let's chat!

I'm working up to a crane'n'hoist for the shop. After pricing a pedestal, floor-standing jib crane with manual push-pull trolley and manual chain hoist (too expensive!! $4K with the foundation), I've decided to go with a custom-made A-frame, with an I-beam cross bar, a manual push-pull trolley and a 220 V electric chain hoist.

I need a 2-ton capacity (for that Cat D7 engine!-).

Do you have any design details you'd like to share? I'm figuring on a 15' span (the I-beam) and about an 8' stance (the A's), with no wheels under the legs, but with square steel plate feet. I can always slide a wheel assembly under each foot of each A.

Would you design the Crane to be disassembled or as one piece?

Any other shop suggestions before I pour that concrete slab?

For example, I'm thinking of setting 3 or 4 big-ass eye-rings every 4' - 5' into the floor, the kind that can be "folded down" and recessed into the floor, so I'll have points to hook chains and cables when I need a pull-point.

Would you pour the floor very slightly concave (sloping to the center), with or without drains?

Would you pour a foundation for a big-ass vise?

What else?

Figure if you could start all over again and design the ultimate modestly-priced shop, what would trip your trigger?

If nothing else, get the catalog and use the picture for a guide. However, eventhough $1200 might be hard to swallow, you gain the advantage of getting an engineered product. If you equate the cost of buying with the cost of recuperating from an accident caused from a home-made failure, it's a pretty easy decision.

I design, weld, rig and monkey on my own all that I can. But I never get under any lifting device that I make. I've never had a failure, but I can't predict when I will either.

Good luck.

Depending on how you are intending to use your hoist and the construction of your shop this might be a lower clost way to go. What you lose is a sliding trolley hoist....what you gain is a big portable hoist that can be rigged to any overhead point of SUITABLE strength. So you might want to do some lookups in ibeam indexes and such. CM makes a 1/2 ton and 1 ton motor that are liftable by one man. The 1 ton can be rigged double purchase with a block hook to give it a 2 ton lift.

Good Luck

Kim Hartshorn