Cheap and Dirty Boom Lift
Posted: Wed Apr 04, 2012 8:36 pm
Once again, laziness seems to be the driving force to motivate me to get off the couch and into the shop, this time to build a boom pole for my Cub. As I get older I continue to try to find ways to mechanize as much as I can to minimize the amount of “work” this old body has to do. A boom pole seemed like a useful tool to save the old back from strain and would also give me another excuse to use my Cub. I wanted to make it quick and easy to attach and decided to use my 2" receiver for mounting.
The box tube for the arm itself is 8’ long, 2”x 2” x 11 gauge. That and the grab hook are the only thing I had to purchase. The piece that slips into the receiver is 24” long and I had that in my shop and the rest of the pieces and parts I found around the shop in the barn. After much consideration I came up with a design that I thought would be easy to fabricate and easy to attach and light in weight. I made it modular with 2 parts, one to slip into the 2" receiver, the anchor, and the other piece the actual arm itself.
To install, slip the anchor into the receiver a little ways.
Drop the arm over the the anchor and slip in the pull pin.
Then slide the anchor back until the vertical pin can be inserted. Hook up the lift chain and it's ready to go.
I found some "T" post in the barn, not a fence post but some T shaped steel. Hard telling where it ever came from but it worked well to attach the lift chain and I used the rest of it under the arm to attach my lift hook.
Once together it was time to test the unit. To pick up 2 Cub wheel weights I had to use the nearest hole which is what I figured knowing that the Cub hydraulic system is engineered to pick up that amount of weight, off the rock shaft, according to the manual with the relief set for 1500 psi.
I was able to pick up a single weight a little past half way out on the arm.
By moving the weight out to the end of the arm it would almost pick it up but not quite. I attached a scale to the weight to see how much lift was available at the very end of the arm. The scale read around 130/135 lbs.
I just got it finished tonight and haven't had much time to do any testing but from what I see, it looks like it will meet my expectations. Maybe this weekend I can get some paint on it.
The box tube for the arm itself is 8’ long, 2”x 2” x 11 gauge. That and the grab hook are the only thing I had to purchase. The piece that slips into the receiver is 24” long and I had that in my shop and the rest of the pieces and parts I found around the shop in the barn. After much consideration I came up with a design that I thought would be easy to fabricate and easy to attach and light in weight. I made it modular with 2 parts, one to slip into the 2" receiver, the anchor, and the other piece the actual arm itself.
To install, slip the anchor into the receiver a little ways.
Drop the arm over the the anchor and slip in the pull pin.
Then slide the anchor back until the vertical pin can be inserted. Hook up the lift chain and it's ready to go.
I found some "T" post in the barn, not a fence post but some T shaped steel. Hard telling where it ever came from but it worked well to attach the lift chain and I used the rest of it under the arm to attach my lift hook.
Once together it was time to test the unit. To pick up 2 Cub wheel weights I had to use the nearest hole which is what I figured knowing that the Cub hydraulic system is engineered to pick up that amount of weight, off the rock shaft, according to the manual with the relief set for 1500 psi.
I was able to pick up a single weight a little past half way out on the arm.
By moving the weight out to the end of the arm it would almost pick it up but not quite. I attached a scale to the weight to see how much lift was available at the very end of the arm. The scale read around 130/135 lbs.
I just got it finished tonight and haven't had much time to do any testing but from what I see, it looks like it will meet my expectations. Maybe this weekend I can get some paint on it.
very 
I can't seem to get my stick welder to lay down a bead that nice 
