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Bending forks from a forklift question

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Justin SE IOWA

Member
I have forks and a mast off a forklift. I welded the mast to a plate so I can use them on my little skid loader. One fork is bent down a couple inches. I plan to hook a big heavy duty come along from top of the fork to the end of the fork and heat the 90* bend with a rosebud until it bends back straight. Will this make the fork lose the temper? My skid loader is small and only has a lifting capacity of 800lbs so that would only mean 400 lbs per fork anyway. Any other thought of straightening it out?
 
It will loose it's temper, but if your only going to
lift that much it will probly be ok depending on how
heavy they were originally. Some pics of what you
are working with would help a lot.
 
How are you going to lift the mast if you only have 800 lbs lifting?
Oh probably the headstock not the mast. If its bent at the tip you
can get them cold pressed back. Heating to soften it enough to
bend will ruin the strength of the forks by annealling the steel. You
might be able to do some flame bending which is below the
annealing temp but it takes patience. It basically uses the steel
growth with temp as a little jack to bend the other steel instead of
heating it up and bending it all at once.
 
I got a couple from our local scrapper. Of course
one was bent down a little. I welded a piece of
steel on the back of the low one to wedge it out
level. I just got the forks. So I welded up a 2"
square rectangle and put the hooks on the back to
fit our quick tach JD loader. Then welded the forks
to 4" of 2 1/2" tubing that was slipped over the top
2" tube. You can space them together to almost 36"
It will lift almost 2000 lb. 2X1/4 tubing is plenty
stout.
 
Hi Justin, here is an alternate method that the
fellow that used to do all my Dad's welding:
he would determine where the bend was and take the
cutting torch and cut a trench on the upper side
of the bend of about 1/4 of the depth of the
material, then put pressure down on top of the
trench until fork is straight. Now take the angle
grinder an clean up the trench and weld the trench
closed.
Using this method the temper is only remove from a
small part of the fork.

JimB
 
If I do heat them and bend them back straight is there a proper way to let them cool slowly? Wrap insulation around them? I don't know if it matters? Whats your thoughts?
 
I would get the elbow of the fork magnafluxed. Because the forks develop hairline cracks at the elbow. We replaced a many a fork due to hair line cracks. We were not allowed to heat or bend forks where I worked. We had the furnaces to heat treat them too. But the company didn't want to take the liability in their hands.
Best advice I will give you is to just replace the fork. Because you may not be the only one whom may use them.
 
For that it won't make much difference, just don't quick cool them by dumping cold sand or water on them.
 
With OHSA it's a BIG no no to do any heating, welding, cutting or even drilling a hole in the end of the forks to attach a clevis for pulling things like pallets to where you can reach them. See if a shop can straighten them cold and it's not a bad to have them Magna-fluxed or ultrasonic tested to look for hairline cracks.
 
If you're going to heat the fork anyway, why not just heat the top side with a rosebud put a little pressure on the fork and let it straighten as it cools off. Either way if the fork was used on a job site it would need to straightened cold or replaced.
 
Depending on what type of steel its made of, and you will need to know this before attempting to straighten the fork...heat it to 600*F then pull it back past where it needs to be and hold it there in place, maintain the 600* heat for about 3 hours before cooling gradually. This should work, but no guarenties, it could break like a tooth pick if you get it to hot and cool it to fast.
 
There's a small consignment auction near me that has almost new forks every sale.I think they come from a local factory.Some still have the original
stickers not even wore off.They sell for around 150 per set.I've changed all my bent ones over.
 
I help teach a class on forklift safety for the
company I work for. Best thing to do is throw that
fork in the scrap pile and buy another one.
 
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