field lonely. Gunner noted "Big bucket..."

Here's an update. The last four shots show it up and about today after 5+ years out in a field. Next step is some cylinder rebuilds...including the two outriggers & the main one in the arm.

When done, the backhole has a 27 ft reach, and ~1 yard^3 bucket....

Reply to
David Lesher

Reply to
Ignoramus2960

More Googlegrief... Try

Reply to
David Lesher

Why would anybody let it sit for 5 years? What did it take to get it running? Or was all this covered in another thread?

Reply to
Bob Engelhardt

When that gets too small or you get tired of it you can go reclaim this puppy...

Reply to
dpb

A Most Beautyous old pig. Corngrats on ownership.

-- Self-development is a higher duty than self-sacrifice. -- Elizabeth Cady Stanton

Reply to
Larry Jaques

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