wall jacks

I've seen these advertised in Fine Homebuilding, and I was wondering if any timber framers out there have used these to raise bents. I called the company, and the sales rep said they should work fine for timber framing. I am seriously considering purchasing these, but I would be very interested to hear your opinions first. www.proctorp.com Thanks, Ron www.proctorp.com

Hi there. 3 of these jacks work great to lift 40' long stick built walls with only two people but I don't know if they could handle the weight of a fully assembled bent. Additionally, the ones that I use can at most only lift a 12' tall wall to a near verticle position. 2x4 "pike poles" take it from there. Also I would think that you might have trouble finding enough good attachment points on your bents so that the jack itself doesn't get snagged up in your frame once the action starts. Hope this helps.

I think the first thing I would do is make sure my insurance was paid before I tried those. ; )

I've used them for stick framing as well, and they're great. Much safer than the type where you walk under the wall as it goes up (sketchy!). I imagine that you could used them for a bent it you figured the weight out, but you would have marks (on the interior of the bent) from the hook used to raise the wall. You can rent them sometimes at good rental yards.
Brad

They work very well. I believe the maximum limits are a 16' wall and 500# each. Double check this info, of course. One risk is going too far and having the wall topple over, away from the jacks.

One guy I have disassembled barns with will sometimes lash two wall jacks to two posts and slowly lower a heavy plate to the ground with just two people: an unconventional use.

Jim

Hi Ron,

I bought a pair of 16'ers for 1000 bucks last Summer and stood a number of stick built walls. Remember that 16'ers will stand just over an 11' foot wall: 16 X 1.414.

I think for small, shorter, lighter bents you could get away with Walljacks, but for the money, I am convinved they are the right tool for stick framers, but lacking for timberframers.
If you do get walljacks, I can pass on the void-your-warrarentee modification that everyone does for strength, safety, and common sense.

I would suggest any number of options first: site rigged gin pole, crane truck, forklift, etc.

Then there's always a keg of beer, pizza, and all your strong friends...

Best of luck.

Zach

I would think that it would be necessary to completely recalculate the load capabilities when switching over to bents from stick walls. With stick walls, the load would be fairly evenly spread out top to bottom with fairly equal plates both top and bottom, but in a bent there is so much more mass up high. It is not simply a matter of dead lift capacity.

I imagine the 500# capacity rating assumes a moment somewhere towards the middle of the wall, whereas in a bent the moment will be much closer to the top plate, and thereefor require greater effort(and therefor strain on the rig) to initiate the lift.

My gut reaction is to find a better solution.

Ron, I’ll join in the growing consensus and will relay a story. About ten years or so back an associate was raising a trimber-frame, inside an existing cathedral ceilinged great room, don’t recall the dimensions, but it was sizable, maybe 24 X 28 The plan was to raise in walls 28 X 9 high then piece on piece the “roof” PWJ’s were chosen as the lifting apparatus, largely because it jived with the unusual interior situation, on the first pick, at that critical angle of incline, one of the Beebee comalongs in one of the jacks failed, it fortunately didn’t free-spool but it was stuck, no going up and no going down, and the job shut down for some days waiting for plan B

Suffice it to say they aren’t up to the task.

Why not stick with the traditional lifting engines, gins and shear legs and such ?

Read Jacks’ new article and do some research beyond that, and find somebody who knows and uses such rigging and help them raise something.

If you really want to invest in some added safety and mechanical advantage that will reduce the manpower needed to handraise (, without doubt handraiseing does sell timberframes ) Consider Grip-hoists, far from cheap, but worth every single penny.
http://www.torqhoist.com/product_list.ph...CFQxkSAodZHdjHQ

Here’s a wall being raised with a useful and interesting variant of Gin known as “unstayed”, at a point in the lift, rope is reversed and you actually begin lowering the Gins, thereby shifting the CG and they then pull the pick the final 10% or so to plumb. The green slings and rope-alongs you see are not lifting, but only serving as adjustable snub lines, they are purely secondary safeties.





Here a Grip is used as an adjustable guy, so these shear legs are safely “luffable” allowing this tie to be inserted in under this cribbed up roof system. And as a sidenote this bridge was rolled off the river on oak shoes and rollers, timber track and with a single
Heavy duty Grip pulling.



Traditional time tested rigging is the right tool for the job, a slight upgrade just makes it all the better

You all were very helpful and you brought up some points/issues I had not considered. I appreciate all the advice. Thanks Ron