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Forklift “Extender Forks”
Matt Studer and his dad Ken operate a metal roofing business in rural Ohio, where they install “standing seam” roofs on houses and farm buildings. He recently sent FARM SHOW photos of 2 home-built, forklift-mounted extender forks. They’re designed to handle big 2,000-lb. steel coils which are the raw material for their business.
     One extender fork measures 8 ft. long and was built from scratch by Daniel Zbydniewski, plant manager with steel supplier Sheffield Metals in Sheffield Village, Ohio.
    “The company cuts big master coils down to a size we can use in our shop and loads them onto pallets. Then they use a forklift to load the pallets on back of our 12-ft. trailer,” says Matt. “They had been using a 4 by 4 wooden post to push the pallets by hand toward the front of the trailer in order to make more room, but it was a lot of work and not very safe. Using the extender fork with a forklift makes it easy to push the coils forward.”
    To load the coils, Ken built a single 4-ft. long fork that’s welded onto a pair of boxed-in channel irons. The fork sticks out about 2 ft. They tip the coil over on its side, then use the fork to pick up the coil and load it onto their roll former.
    “The 2 slots and the single fork are welded together as one unit, which provides a lot of strength and keeps the fork from bending under the heavy load,” says Matt.
    Contact: FARM SHOW Followup, Matt Studer, 3930 Orr Rd., Bloomville, Ohio 44818 (ph 419 544-6275; kensstandingseamroofs@gmail.com).


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2020 - Volume #44, Issue #3