THE OLD AND THE NEW

There has always been a great amount of heavy lifting and carrying around a small mill. We are always short of help. A fork-lift looked like the answer. They had come into use near here only recently, even in larger mills. Factory built the cost is prohibitive, and most of them are either heavy and clumsy, or of the small wheel type, which I cannot keep going in soft ground. In December, 1956 a machinist friend of mine said he had time to help build one. I borrowed some ideas from other lifts I had seen, designed the rest the way I thought it should be, and made a scale model to work by. I bought a truck to build it on and started collecting steel and parts. About the only important parts that we didn't make ourselves were the hydraulic pump and control valves and two of the 3 hydraulic cylinders. It took about two months to build. There were so many things to change on the truck besides building the lift. It is completely changed to travel the other way. Steering wheel, foot pedals, gear shift and seat face the drive wheels. The back was cut out of the cab and replaced with a Plexi glass windshield. The forward and reverse speeds were exchanged. The hydraulic pump is driven by the front end of the crankshaft, so the hydraulic system is alive any time the motor is running. It handles about 800 board feet of green hardwood lumber easily. Total lifting height is about twelve and one half feet from the ground to the bottom or the load. Wheelbase is nine feet and one inch so it can be maneuvered in tight places.

It saves many steps and much time. Lumber is piled close to the end of the mill in piles four feet wide and a convenient height. Edgings 'stickers' are put between the layers of boards so drying can start without re-piling. These small piles are carried out on the forks and stacked three or four high until enough has accumulated for a semi-trailer load. They are moved again with the fork lift to a convenient place to take out the stickers and do any necessary trimming of the boards. The stickers are put in a rack to be carried back to the mill by the fork lift for re-use. The packages of lumber are lifted onto the semi-trailer. Four by fours of cull lumber are put between packages of lumber, so the forks can be withdrawn. Slabs are piled in a rack near the mill. When a bundle about four feet in diameter has accumulated, a single number ten wire is bound tightly around the middle and the bundle carried out with the lift. They could be handled in smaller bunches without binding, but a much neater pile can be made, and the bundles can be lifted again for hauling if desired. The forks can be pushed under logs that lay on the; ground or pushed between logs if the pile is high. Two big logs or three or four small ones are an average load to carry to the mill. It also works well for loading logs onto a truck if the ground is reasonably near level. I haven't used it for loading logs in railroad cars yet, but it would work very well.