Home-Made Cherry Picker

Home-Made Cherry picker MISCELLANEOUS EQUIPMENT Miscellaneous 8-1-9 "It's handy and a real labor saver," says Alan Maclean, Kingston, Ont. of the "cherry picker" he made out of an old heavy duty snowmobile trailer. "It'll lift one ton up to 20 ft. in the air. I use it to lift roof trusses, pull fence posts, fix roofs and many other jobs." A 4-in. by 18-in. hydraulic ram powered off the tractor's hydraulics lifts the boom, made of 3-in. by 4-in. structural steel. Two support "legs" keep the boom from leaning to one side when lifting a load. Once the load is hanging free, it'll self balance. Maclean also made a platform for the boom that holds two people. The platform, made of plywood and angle iron, attaches to the end of the boom and is reinforced by a pipe that runs from the platform railing back to a piece of angle iron at the base of the boom. Pivots on the pipe and boom keep the platform level at any height. The unit has an 8-ft. wide axle, a double bar pin hitch and a built-in hand hydraulic jack. Maclean added another hook slightly behind the hook at the end of the boom which lets him lift even heavier weights. He estimates it cost him $500 to build the "cherry picker" which could be "scaled up" to handle bigger loads. Contact: FARM SHOW Followup, Alan Maclean, R.R. 1, Kingston, Ont. K7L 4V1 (ph 613 546-5823).

To read the rest of this story, download this issue below or click here to register with your account number.