Here's a few shots of a couple of  cranes I built in my shop to make it easier and safer to move big projects around.

These are the jib crane design which give the most useful swing and reach  with the least amount of space being taken up.

There is a factor 3 pulling load at the top of the vertical leg with a correspondingly large thrust load at the bottom, so the building structure has to be built to  take it.

 The pivots are oversized hinge barrel and pin bearings with  grease fittings, easy to turn but with enough drag to keep things from swinging out of control.

A crane would have been handy for installing these and welding the arm to the vertical leg in place, but careful planning and a temporary hoist got everything up and in position safely.

All welding was done with a MIG that was powerful enough to do full deep penetration welds.

The horizontal arms were welded with about a 1'' lift over the length of the beam to allow for any sag, but so far none has been detected , even under full load.

With these two cranes I can move heavy completed projects all the way from the back assembly /finishing part of the shop into the back of my truck.

A plate clamp and a selection of slings hooks and chains are handy for rigging .

The beam trollies and chainfalls are rated for a minimum of 1,000 lbs.

These aren't strong enough to pick up all but the smallest power hammer , but are really useful for handling the heavy parts when assembling and rebuilding the bigger machines. 

They have made a huge difference in the scale  and size of the jobs  that I can take on in the shop.

Crane  in main shop  .

Crane with swing from lower assembly area to upper level. There is an overhead track with a pair of trollies and hoist that runs the full length of this part of the shop .

Bottom bearing and thrust plate

Top bearing tied into header beam and roof truss.

 

Nice setup! 

I have found at least in my shop an engine hoist is enough to handle moving most stuff around plus it can be collapsed and loaded up in my truck if i need to pick something up

Engine hoists are fine, if your floor is concrete or wood, any other floor and they will sink in making it impossible to move them with weight on them.

 The advantage of a swinging jib crane is that it can reach all around  and lift anywhere within its swing radius regardless of anything else in the shop .

It's not a simple project to build one however and the building needs both  a strong enough structure to support one and sufficient headroom for both the beam and the trolley and hoist. 

 

I do mostly large architectural commissions, like railings, stairs, wall panels  and gates so this enables me to forge and fabricate and finish large projects and load them into my truck for delivery to a jobsite.

Once there I can usually use the  onsite crew and equipment to unload and get things into place for installation.

This is probably far beyond the scale of most of the users on this forum, but is worth considering  when designing or expanding a shop.

 

I like it.  Well done.  I have a commercially produced 1/2 ton jib crane that swings over my assembly table and smaller drill press and into some of my open floor space.  It's epoxied and base plate is grouted to the concrete floor and needs no other connection to the building if installed per mfg. instructions.  Wish it was bigger like yours.  A shop built gantry crane is in the works for me.

One question- How do you keep the snow from drifting in 4 feet deep with the open walls of your shop? Winter is coming...(grin)

 I do get snow blowing into my shop on occasion but it's usually only a few inches. It's actually quite beautiful to be out there forging on a winters evening with snow on the floor.

The climate here  in the PNW  is usually wet rather than cold so it's not bad working in an open air shop. I like the air circulation  and the feeling of being outdoors all the time, while being protected from the very worst of the weather. It probably wouldn't work so well in a place like Vermont or Alaska

It  does always seem that during the very coldest weather , rather than doing nice hot forge work , the current project is at the stage  doing the layout and cutting work on very cold steel . 

I looked at the available commercially built jib cranes and they seemed reasonable in cost, but not quite what  I needed for reach and capacity for the existing layout and height of my shop.

After I used it for a few years, I extended the reach of the boom on the crane in my main shop by cutting off the end and welding on another section of I beam.

I have absolutely no worries about the strength of the arm , the weakest link is probably the chain and the half ton rating  on the hoist.

 

I too would have done a home built jib if I hadn't pulled into a New England Blacksmith's meet tailgaiting area and parked next to a buddy who was selling 3 jibs he removed for free from a bankrupt manufacturing shop (ahh, lovely New England).  He was asking just enough to cover his entry fee.  We did the deal before I even got out of truck!

Our winters are warmer than they used to be but I still get jealous when folks talk about working in a few inches of snow or how the slack tub had a skim of ice on it!  (How do you know you are a Vermont blacksmith? You toss something in the slack tub and it goes "thump...hissss")

It's getting to be winter down here too---I didn't have a forge going in the shop yesterday so I had to wear a long sleeve shirt.  Of course in the summer we take stock off the scrap pile using tongs and stick it in the forge to cool down...

I have to build a similar one, you could give me some suggestions I have to use as a service crane for my lathe you could attach project with necessary measurements and materials, I have to realize the rotation ring do not know how to build it how to make hinges and hinges i gangheri

 You'll have to figure it out yourself for your situation and the expected swing and load requirements that suit your needs.

You can mock it up with some sticks screwed together to figure out the most useful dimensions and location for your anticipated application.

The only rule of thumb that I know of for a wall or post mounted jib crane like the one I built is that the pull load at the top and  the thrust load at the bottom is three times the maximum load on the end of the horizontal beam of the crane.

If in doubt , have it engineered for your application or buy a reputable manufactured unit with that already built in.

Anchor it solidly . 

 

 

On 12/4/2017 at 9:04 PM, Judson Yaggy said:

 (How do you know you are a Vermont blacksmith? You toss something in the slack tub and it goes "thump...hissss")

That's also true for Vermonters transplanted to Ohio, where it has been very cold this winter.

3 hours ago, JHCC said:

it has been very cold this winter.

Winter? You think it only happens in winter? (grin)

you would have the mathematical formulas or calculations, my would like to bracket it on a reinforced concrete pillar of the building measuring 55 cm x 55 cm is armed with iron inside the concrete, for the hinges of rotation what you advise me, how you built them I'm sorry if I take advantage of your experience thanks you would have other photos or drawings with measures to take inspiration, I'm sorry if I make you waste precious time and patience thanks again for the attention to the next

 

I have seen one built for 500# loads using a barn door track and with a curved rail at one end and a pivot at the other, for most of us 500# is more than enugh

thanks for the precious suggestion, if maybe some friend user could attach some photos or drawings, maybe I could use them to get inspiration in the construction of my jib crane hoyst, thanks again sorry if I took advantage of your time and your patience

Curious why you went with I-beam as oppose to pipe like most of the commercially made ones?

I'm not sure where you think a pipe section would be better for this style of crane ?   All the commercially manufactured wall or post mounted jib cranes I looked at for inspiration  were basically made like this .  As it was ,It worked out that I could buy a full 20' length I beam  cut to make both legs.  The free standing cranes that rotate around their own post often use a large pipe section for the upright member.  The trolley is made to run on an I beam section

 

learn how to post please

All of the shops I was in that had jib cranes were of the large diameter pipe style, and yes they were freestanding... so yes, I-beam would be ok for one bolted to a wall. It's been awhile since I was around one and that detail had slipped by me.

 

 

a friend user has created this jib crane that I found on the web made everything in steel beams

 

 

What do you think of this perch made by the blacksmith?

 Some good designs here except the rendering of the one with just a pivot but no support for the arm either above or below.

Having a diagonal strut coming down from above to support the beam simplifies the design, but loses some headroom. 

It seems the most useful  design has the maximum height under the hook .

The first design with the open frame diagonal brace with rom for the trolley and hoist to pass  through is an ingenious solution .

Thank you for your intervention and your opinion, if I can afford to ask, how would you have done it? thanks again for your constructive criticism and your considerations

 

 ^^^ 

If was going to do it again in MY shop, I  would do it just like I did in my original post. Looking at all the factors involved in my shop set up , it was the best solution to give me the lifting capacity , height and reach for MY shop. I copied a proven commercially available  design, bought good components and used heavy enough steel sections, welded it all with a powerful welder and mounted it to a solid building structure with an overabundance of heavy fasteners. 

There are a number of good designs out there, but they all have to address the  load on the beam as well as the pull on the top of the mast and the corresponding thrust at the bottom. If the building structure that it is mounted to isn't up to the task , then it needs to be reinforced.

 

I've built a couple jib boom cranes on the same pattern as the one in yellow above. The tension reinforcing cable does NOT need nearly so  much height. I simple extended the hinge pin 12" above the boom and gave it a bearing. From there I used 5/8" rnd. steel rod rather than cable. Not because rod is better it's what I had. A later one I used 3/4" rd. rod again it's what I had. I tensioned it by threading the ends and and double nutting it. 

They were simple fast and easy to build, making sure they were secure to the posts in the shop was the only real issue for calculations. You want to be careful connecting things like this to a building's support structure, especially when someone else is going to be using it and they don't have a lick of sense about how much weight is too much.

I don't have a pic though.

Frosty The Lucky.

http://www.ets-spa.com/it/

 

 

thank you guys for your valuable intervention, if possible I would like to have photos and drawings your Jib crane, for the pins I thought big bolts, but I also have to realize the supports and thrust ball bearings, I have to see if there are bushings in bronze "bronzine", a guy engineer tells me that a beam ipe 120 mm Ah H can support peak load maximum profit of% == 5 Kg 5 quinals, enough for me, the supporting column I want to do in steel leaning and anchored au a big concrete pillar of the building, my engineer friend suggested me to use a H-shaped steel beam with a 100 mm wide section HE as a vertical column, as a diagonal rod to empirically suggest to weld a 50x 100 mm plate thick what you think is safe is feasible. the structure is cantilevered like a shelf, I would not want to give up the hinges and beheaded, when I use the crane and I have a load hanging anyway thanks again, if you had other suggestions I invite you asottoporli to my attention thanks again greetings

 

thank you guys for your valuable intervention, if possible I would like to have photos and drawings your Jib crane, for the pins I thought big bolts, but I also have to realize the supports and thrust ball bearings, I have to see if there are bushings in bronze "bronzine", a guy engineer tells me that a beam ipe 120 mm Ah H can support peak load maximum profit of% == 5 Kg 5 quinals, enough for me, the supporting column I want to do in steel leaning and anchored au a big concrete pillar of the building, my engineer friend suggested me to use a H-shaped steel beam with a 100 mm wide section HE as a vertical column, as a diagonal rod to empirically suggest to weld a 50x 100 mm plate thick what you think is safe is feasible. the structure is cantilevered like a shelf, I would not want to give up the hinges and beheaded, when I use the crane and I have a load hanging anyway thanks again, if you had other suggestions I invite you asottoporli to my attention thanks again greetings