Gin-pole Enthusiasts,

Here is a link to a past thread that has some more photo and video links of a different and more recent barn raising with a gin pole.

http://www.tfguild.org/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=20719#Post20719

The gin-pole it's self is a 32ft, green cut Red Pine with an 8"diameter butt, and is almost 5"at the top. I have a sawyer friend who volunteered at one of my past raisings, and I get my poles from him.

The gin-pole system that I use consists of:

1- 32ft Red Pine (green cut)

1- large pulley. (12" diameter)

1- set of 3 to 1 block and tackle. (6" diameter).

3- 100ft lengths of 3/4" braided nylon rope as guy wires (used by utility companies to pull and string cable.)

1- 100ft length of 3/4" braided nylon rope. (That goes through the pulley at the top of the gin-pole, that connects the load straps used for standing up the bents, to the block and tackle.)

1- 2"x36" nylon loop/choker strap. (To hang the top pulley from the pole)

3 or 4 gin-pole anchor points. (On the Schuster barn my anchor points were three large antique tractors that the customer owned and a large reticulating payloader which was overkill, but oh well!. They were heavy enough, and we could park them where ever we wanted to secure the 5 different placements of the gin-pole. At the more recent Bussey barn, I used custom built anchors made of 4x6 I-beam steel, that where dropped into 8"x 4ft holes in the ground...but depending on the site, I have even just tied the guy ropes to adjacent trees that were large enough.)

2- 4" x 20ft load cinch straps. (Connected to the tie-beam of the bent that is being stood up. Wrapping the strap around the tie-beam a few times before cinching allows you to adjust the length of the strap.)

1- large 3/4" clevis (To connect the two load straps to the pulley rope.)

1- Bullhook (Which is a custom built tool that allows a person to connect to a cable or rope at any point without kinking it. The harder you pull the stronger the connection, and very easy to undo when the pull is finished. .. old horse logging trick.)

I’ll post more instructions in later posts….I hope this helps.

Rooster
920-728-0353
saveabarn@yahoo.com

Years ago, we created a gin pole set-up. I copied a set-up that I saw in a book written by Richard Babcock, and Jack Sobon helped me, with advice, as well.



This type of gin pole is basically and upside down T with braces. This makes the gin pole very stable as it can only pivot back and forth, and can't lean very much if any left and right.

When we use it on a frame raising we usually tie off the back line and two side guide lines to the sills of the frame. This makes it easy as we don't have to chase around for anchors.

Somewhere I read or heard that you shouldn't lean the gin pole over more then 20° from upright.

In the above picture we were testing the system, ropes, blocks, lines and everything, by leaning it more and overloading it trying to push it to twice the load that we were intending to lift at the raising. We did this to test and make sure the entire system was safe.

It didn't fail and we used it and it was great.

Also, we created a wooden winch for pulling in the line. This winch we have called a windlass, but I believe that windlass winches have horizontal axles and that a vertical axle winch is called a capstan. But with the gin pole and our windlass we could lift 500 lbs of timbers with just 10 lbs of pressure on the windlass handles.



This windlass needs some improvement in the drum as the body of the drum is not hour glass shaped and because of this the line doesn't properly slide to self center. And because it doesn't self center it walks either up or down the drum, depending on how we feed it onto the drum.

It was fun to use and easy once you have it all set up.

Although we didn't use a front line to the gin pole I highly recommend that anyone who does create a gin pole uses a front line, that Jack Sobon called a safety line as it prevents the gin pole from accidentally falling over backwards when the load is at the top and the center of gravity is very high.

Hope that helps

Jim Rogers

Jim,
I was reading a link Mo posted on rigging, your gin pole is also referred to there as a pole derrick or dutchman.


I was experimenting with alot of things on my shop. This is a redneck lifting engine I was playing with, some old Lowes store racking. I assembled the first pair of racks, cable braced it and attached an axle between them. This is a shot from the end with a windlass attached on the axle.

An old motor grader blade made a brake that we could drop behind a handle. I then loaded it with rocks as a counterweight.
After we lifted a bent I added another section of rack and rigged it further forward.

I've also seen a pictures of a gin that looked like a tapered apple picking ladder with a windlass at the base.

Don, thanks it's good to know the correct name for different things....

Here are some tools that are part of my gin-pole system.

Custom made pulley.





Bullhook.




Guy wire/rope anchor.



One of the differences I see between Jim's set up and mine is that Jim's uses the block and tackle hanging from the top of the pole directly over the lift/pick point...and I use a single large pulley at top, and use the advantage of the block and tackle to pull the load rope up and through the pulley. I often use the same anchor, both for the lower block and the back guy wire/rope. These anchors require digging a 8in. hole about 4ft deep at a 15 degree angle away from the gin-pole position. Holes can be dug as needed, and then filled in aferwards.

Rooster

Here is a photo of a setup we had last fall to raise a small tractor shelter. The pole was 5" x 6" x 22'. We used it for a rafter at the end of the project. Much of what we did was based on Jim Rogers postings. One thing we did differently was to put the bottom end of the pole 6" into the ground.

John

Well I tried. Can anyone point me to some picture posting info?

So does a gin pole (like Craigs) have to be green? So every time you do a raising you need to cut a new one? Does it need to be green to have some flex?

Lets see if this works.

If not then someone lease point me to the propoer procedure to post pictues please.

John

I used a green cut Red Pine for a barn that I raised in 2004, which came off the property adjacent to the job site. I bought two trees for $10 each. After the raising I stored the pole undercover for 3 years and tried using it again. It was still strong, but it started to bow when under the load of a 34ftx 18ft sawn pine end-wall bent. I was able to brace it, but I could definitely tell the difference between "green" and "seasoned"....seeing as the endwall bent on the previous frame was 32ft x 20ft hand hewn oak, and significantly heavier.

Since then I try to use recently cut or green Red pines for the raisings, since there is a long enough period between them that warrants using a newer pole and spending the $10-$15 to replace it.

So, I got more "flex" out of the seasoned pine pole than the green one.

Rooster

I have always been under the impression that a green stick will flex more than a dry one, this has something to do with the moisture content greasing the fibers on the green stick and not so on the dry stick.(is this my imagination gone wild?) It is interesting you saw different results than that, Craig. Curious if the lift angle and such was different? Was the pole stored with or with out the bark on? Why the noticeable difference even with a lighter lift?

A dry pole is easier to handle, that is a plus. I don't have a nice storage facility to stick a good pole in so it stays outside till I need it and if it look funky I cut a new one. The thing about cutting a new one is you can adjust the size for the situation. It is a real drag to have a pole 6" too short.

Tim