That was EASY...

Dear fellow engineers:
Let's see what ideas you can come up with to solve this problem. With the first truss cribbed and pinned together in place on the bridge abutments it is time to place, rig and raise the 25' long gin poles that will be used to raise the truss to vertical. This is no small task as each weighs in at between 450 and 500 pounds.

First problem, getting the poles from my house to the bridge site.

Using the wheeled mount that I built a few years ago as a test stand for my Enertech wind generator you can see how it works. A chain around the floor jack and pole raises it and when balanced right one man can roll poles like this around nicely. Also came in very handy when I built my first log cabin.  Back to the gin poles...

Above you can see the two poles positioned and ready to be raised. I first saw this done during the bridge construction at Chester, NH on the TF Guild project. I also did it last year on the South Wayne bridge project. One time it involved a LOT of people and the other several people and plenty of equipment. Although successful, both seemed inefficient and pretty risky. There had to be a better way and I think I have found it!

So fellow backyard engineers lets hear your thoughts and comments on how you would rig and raise these poles. Solutions should include the number of people involved, amount of equipment and force needed to do the job.

Who knows maybe someone out there has even a better idea. I'll post my solution and how I did it in a week or two.