Second Floor Shop

[Douglas Johnson]

There's been some discussion regarding second floor shops. Mine is just being finished. The major tools moved in this morning. It all went smooth as silk.

Here is a picture of my jointer on a forklift:

french doors and balcony were designed for just this use. I had considered some sort of barn-like beam and hoist -- the framing is re-enforced for hold it. But SWMBO vetoed any permanent beam jutting out and the engineering was getting kind of complex.

In the end, renting a forklift seemed to be the best solution. It's kind of pricy, so I won't be doing it everyday.

-- Doug

[Joe_Stein]

Nice forklift. That's what you're showing, Right? :-) Joe

[GeeDubb]

You could have put an I beam on rollers with a rolling winch that you could retract into the shop. I did this in my 2nd floor shop and it works well. Yes, the engineering was tricky. I used scissor trusses (2/12 inside pitch) to help get the beam up higher and out of the way.

here is a link to the rollers I'm talking about. I had some special brackets made to distribute the load over several trusses