Benthosboy
One of life's pillocks!
- Messages
- 133
Hello all.
Once again I seek your wisdom with more random stuff. I'm just on my way back to Yorkshire after spending a couple of glorious days on a windfarm near Huntly, way up north, offloading reels of 33 kv cable. The reels are basically big cotton bobbins, about 7 feet in diameter, about 4 feet wide and weigh up to 3 tons or so, depending on how long the cable is. THey're probably less than a quarter of a ton empty. We lift them off so that the power boys can pick them up through the centre holes with either a 360-mounted rig or more usually a ratty old reel trailer. When we backload the empties, we load and carry them flat, usually doubled up, 12 on an artic trailer or 8 on my wagon. I normally lift them "cradled" with 2x 6 metre webbing slings but I'm trying to find a lifting hook to do the job with. The slings are okay but it's just friction that's holding them on. What I'm after is basically an inverted "T" which hangs onto the crane hook at was the bootom of the "T" and what was the top swivels vertically to drop through the hole in the reel and then swivels back horizontally for lifting. Once the reel is on the wagon and the weight is released, the bar should then swivel back vertical, by virtue of being weighted to allow me to lift it out without climbing on the wagon. (This isn't a problem for me personally but more and more sites don't want us on the bed of the wagon. It obviously gets interesting when I start stacking the top row as I'm then having to climb over the bottom row, the top of which is already 9 feet off the floor.)
I've seen just what I'm after on some american websites but I can't find anything in this country. Can anybody help??
As always, thanks in advance.
Martyn.
Once again I seek your wisdom with more random stuff. I'm just on my way back to Yorkshire after spending a couple of glorious days on a windfarm near Huntly, way up north, offloading reels of 33 kv cable. The reels are basically big cotton bobbins, about 7 feet in diameter, about 4 feet wide and weigh up to 3 tons or so, depending on how long the cable is. THey're probably less than a quarter of a ton empty. We lift them off so that the power boys can pick them up through the centre holes with either a 360-mounted rig or more usually a ratty old reel trailer. When we backload the empties, we load and carry them flat, usually doubled up, 12 on an artic trailer or 8 on my wagon. I normally lift them "cradled" with 2x 6 metre webbing slings but I'm trying to find a lifting hook to do the job with. The slings are okay but it's just friction that's holding them on. What I'm after is basically an inverted "T" which hangs onto the crane hook at was the bootom of the "T" and what was the top swivels vertically to drop through the hole in the reel and then swivels back horizontally for lifting. Once the reel is on the wagon and the weight is released, the bar should then swivel back vertical, by virtue of being weighted to allow me to lift it out without climbing on the wagon. (This isn't a problem for me personally but more and more sites don't want us on the bed of the wagon. It obviously gets interesting when I start stacking the top row as I'm then having to climb over the bottom row, the top of which is already 9 feet off the floor.)
I've seen just what I'm after on some american websites but I can't find anything in this country. Can anybody help??
As always, thanks in advance.
Martyn.
