Crane Forks

Crane forks are a hook suspended piece of lifting equipment used to lift pallets of equipment in areas of the work place that a fork lift truck cannot reach. Standard Crane lifting forks are available in many different capacities up to 5 tonne SWL. Special bespoke manufactured crane forks can be made to suit our customers’ requirements both in physical dimensions and capacity. There are two main types of crane fork, manual balance and automatic balance crane forks. The manual balance versions need the operator to adjust the hoist hook position on the forks to ensure the load is picked up correctly, and not dangerously tipping forward with the risk that the load could be accidently dropped. Auto balance / self balancing crane forks require no manual intervention to level the load though do have required a minimum of 20% of the maximum SWL to work correctly, for example 1 tonne crane forks must be loaded with a minimum of 200kg. Crane forks are equipped with adjustable tines, height adjustable and an automatic balancing system. Crane forks with automatic balancing* tend to point their tines upward when being transported. This prevents the load from unintentionally slipping off the tines.

Self balancing crane forks require no manual intervention though usually have a minimum safe working load, this is a percentage of the maximum SWL for the crane fork to work correctly. Manual balance crane forks rely on the user to manually adjust the load bearing eye, thus manually positioning the centre of gravity into the centre of the forks to ensure that the load is lifted safely. There is no minimum SWL for manual balance crane forks.

We offer quality product manufactured in the UK and other options with capacities up to 5 tonne and special bespoke designs available on request with greater capacities and dimensions to suit the customers individual requirements.

Crane forks are an item of lifting equipment that are safely suspended from a lifting hook on an over head crane and enables the crane to lift and place pallets; they can be used to compliment or even replace a fork lift truck and also have many uses where a fork truck could not be used, for example when there is a  lack of floor space to manoeuvre a lift truck.