I know this might open a real can of worms and it probably needs some context, but I'm trying to figure out that perfect combination of capacity, lift height, ground pressure, maneuverability, and cost. A little context: this would be for personal use at a new shop I'm building. I don't have tons of room and I've got a "residential" asphalt driveway that won't be replaced anytime soon. The shop will have a concrete apron poured a full 8" thick to support heavy loads but I've still got the asphalt to navigate, especially during construction when I'll be using the forklift to carry material to the construction site. I could invest in some kind of matting but it's pretty costly and then I have to lay it out and take it up whenever the forklift has to get from shop to road. So I'm thinking about the best way to get a forklift to float down the asphalt (antigrav boosters anyone??) Warehouse forklifts with cushion tires are far more common and less expensive than pneumatic forklifts out here. Due to the stability of the hard wheels, they also tend to be smaller carriages (thus more maneuverable) and are more often equipped with high reach masts. The shop building will have an eave height of around 20', so high reach is important to me. So crazy (stupid?) idea: is it possible to turn a cushion tire single wheel into a dual wheel assembly for more surface area on the asphalt? For lighter loads during the construction process, I could leave it setup this way and then, once the material is staged and I'm working primarily on the concrete, I could go back to the singles. Stupid, right? Any other suggestions? I'm sort of looking for a unicorn machine when I really ought to have several dedicated machines but that's just not in the budget at the moment. For what it's worth, I'm a machinist and I rebuild machine tools. I'd like a 5k capacity forklift (or even more!) to help with the machine tools after construction is complete but, once again, the high capacity means the truck isn't going to be happy on the asphalt...
I have an older big tire Cat 5K pneumatic. It gets around on hard grass. I would never have a limited travel hard tire warehouse machine after having this one. Asphalt hard gravel all that is a piece of cake. The warehouse lifts have less articulation on the steer axle and get stuck on an idea, and lift a drive tire so easily. Pete has one and it is frustrating.
If a 5k forklift is tearing up pavement. It was a **** pavement job. 6" slab handles D10s in shops here. Thats around 130,000lbs
It's a residential driveway; typically that's 2" out here. If you keep moving you can get across it, but if you park or turn, it gets torn up in a hurry. Just my 3/4 ton pickup truck leaves divots in the asphalt where I park it. I guess the real solution is to replace the driveway at some point... I'm thinking it will destroy my shop budget, but maybe I should see what it would cost to have the driveway replaced with concrete when I have the apron poured. At my old place, I had a Drexel SLT30 and it tore the driveway to shreds. Even got stuck once when the steer wheel found a sinkhole under the asphalt. Since the SLT30 is a swing mast, it weighs a lot for its capacity (truck weight is ~12500 lbs even though lift is only 3000 lbs) so that was a combination of heavy machine and crappy pavement / base.
Those little warehouse tires are like pizza cutters in those conditions. Remember, they are heavily biased to those little steers with nothing on the forks.
What's the lift height on your Cat truck, skyking1? I guess you've just about talked me into shopping around for a pneumatic one...
What my dooryard was too. Skid steer would leave marks, but didn't tear anything up.
about 15' It has that mid-mast lift profile that brings the car up below the top of the collapsed mast, so you can get about 5' of lift without needing more headroom. It goes into my 8' tall carport and could hold something 5' off the ground. Mine is really ancient but I think V50c is a good model number to look at. I see dually ones too, but the big deal is the bigger steer tires. most of the time you are empty and bigger steers is the thing.
The newer ones start with G or P with pneumatics.