I built a small crane to load and unload my TRT160 rotary.

I haven't been able to use my rotary since I got it because I had no way to get it in and out of the machine. I looked at a few of the solutions available (die carts, engine hoists, etc) and wasn't crazy about any of them for various reasons. I didn't like the idea of sliding the rotary off a die cart and not being sure there weren't any chips under it and the cherry picker seemed nice but took up too much floor space in the shop. (I have about 1200sf and do all my motorcycle fab work here)

Anyway, so here is the crane. I tested it with my 900 lb weld table, then stood on it to add another 200lb. The base flexxed a bit bit but I mostly wanted to test the cable. At nearly 5x the load I was satisfied with the harbor freight cable and winch assy.

I designed it to straddle a 12ga cabinet I rescued from work and made the boom fold flat so I can store it up against the machine and take up no floor space. everything works great so far.

Very nice. Clean design and professional looking welds. Is it laser or plasma cut?

Oh shit CT in the house... looks great man.

Very nicely done, well thought out design.
I like your wall art better. There;s no room on my walls for art.

Very nice execution.

Is the arm heavy when you need to move it up/down ?

looks like you pull some bolts.

Spud said:

Very nice. Clean design and professional looking welds. Is it laser or plasma cut?

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Laser cut. Surprised to hear that about the welds... I am not a mig welder, or really any welder, but if I had to pick one I could do halfway decently it'd be TIG.

digger doug said:

Very nice execution.

Is the arm heavy when you need to move it up/down ?

looks like you pull some bolts.

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Not heavy at all. Just pull one bolt out of the upright and everything just folds down inside, including the gusset.

Whose winch did you choose to use? (I need to make a similar thing - it won't be nearly that clever...)

bryan_machine said:

Whose winch did you choose to use? (I need to make a similar thing - it won't be nearly that clever...)

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Looks like the worm drive model from HF.

Programmed via Mazatrol

bryan_machine said:

Whose winch did you choose to use? (I need to make a similar thing - it won't be nearly that clever...)

Click to expand...

Cole2534 said:

Looks like the worm drive model from HF.

Programmed via Mazatrol

Click to expand...

Better yet:
McMaster-Carr

The winch looks like a different HF model than the worm drive one I bought about 10 years ago, but mine had a serious design defect.

The worm had a different bore size than the handle shaft and the space had been filled with some sort of ??? material that broke down into a powder. Fortunately I noticed that the worm was starting to get loose. If it had fully broken down, the worm would have moved away from the worm wheel far enough to allow the drum to freewheel. Made a proper bushing for the worm and it's been fine ever since.

P.S. I did make a drill adapter for the winch as seen in the McMaster catalog. Haven't had the handle on since.

Very well designed, simple to setup, use and fold down. It's a winner. well done