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Cement Mixer, 3-Pt. Jig Used To Place Storage Container
“I mounted a cement mixer on my loader tractor to pour footings on a hill alongside my barn, where I planned to place a shipping container I bought for storage,” says Minnesota inventor Mark Rinke. “That worked a lot better than using a wheelbarrow and shoveling, or having a cement truck back across my lawn.”
Rinke modified a portable mixer he purchased from Harbor Freight. He added base plates that held the wheels and footpad securely to the forklift on his 420 Deere loader mounted on his 855 tractor. He also added 2 metal safety latches that bolt to the top frame of the forklift so the mixer would ride securely on the forks without tipping.
“My setup worked really well because I had the forks set wide enough to straddle the sonotubes used for the footings. The tub dumped the concrete in without spilling,” says Rinke.
The footings were positioned to support an 8-ft. wide by 25-ft. long storage container. “My larger tractor could drag the container, but doing so would leave gouges in the grass that I didn’t want to deal with,” Rinke says. “My solution was to build a strong metal jig for the 3-pt. hitch on my 2030 Deere tractor. I made the horizontal lift arms out of channel iron and added reinforcing tube steel braces extending vertically up the front and horizontally across and up to the lift bar on the back. The lift bar connects to a piece of 2-in. metal pipe reinforced with angle rods as braces. Log chain shackles on each end of the pipe attach to the corners of the container with swivel clips so lifting, pulling and turning wouldn’t damage the lift or the container,” Rinke says.
To move the container without gouging the grass, Rinke lifted it with the 3-pt. jig and set it on round wooden fence posts. “It rolled along real well and I was able to maneuver it in place on the footings very easily with the jig,” Rinke says. “If money was no object it certainly would’ve been easier to have a cement pumper truck and a lift crane do the work, but I enjoy the challenge of building things that get a job done efficiently and economically.”
Contact: FARM SHOW Followup, Mark Rinke, 11175 225th St. E., Lakeville, Minn. 55044 (mark.rinke@nngco.com).


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2020 - Volume #44, Issue #5