Heavy lifting

First I am a lazy workaholic. Pardon me if this has already been addressed somewhere else, but in my brief search I didn't find it (I'm lazy). I am in excellent shape, but I know my limits. I need to come up with an easy way to lift my fermenters 4' up on to the True cooler. I have a block and tackle, but that's 20' of rope for 4' in elevation gain. Also, with the B/T there is no way to take a beer break half way. I am hoisting 10-15 gallons at a time.

Anyone have a good idea of how to permenately rig up some lazy man's crain system in the garage? I have limited space to work with because of my hobbies/tools/bikes/beer has to compete with the wife's car.

Thanks.

Towing winch suspended from a beam in the ceiling

A low tech way would be a sailing fiddle block with a cam cleat built in.. You can stop whenever you want but youd still have that 20 ft of rope... Come to think of it at about $125 a winch isnt much more expensive

arzie said:

Anyone have a good idea of how to permenately rig up some lazy man's crain system in the garage?
Thanks.

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Good idea, don't know

The winch slides on the track close to 8'.





Cheers,
ClaudiusB

Check out my invisible sculpture thread in my sig. My hoist isn't nearly as complicated as Claudius', but it also only cost me ~$70.

A March pump....you could use it for recirculating wort as well as pumping into fermenters...

Here's what I did..

may want to skip to about 3:40 in the first video cause up until them I'm just goofing off..

Part 1



Part 2

I it not safe to use a winch for a hoist. The reason is that winches do not have locking mechanisms to positively hold the line.

An electric hoist is only $120.
http://www.harborfreight.com/880-lb-electric-hoist-44006.html

A manual hoist is only $45.
http://www.harborfreight.com/1-ton-chain-hoist-996.html

My in-laws use the electric hoist for skinning and butchering deer. It has worked very well for them.

Instead of buying a winch you could just install a wheel and make a homemade pully with your rope. Tie it down with some blocks or if you have weights around.

hand crank boat winch?

shortyjacobs said:

Check out my invisible sculpture thread in my sig. My hoist isn't nearly as complicated as Claudius', but it also only cost me ~$70.

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+1 on Jacobs idea. I went to HF for a cheap engine hoist, works great

cfrazier77 said:

I it not safe to use a winch for a hoist. The reason is that winches do not have lacking mechanisms to positively hold the line.

An electric hoist is only $120.
http://www.harborfreight.com/880-lb-electric-hoist-44006.html

A manual hoist is only $45.
http://www.harborfreight.com/1-ton-chain-hoist-996.html

My in-laws use the electric hoist for skinning and butchering deer. It has worked very well for them.

Click to expand...

This is true, a winch does not have a positive locking mechanism that a hoist does. But I find that the winch works fine for short lifting as the gear mechanism is enough to stop whatever I'm lifting from falling. It's not perfect but it works just fine for short lifting. I wouldn't trust it for holding up a heavy load for a long amount of time especially if I was under that load, but I find that it works okay up to a couple 100 pounds and does not slip. To me it wasn't worth the extra money to buy a hoist when I could just buy a winch. I just make sure no one could get hurt if anything fell.

shortyjacobs said:

To me it wasn't worth the extra money to buy a hoist when I could just buy a winch. I just make sure no one could get hurt if anything fell.

Click to expand...

and if you were spending the money, why not just buy a pump?