The Saga of Big Red; the little jack stand that could!
 

The following documentation is about a much maligned aluminum jack stand structure known as Big Red ("BR"). I am not debating whether BR has acceptable properties for its intended purpose such as horizontal stability or load holding capacity. Each individual must make that judgment based on their experience, knowledge, perception and gut feeling, and being new to the game I'll admit it's been a difficult decision whether or not to work under a car with precious little ground clearance!

In the end the desire to perform my own work and have that feeling of a job well done has overcome my fear of the work area itself, but I have taken what I consider to be the necessary precautions by building my own jacks.

Now back to BR, or what I call the Little Jack Stand That Could!

I took BR to a testing lab here in Seattle that has on site a hydraulic press capable of producing 300 tons of force (600,000 lbs). Now even BR cannot withstand that kind of pressure but I think you may be surprised at what the little fellow can handle. Kindly read on.

The operator, the machine, and BR. Note that BR is not crapping his aluminum pants even as his fate awaits. I must admit he looks small and helpless.
http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4060/...8a1db804_b.jpg

A paltry 1,070 lbs
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3584/...213a92c8_b.jpg

A few minutes later and BR is napping under 10,470 lbs
http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4048/...7a3d9f3a_b.jpg

BR yawns at 15,380lbs
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3231/...95af8e89_b.jpg

BR starts to break a sweat at 21,810 lbs
http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4003/...2dd48906_b.jpg

The little fellow finally throws the towel in at a whopping 23,550 lbs!!!
http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4019/...5c5f5c13_b.jpg

Even so he still looks pretty good after having 23,550lbs on his head. Notice the aluminum has started to deform underneath the pin.
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3657/...94989e30_b.jpg

This would seem to indicate you could stack six 3,300lb Z's nose to tail on a single BR if you had to.

The conclusion I've drawn is that I will use a couple BR's as backups to my wooden stands and feel exceedingly safe.

nice follow up, didn't expect them to handle that much

Where did all this anti BR stuff start?

:tup: Yet another rep point to man who follows through! Damn.

+rep

well done + rep. good to see someone take negativity with a grain of salt and test things to the absolute limit.

+rep

Awesome thread. You can go months here and not see a great unique thread like this.....

that's pretty impressive. i think for me, the fear wasn't in how much weight it can handle, it just seems to have a small footprint. its not likely that your car would move back and forth, but i like larger platforms with larger footprints for balance and safety.

Not surprising. Column strength is very high in such a short structure. Did you do the tests at maximum height of the stand? The taller it is the easier it will buckle. However it looks as though the pin will fail before buckling anyway.

The sideways stability to me would be more worrisome than the column load. Although this unit seems pretty nice to me. I think those that look down their nose at it are a little uninformed. Thanks for the interesting post.

I never doubted the rated capacity of that stand. What I DON"T like is the base design that would seem to offer little lateral stability. Used on anything but an absolutely flat and stable base with absolutely NO potential of the car being nudged and you're probably OK..

I wouldn't buy those, but they are pretty.....:tup:

nice going binto! :)

+1.

Good thread, though. +1 rep!

what an adorable little jack stand, they should make a cartoon about this.

LOL......I would just turn them into 4th of July Mortar launchers........:tup:

http://images24.fotki.com/v872/photo...MG_1480-vi.jpg

Nevermind, cartoon complete.

http://i250.photobucket.com/albums/g...ejackstand.jpg