Low Profile Overhead Shop Bridge Crane

[starlight_tools]

(07-23-2012, 07:32 PM)NevadaBlue Wrote: I've admired that crane you linked to for a long time.

I set up this old antique (matches me ) to set my mill and just left it in place as a stationary overhead place to mount stuff. But one like it could be made to roll around the shop. This one was actually intended for that. It has very heavy duty metal wheeled casters. It has a WWII vintage Manufacturer's label on it. Depending on your shop layout, something like this could work too.



Here you can see the wheels...

I have all the material to make a gantry crane sitting in the steel pile, 6" x 20 foot I-Beam and a bunch of tubing. Even have the 4 heavy duty castors. Only problem is that I have absolutely no floor space in the shop and only 8 feet of headroom. Oh and the lights hang down below that. Other problem is that my parking lot is sloped towards the road, by about 2 to 3 feet over 50 feet. Makes for interesting times.

I do have a 2 Ton Cherry Picker I made when I was in Millwright school, a few years ago (OK so more than a few years), and it does good outside. Just hook it to a winch so I can control gravity on the sloped lot.

Eventually the plan is to put a radial Jib crane in, or make a runway on either side of the parking lot for a gantry crane to travel on.

This hoist is more to wisk the small stuff and maybe not so small stuff around the cluttered shop where the mystical floor is no longer visible.

Walter