Man-Lift Built On Old Bale Mover

Man-Lift Built On Old Bale Mover BALE HANDLING Bale Handling (31B) 27-4-10 Ricky Stockman, Concordia, Missouri, had a local fabrication shop turn an old 3-pt. bale mover into a hydraulic man-lift. "The frame on our old bale mover was heavy and very well built so I figured it would support the weight," says Stockman. He took his idea to Greg Mueller, Mueller Fabrication, Higginsville, Missouri, and he did the rest. Mueller attached a 10-ft. long, 6 by 6-in. square tube to the frame to make a mast. Then he hinged a 12-ft. length of the same tubing at the top of the first. On the end of the hinged boom, he mounted a steel bucket made of sheet metal on an angle iron frame. Stockman salvaged a hydraulic cylinder and controls from an old log splitter and uses them to raise and lower his boom. The controls are mounted on the bucket, so the person in the bucket can work alone. He says materials and shop work totaled up to about $2,000. So while it wasn't cheap, it was considerably less expensive than anything he could have bought ready-made. "Our first use was painting my parents' house. We were going to hire a crew to paint it, but because we had this, we decided we could do the work ourselves, at a savings of at least $1,000," he says. Since then, he's used it to do building and roof repairs. He lowers the tractor's 3-pt. to the ground while it's in use. "Attached to the tractor hitch, it doesn't need any additional stabilizers," Stockman says. Contact: FARM SHOW Followup, Ricky Stockman, RR 3, Box 279, Concordia, Mo. 64020 (ph 660 641-4199).

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