Caldwell’s New Lifter Simplifies Handling of Turf Mats

May 22, 2021 - Kentuckiana Wire Rope and Supply, a regional branch of Fulcrum Lifting, has supplied a 1-ton capacity custom Caldwell lifter for handling rubber turf mats.

Fulcrum, a distributor of the full range of Caldwell products, delivered the 48” x 96” pallet to a utility contractor that puts the mats onto turf, so machinery doesn’t damage lawns and property during work.

The lifter, which can be used with a forklift or truck crane, is used primarily for storing and transporting the mats.

Caldwell manufactured the lifter, which combines with a 1” tie-down made by Kentuckiana to prevent the mats from moving on trailers.

Tim Coombs, product specialist at Kentuckiana, explained that the combined solution enables faster loading and unloading, while also enhancing safety by reducing manual handling. Multiple mats are stacked on top of each other, as the demands of a project or day’s work dictates.

Said Coombs, “The customer wanted a material pallet that could be used with a forklift and a truck crane.” He then noted that less favorable solutions would be using wood pallets, or loading and unloading the mats manually.

The Jeffersonville, Indiana, branch of Fulcrum Lifting has operated as Kentuckiana since 1981. It is a fabricator and distributor of a broad range of rigging products, making lifting slings to meet American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) standards.

Kentuckiana Wire Rope and Supply collaborates with Caldwell most commonly when customers request below-the-hook devices that need to meet ASME B30.20-2018 standards that reference the BTH-1-2017 design specification.

As Coombs said, many end users don’t recognize the manufacturer must meet BTH-1 design specifications to meet the ASME B30.20 standard. ASME recently released the new specification for B30.20, dated 2018, while BTH-1 was released a year earlier.