Shuttlelift completes customized order for Sabre

US-based mobile gantry crane manufacturer Shuttlelift has delivered two custom-made DB 30 double-beam mobile gantry cranes to Sabre Industries, one each for its operations in Sioux City, Iowa, and Alvarado, Texas.

Sabre Industries provides highly engineered structures used for electric transmission and distribution, wireless communications, renewable energy, and government and defence infrastructure. As a tower and pole manufacturer, Sabre must be able to move sheet steel that will eventually be bent into an octagonal tapered shape. The sheets can be up to 60 ft (18 m) in length, 12 ft (3.6 m) wide and half an inch (1.25 cm) thick. Before installing the mobile gantry cranes, the company was using forklifts for material handling.

Sabre needed a safer, more efficient way to move the plate steel, particularly at its new, 150-acre greenfield site in Iowa.

Installing the mobile gantry crane also enabled Sabre to minimize its aisle size: the forklifts required approximately 30-ft-wide (9 m) aisles. The gantry needed just 7 ft (2 m).

The two units were custom-made using an existing supplier at Sabre’s facilities, Walker Magnetics. Shuttlelift was willing to work with the supplier to provide a magnet package for Sabre’s new machines.

In addition to the magnet package, the Shuttlelift DB 30s also feature increased gradeability, a cold-start engine package, operator cab air-conditioning and heating, work and drive lights, and a sound suppression kit.