Little Giant Foundation

[SoCal Dave]

I have a cement floor in my barn/shop. I may get a 50 lb Little Giant and wonder what would be a reasonably good foundation for my flooring. I 've heard of using wood beams, railroad ties, and rubber horse floor mats. I've read posts that plywood and rubber floor mats were good enough. Opinions.

[Dan P.]

More is more, as I recently discovered to my detriment. The last thing you want is your hammer bopping and jiving around when its meant to be working.

[Frosty]

How thick is your slab? Do you know what the foundation soils are? If I recall, most of Simi Valley is clayey top soil so if it isn't wet it should be reasonably solid.

I made a timber foot for my 50#LG to cushion it on my slab and to raise it to a more comfortable height. I doubled the rebar where the hammer is and thickened the slab to 8" but I do like a little overkill. Conveyor belt is popular matting as is wood. I haven't seen an obvious slab failure from a 50# mechanical.

Bob Bergman has a Nazel 3B and a a 200# guided helve I can't recall the name (stupid TREE!) They're both set directly on his 4" slab and I didn't see any sines of damage. It is however a really old shop and I can't say what the sub soils are like except it's dry ground.

Frosty The Lucky.

[Andrew T]

Set it on a 6" thick wood base so you don't have to bend over so much to see what your doing.

Use epoxy to set high strength threaded rod into your slab so you nut it down securely, that hammer will try to tip itself over when you run it hard.

If the slab doesn't hold, then cut out a rectangle and do a proper foundation block.

[MOblacksmith0530]

I agree with the above posts get the height right. I have mine on 6: blocks and will be putting 1/2" rubber conveyor belting under it when it gets to the final position.

[Dave H.]

I found three elevator counterweights at a local junk yard. Using Red heads to bolt the counter weights to the slab & then bolted the 50Lb LG to the counterweights. Never had a problem with the slab or the hammer moving. Also it hit REAL hard when I got it all bolted down. These counterweights weighed about 120 Lbs a piece.

Dave Huffman