A 12-Ton Pedestal Crane with a Stone Lifting Clamp in a German Stone Workshop

A customer in Germany runs a red BOB-LIFT SQ12ZA4T knuckle boom crane as a pedestal crane inside a stone workshop. Its 7 photos show the crane lifting a block with a stone lifting clamp, slabs on webbing slings and a saw blade. The floor is wet, and the crane stands between a large saw table, a blue hydraulic power unit with its electric motor and stacks of stone.

In order, the photos show:
1. The crane folded on its round pedestal next to the workshop wall.
2. The crane lifting a slab with a two-leg sling beside the saw table.
3. The crane holding a large circular saw blade on its hook.
4. A stone slab hanging level from a two-leg webbing sling.
5–6. The crane lifting a polished stone slab on four webbing slings.
7. A yellow scissor-type stone lifting clamp on the crane hook, gripping a squared stone block.

Everything below comes from those photos and the crane's spec sheet. Block weights and daily lift counts were not shared, so they are not given here.

The T at the end of SQ12ZA4T marks the marine version: a crane built to stand on a pedestal with its own hydraulic supply rather than on a truck chassis. That is what makes it useful in a workshop. Mounted on a pedestal on the floor, with a separate electric power unit, it slews 360° and reaches the saw table and the stone stacks from one fixed position. There is no truck engine running indoors, and the workshop does not need an overhead crane runway for these lifts.

The SQ12ZA4T is rated at 12,000 kg maximum lifting capacity and 27 t·m maximum lifting moment. It needs 55 L/min of hydraulic flow at 28 MPa, from about 30 kW of recommended power, and weighs 3,900 kg. A pedestal crane of this size passes its full slewing moment into the floor, so the foundation must be designed for that load before installation.

The photos show three different ways of holding a load, and each suits a different job.

A stone lifting clamp suits squared blocks. The scissor clamp in photo 7 closes harder as the load pulls down, so it grips the block without slings passed underneath it. That saves the work of propping the block up to thread a sling, but the clamp must be rated for the block's weight and opening width.

Webbing slings suit slabs. In photos 2 and 4 to 6 the slabs hang level on two or four legs, and soft webbing protects polished faces and edges better than chain.

A plain hook suits tools and machine parts. In photo 3 the crane holds a large circular saw blade, the kind of awkward maintenance lift that is slow and risky by hand.

The clamp in these photos is the customer's own equipment. For bulk material, BOB-LIFT knuckle boom cranes can be fitted with a hydraulic gripper, a clamshell bucket, an orange peel grab or a timber grapple. A customer in Uzbekistan, for example, runs an SQ2ZA2 with a clamshell bucket.

A clamp, a spreader or a set of slings adds its own weight to every lift. When you check a model, add the attachment weight to the heaviest block and read the load chart at the radius where the crane picks it up or puts it down, not at the column. A block that is light enough near the pedestal can be too heavy at the far end of the saw table. The SQ12ZA4T shows the effect clearly: it lifts 12,000 kg at 2.25 m, 3,750 kg at 6.45 m and 2,100 kg at its 10.15 m maximum radius.

The SQ12ZA4T is an earlier model that can still be built to order. Its current equivalent, the SQ12ZA6T, keeps the 12,000 kg and 27 t·m rating and adds more boom sections for longer reach. If you are planning a crane for a stone workshop, a yard or a fixed loading point, send us the heaviest load, the attachment you will use, the reach you need and the power supply on site. We will match a model and check the load chart against your layout.