Tandemloc Spreader Beams

Tandemloc Spreader Beams Buying Guide

One line, one build standard. Every beam here is Tandemloc, made in Havelock, North Carolina and built to a single discipline. Each unit is proof tested to 125 percent of its working load limit on a 300 ton test bed, the test captured as a date and load stamped video you can request, and every lifter is designed to ASME B30.20 with the structural rules of ASME BTH-1 at Design Category B, Service Class 0. Two things follow from that rating. Design Category B carries a 3 to 1 design factor against the yield strength of the steel, the common grade for below-the-hook gear. Service Class 0 covers up to 20,000 load cycles, which is fatigue life sized for occasional and moderate duty rather than a beam cycling hundreds of times a shift, so if your lift repeats that hard, ask about a higher service class before you order. The beam arrives marked and certified, and remember its own weight counts against your crane or hoist capacity.

AT14 telescopic beams: the everyday adjustable. The AT14 series is the beam most shops reach for first. It pin-adjusts across spread ranges from 48 out to 240 inches and carries 2,000, 4,000, 8,000, or 13,000 lb depending on the model, so one beam covers a whole range of load widths instead of a shelf of fixed bars. It comes two ways. The with-top-sling version, from about $2,043, ships with the matched top sling assembly that sets the exact geometry the beam was rated at. The bare beam, from about $1,807, is the right buy only when you already own a rated top sling at the correct angle. Confirm the capacity at the spread you will actually pin to, because the headline number is the maximum rating, not a promise at full extension.

Heavier and dual-mode: adjustable kits and the AL50. When a load outgrows the AT14, two families carry the weight. The telescopic adjustable spreader beam kits span 51 to 288 inches at 28,000, 52,000, and 100,000 lb, priced from about $1,730 for the smallest kit into five figures for the largest, and they ship as a kit you set to the spread you need. The AL50 combination beam, from about $4,028 up to roughly $26,648, does something the others do not: it rigs either as a spreader hung from two angled top slings or as a lifting beam hung from a single center bail. That makes it one beam for a shop that meets low headroom on some picks and wide loads on others. Its models run 10,000 to 60,000 lb across beam lengths from about 114 to 247 inches.

End caps: build your own rated beam. The end-cap systems are the budget path to owning several beams. A pair of caps clamps to a length of pipe and the assembly becomes a rated spreader. The steel caps, from about $602 a cap, pair pipe from 3 to 32 inches with per-cap ratings from 14 tons up to 1,104 tons and spans out to 100 feet, with the 3 to 8 inch sizes taking Schedule 80 pipe. The aluminum caps, from about $1,064 a cap, fit NPS Schedule 80 6061-T6 aluminum pipe in 2.5 to 4 inch sizes up to a 20 foot length for a lighter beam a crew can carry. Either way you can cut and drill the pipe yourself or order it from Tandemloc already cut, painted, WLL marked, and certified. One set of caps plus a few pipe lengths replaces what a whole rack of fixed beams would otherwise cost.

Forklift beams: lift without a crane. Three beams here hang the load from a lift truck instead of a crane hook. The telescopic forklift lifting beam rates 5,000 lb, from about $5,883; the forklift multi-pick spreader beam rates 10,000 lb, from about $6,132; and the forklift spreader bar with multiple padeyes rates 12,000 lb at about $15,634, its row of padeyes letting the pick point shift over an off-center load. Two cautions apply to all three. The truck's rated capacity at that load center governs the lift, not the beam's number, and a loaded beam pushes the effective load center well out in front of the forks. And OSHA 1910.178 treats a capacity-affecting attachment as a modification that needs the truck maker's written approval and an updated data plate.

The ISO container spreader. Container work has its own beam. The ISO container spreader locks into the box's ISO 1161 corner castings with a 90 degree twist-lock turn and lifts vertically from all four corners, which is how those fittings are built to be loaded, instead of dragging slings through the castings at an angle. It comes in three models, from about $9,544: a 20 foot box rated 52,900 lb, a 20 foot box rated 67,200 lb, and a convertible version that handles both 40 and 20 foot containers at 67,200 lb. Match the model to the boxes you actually move, and buy the convertible only if your yard runs both lengths.