A wall mounted jib crane rotates through about 200 degrees and sends its load into the building column or wall. A floor mounted jib rotates a full 360 degrees and sends its load into a concrete foundation or a reinforced slab. That one difference settles most of what follows: coverage area, foundation work, structural review, and how long installation takes. Power and Motion sells and installs Gorbel jib cranes across metro Atlanta, and the mount question gets answered before capacity or span on nearly every job.
Rotation And Coverage Area Set The Baseline
Gorbel work station jibs handle up to 200 degrees of rotation when column or wall mounted and up to 360 degrees when floor mounted. A wall mounted boom sweeps a half circle in front of the wall. A floor mounted boom sweeps a full circle around its mast, which is why free standing jibs get overlapped in machining and assembly areas so one crane hands off to the next for staged operation.
Coverage is the first filter. A lift that only ever happens at a bench along a wall does not need 360 degrees, and paying for a foundation to get rotation that is never used is wasted money. A lift that serves two or three work stations arranged around a point needs the full circle, and a wall mount cannot deliver it.
Wall Mounted Jib Cranes Put The Load On The Building
Wall and column mounted jibs come in two forms. A wall cantilever jib (Gorbel's WSJ200 in the enclosed track line) carries the boom on a rigid knee brace, which keeps the area under the boom clear for maximum trolley travel. A wall bracket jib (the AL100 aluminum wall mounted jib) carries the boom from a bracket and tie rod. The aluminum enclosed track on the AL100 is lighter than steel, which makes the boom easier to swing by hand.
The trade is that the wall or column carries every pound of thrust and pull the crane generates. Before a wall mount gets ordered, someone has to confirm the column or wall can take that load at the mounting height. In an older Atlanta plant with light steel columns or block walls, that review often sends the job toward a floor mount instead. In a newer tilt-up or heavy-steel building, a wall mount can go in with no foundation work at all, which shortens installation and avoids cutting the slab.
Wall mounts suit a few recurring situations.
- A single work cell along an exterior or interior wall
- A column line where the boom can serve machines on either side within 200 degrees
- Buildings where the slab cannot be cut for a foundation, such as leased space or floors with in-slab utilities
Floor Mounted Jib Cranes Need A Foundation Or A Thick Slab
Free standing jib cranes are Gorbel's most versatile line. They sit under large bridge cranes, in open floor areas serving several stations, outdoors at loading docks, and in machining and assembly operations. The structural trade is the foundation. A standard free standing I-beam jib bolts to a poured foundation sized for the capacity and span, which means an engineered footing, anchor bolts, and cure time before the crane goes up.
Gorbel's foundationless jibs and freestanding tool jibs avoid the poured footing but still require a 6 inch reinforced concrete floor per Gorbel's published requirements. A core sample or construction drawings settle whether the existing slab qualifies. If the slab is thinner or unreinforced, the choice is back to a poured foundation or a different mount.
Gorbel's free standing design makes the install itself straightforward once the footing is ready. Full triangular base plate gussets replace struts to limit deflection. The head assembly installs separately from the boom through a bolted head and boom connection, which lets the pivot sit close to the underside of the lowest overhead obstruction and keeps headroom for the hoist. An enclosed bottom entry collector in the head allows power to be added to the hoist for 360 degree rotation at purchase or later.
The Mast Type Jib Sits Between The Two
A mast type jib stands on the floor and is stabilized at the top of the mast by existing building structure, so it rotates 360 degrees without a special foundation. Gorbel builds it in two styles: the MT400 full cantilever for maximum lift under available headroom, and the MT450 drop cantilever, which drops the boom to clear an overhead obstruction. Self aligning radial bushings at the top and bottom of the mast handle rotation, and the design exerts the least force of any Gorbel jib on its supporting structure. Gorbel describes it as the most cost effective of its 360 degree rotation jib styles.
Three conditions have to be true before a mast type jib is the right call.
- Adequate structural support exists at the top of the mast
- If the jib sits under a crane runway or building truss, that member deflects no more than 1/2 inch
- Overhead clearance exists for the pivot assembly and for the boom to rotate
Where those conditions hold, a mast type jib gets full circle coverage into a building with no footing and no slab cut. Where they do not, the free standing jib is the fallback.
Enclosed Track Or I-Beam Changes The Effort To Move It
Mount style and track style get decided together. Gorbel's enclosed track work station jibs (WSJ360 floor mounted, WSJ200 wall cantilever, AL100 wall bracket, and the TSJ50 and TSJ150 tool jibs) weigh less and rotate more easily than I-beam jibs. The cold formed track keeps its rolling surface clean, and a 2 degree taper in the lower flange centers the trolley and extends wheel life. Trolley wheels are DURACOMP 4, a food grade material that outlasted steel wheels in Gorbel's endurance and destructive testing.
I-beam jibs cover the heavier end. A plant moving dies, fixtures, or coils at a single station typically lands on a free standing I-beam jib with a powered hoist, where the stiffer boom and poured foundation earn their place.
Hoist Weight And Impact Are Already In The Rating
Every Gorbel jib on the Power and Motion line is pre-engineered for powered hoists. A factor of 15 percent of the jib capacity is allowed for the hoist, trolley, and below the hook device, and another 25 percent is allowed for impact at hoist speeds up to 50 feet per minute. A 1,000 pound jib is rated to lift 1,000 pounds with the hoist hanging on it, not 1,000 pounds minus the hoist. Hoist trolleys are included in the base price of the work station jibs.
That matters for the mount decision because the structural load a wall or foundation sees includes the hoist and impact allowances. The engineering review uses the full crane rating, not just the heaviest part being lifted.
What To Have Ready Before Requesting A Quote
A jib crane quote moves faster when the mount question has the facts behind it. The useful items are the heaviest load including any below the hook tooling, the reach needed from the mounting point to the farthest pick, the degrees of rotation the work actually requires, slab thickness and reinforcement if known, and the size and spacing of nearby columns. Photos of the proposed location with a tape measure in frame save a site visit on simpler jobs.
Power and Motion handles the structural review, foundation design, and crane installation out of Acworth, GA, as a long time Gorbel dealer and installer. The Gorbel jib crane line covers work station, free standing, and mast type jibs, and larger coverage areas are handled with Gorbel free standing cranes when a single rotating boom is not enough. Call 770-529-0418 or use the contact form to get a mount recommendation and quote for a specific bay.
