DIY lifting concrete blocks with a lever and a grabber

[DaveC426913]

TL;DR

I want to manipulate concrete footings while saving my back. The trick is how to grab them and release them.

Building a pool deck on a frame over concrete footings:

~ 12"x12"x8" 50lb.

I am ruining my back trying to lift, place and fine-tune the locations of dozens of these footings.

My plan is to use a 2x4 and a sawhorse as a lever and fulcrum to move them arouund without injuring myself.

The part I can't figure out is how to grab the footings. I could cobble together a giant claw to pick it up by its edges, but I think that's overkill. (although if you think of something I'm all ears.)

The footings have a hole down the centre that's about 1 1/2" in diameter. I could drop a tube down there on a rope. I'm just looking for some way of securing the grabber on the inside or bottom of the hole.

This is a schematic:

The grabber doesn't have to be elaborate. Super simple is best. It could be just a big nail that I can twist into place or something. A clamp, a slipknot; an inflated balloon, what-have-you.

I just haven't figured out how.

And this does not have to be how I do it at all. Any suggestions about moving these blocks around in a back-saving way are welcome.

 

[Rive]

There is this kind of self-locking thing...

 

[DaveC426913]

There is this kind of self-locking thing...
View attachment 363631

Yeah. That's the kind of thing I'm thinking of.

 

[DaveE]

Or some sort of wedgy thing you can cobble together from wood scraps. Expect it to slip at some point, just to be safe.

 

[DaveC426913]

Or some sort of wedgy thing you can cobble together from wood scraps. Expect it to slip at some point, just to be safe.
View attachment 363635

Oh I see what you're illustrating.

Drop a dowel in the hole, just a little smaller than the hole's diameter.
Wedge in a shim or two.

Yeah, that might work pretty well.

 

[Lnewqban]

See some solutions here:
https://pavetool.com/collections/clamps-wall-paver-slab

 

[DaveC426913]

See some solutions here:
https://pavetool.com/collections/clamps-wall-paver-slab

Yes, I figured I could do it by welding some bars together; I'm trying for a solution that's a little less overhead just to build the device. I can cut and grind and bolt, but i can't weld - not conveniently.


These ideas though, are simpler than I imagined, so may be worth a gander.

 

[DaveE]

The mold for those blocks is conical (or pyramidal?). So grabbing solutions need to grab well. I think you want your wedges to be very wedgy (more normal force) and soft enough to grab well. Fortunately you also get lots of friction with cinderblocks. Way easier if you could lift them upside-down.

 

[DaveC426913]

The mold for those blocks is conical (or pyramidal?). So grabbing solutions need to grab well. I think you want your wedges to be very wedgy (more normal force) and soft enough to grab well. Fortunately you also get lots of friction with cinderblocks. Way easier if you could lift them upside-down.

Yup.

 

[sbrothy]

Perhaps an inflatable balloon thingy you could inflate once lowered into the middle of one of those. It’d have to be sturdy I admit. Water balloon ain’t gonna do it! Pneumatics FTW!

EDIT: Though I realize you risk cracking your thingies… Ah well, mostly for fun anyway.

 

[DaveC426913]

Perhaps an inflatable balloon thingy you could inflate once lowered into the middle of one of those. It’d have to be sturdy I admit. Water balloon ain’t gonna do it! Pneumatics FTW!

EDIT: Though I realize you risk cracking your thingies… Ah well, mostly for fun anyway.

Yeah, balloon is a great idea in theory, but inflating and deflating it is gonna be troublesome.

 

[BillTre]

Yeah, balloon is a great idea in theory, but inflating and deflating it is gonna be troublesome.

There are things to put into pipes that can be inflated with water pressure from a hose.
Like this:

They are made on tough rubber.

 

[Lnewqban]

Yes, I figured I could do it by welding some bars together; I'm trying for a solution that's a little less overhead just to build the device. I can cut and grind and bolt, but i can't weld - not conveniently.

Perhaps these products are available to you?:
https://unistrut.biz/content/Resources/Literature/Unistrut-General-Engineering-Catalog.pdf

The simple system shown in post #2 could be done with a perforated 1-inch PVC pipe (in place of the red lines) and an internal metal conduit of smaller diameter containing one or several articulated pins.

The internal conduit is pulled by your lever, locking the pin(s) against the concrete.
The internal conduit is pushed down while the PVC pipe is pulled up to release the lock.

 

[DaveC426913]

an internal metal conduit of smaller diameter containing one or several articulated pins.

The internal conduit is pulled by your lever, locking the pin(s) against the concrete.
The internal conduit is pushed down while the PVC pipe is pulled up to release the lock

Thanks I don't quite follow this last bit.

 

[Lnewqban]

Thanks I don't quite follow this last bit.

 

[DaveC426913]

View attachment 363738

Great idea!

 

[DaveE]

Perhaps these products are available to you?:
https://unistrut.biz/content/Resources/Literature/Unistrut-General-Engineering-Catalog.pdf

The simple system shown in post #2 could be done with a perforated 1-inch PVC pipe (in place of the red lines) and an internal metal conduit of smaller diameter containing one or several articulated pins.

The internal conduit is pulled by your lever, locking the pin(s) against the concrete.
The internal conduit is pushed down while the PVC pipe is pulled up to release the lock.

I would vote for something you make with a couple of 2x4 scraps, a drill, and a saw. If this is your profession, you need good tools. If it's DIY, you just need to get the job done. I'd be moving blocks while y'all were still driving to hardware stores or waiting for Amazon deliveries. Then I'd throw the whole lot in the trash once the blocks were in place.

 

[DaveC426913]

I would vote for something you make with a couple of 2x4 scraps, a drill, and a saw.

Yes.

If this is your profession, you need good tools. If it's DIY, you just need to get the job done. I'd be moving blocks while y'all were still driving to hardware stores or waiting for Amazon deliveries. Then I'd throw the whole lot in the trash once the blocks were in place.

Yes.

But it does need to work well enough to be labour-saving, not too fiddly to waste time or fall apart.

 

[DaveE]

But it does need to work well enough to be labour-saving, not too fiddly to waste time or fall apart.

Yes, the first block or two will be an experiment, a learning experience.

 

[DaveC426913]

I went with the stake-and-shim.

The shim is steel, with a 90 degree bend, so I can pound it in with the fulcrum hammer.

It does slip, if I don't pound in the shim enough, but it does the trick.

(My goal is different from most workplace goals. My goal is not time-efficiency - it's not over-exerting myself. In fact, I have no problem working slowly, because it means I intersperse the heavy labour bits with fiddLing bits.)

 

[sophiecentaur]

(My goal is different from most workplace goals. My goal is not time-efficiency

My goal would also be to get satisfaction every time the device operates.

Great thread. I was thinking in terms of using my (or your?) lathe to turn up a sort of inverse drill chuck. I imagine that those holes are all near enough the same size. But, without a lathe of some sort, the job could be hard. Plus it could get in the way of getting the decking job done.

@DaveC426913 In that picture, is that steel thing (blue) what you can buy to do the job? A hole, drilled on the end of the handle could allow lifting that with a lever.

 

[DaveC426913]

@DaveC426913 In that picture, is that steel thing (blue) what you can buy to do the job? A hole, drilled on the end of the handle could allow lifting that with a lever.

That's just a bog standard work table. It's the right height to act as a fulcrum, and is plenty broad enough to be stable while I twist and turn the footing. In retrospect, something more tripod-like might have been easir to maneuver ubut this was there when I needed it.

 

[DaveC426913]

Update: Oh the irony!

I went to my local lumber yard - cheaper, better service, better quality, local - and tried to buy more of these 50lb. concrete footings. They do not have any, because, apparently these footings are being phased out everywhere in favour of fibreglass or industrial plastic footings.

The new footings weigh less than 5lbs. each - entirely obviating the need for a lifting mechanism. Glad I didn't spend too much time cobbling it together.

But there's more impact. Any advantage I might have gained by using heavy footings is diminished because now I have to complete the rest of the deck without them.

But wait, there's more!

The plastic footings are only 2" high instead of 7". If I had known about these plastic footings before I started - my deck could have been about five inches lower than I was forced to make it.

Live and learn. Live and learn.