Getting logs/ beams vertical

Hello All,
          Wishing to build a strawbale shed .ihave very large wharf timbers very heavy but look amazing.
I want these for my posts however I am remote , off grid, on my own apart from young kids & have no machinery except my 4wd Ute.
Is there a way I can drag timber into position and raise them vertical ?
Any advice appreciated.
dAZ

Darren Halloran wrote:Hello All,
          Wishing to build a strawbale shed .ihave very large wharf timbers very heavy but look amazing.
I want these for my posts however I am remote , off grid, on my own apart from young kids & have no machinery except my 4wd Ute.
Is there a way I can drag timber into position and raise them vertical ?
Any advice appreciated.
dAZ

I am no sort of engineer, and sometimes I take dumb risks!

I have pulled a set of 4 posts with beam on top from horizontal to upright with a 1.5ton 4x4 pickup(Isuzu Elf 150). The main catch, was the stuff wanting to slide rather than pivot up. Good bracing required at bottom.

I had no traction problems on dry level grass, but the roundwood was not all that heavy, and the truckbed was full of weight. Rigging a pulley for 2:1 mechanical advantage and added control might be needed.

My Elf had 4-lo with an extremely low 1st gear, and an idle controller so I could use a high idle to go forward without touching the pedal. I could pull very, very slowly compared to any other truck I have owned/driven.

I used logs to make a tripod to hold a pulley, to raise the angle of the lifting cable. This was key. I had barely adequate bracing to hold the bottoms of the posts. Overbuild this.

I did my joinery 3' off the ground, and left the beam at that height, with the post bases tilted to the ground once all connected. This definitely helped.

I had two helpers to spot me and to add bracing. You will need another rope or cable to stop things going past vertical and crashing down the other way.

I would really suggest an adult spotter...


For a shed, I would build two, or more if longer and needing mid-wall posts, wall-frames and raise them intact. Like raising a 'bent', youtube should have videos.

This way, you get a beam up at the same time, reducing the amount of work that happens in the air.. *And*, your wall can only go two directions... more or less. Itncan go too far, or not far enough, but if sufficiently well built and diagnonally braced it will not be very able to fuck off sideways like a single post could..


Hope that helps!