Truss Raising with DIY Crane Using Harbor Freight Winch

By the 9th 32 foot truss we got pretty fast. We increased the height of our tower mounted winch to about 20 feet and lifted the truss up from the center. We used a $100 Harbor Freight winch mounted to the top of a temporary wooden tower. The trusses are to span a 3 car garage with a 9 foot ceiling. We called it a siege tower and not a crane because you had to climb up it to reach the winch controller because it only had a 4 foot cord. Several of the trusses were over 200 pounds. As you can see it was very difficult for even 3 men to walk on flat ground with them. It would have been very dangerous to try to climb up ladders with them.

Here is a 26 second version:
   • "Siege Tower" for Truss Raising  

I later made an improvement to compensate for the short cord going to the winch controller and to lower the center of gravity: I mounted the winch at the base and just have a pulley at the top instead of the winch at the top. There is a safety trade off with this modification. It is safer not to have the weight of the winch up so high and to not have to climb up to reach the controller, but the danger of mounting the winch below and having a pulley on top is that you need to be very careful as you are effectively by-passing the safety shut off that turns the winch off if all the cable is retracted. I recommend that you have a very trustworthy and careful person working the controller. I believe that the crane is much safer than trying to lift them manually because you avoid of risk shoulder and back injury. You just need to wear a hard hat and be thoughtful.

Safety First!

New: Here is a link to purchase a similar hoist from Amazon as Harbor Freight doesn't always stock
This is an updated link as now they sell a wireless version! This will allow you to stand safely away. (the reason I had to climb up the structure was the control cord was too short)

https://amzn.to/47CUpXJ

Here are the links for the lifting straps that proved very useful and were great values on Amazon:

https://amzn.to/3Xy95CT