That was me that said that, really it was, actually, it's gotten to be a way of life. Also, I have a Craftsman wooden creeper (remember them) that has got to have a quarter inch of dust on it, reasonably easy to get down on it.....getting up off it is another story. Cardboard and moving blankets are your friend!
Dammit man… 7,700 miles away, and every time I pick up something off the floor I remember that post. The HAMB has some strong juju cheers, Harv
Have bad knees Have a hard time kneeling and getting up and down Found this in a local garden shop the side bars help getting up and down Turn it over and you have a stool
Worst investment I ever made was installing storage trusses and pull down stairs when I built my garage about twenty years ago. I haven’t been up there for over a year, and dread going up there to empty it up. Should have taken the money those trusses and that aluminum pull down cost and slightly increased the footprint instead.
Setting a 2 post lift to lift a car got too hard for me. All that getting down and back up to make sure the arms were where I wanted them got to be a problem. Bought a drive on lift with a rolling bridge jack and love it.
I carry modern small flashlight. It uses Sure Fire batteries. Drop something on floor. Get down shine the light at floor level find lots of dropped items.
I'm geezeretting my garage. SWMBO needs a ramp, as even a couple of steps have become difficult for her. So I'm cleaning up stuff, and got the trailer out and inspected. Next some lumber and fasteners and me and the neighbor are going to build a ramp to fit. And I'm not going to complain either. My knees aren't the best anymore. Going to check out a 4 post as well. Maybe in the spring...
alchemy I think you coined a new word, geezerism , I LIKE IT!!!!. however I wanna know what are the symptoms and how old you got to be to get it?
I don't have stairs to deal with moving/storing parts. Ground level both upper garage and lower garage/cellar, its the stairs up to the house living area. Been looking at how to add railings, might have to go half way and swap sides. Any ideas?
Great stuff here. This getting old stuff with bad knees, back, etc. is certainly challenging. But I recently lost a buddy at 50 years old with a young family and a collection of cool stuff. I have since decided to be happy to get old.
When my wife and I bought "this place" 15 years ago I was a youngster at 65. My mother in law who was in her 70's said something about a railing going to the basement walk out garage. Not a bad idea so I put in a railing. A few years later as I got into my mid 70's I decided to put a hand rail to go upstairs in the shop (I am lucky...I have a 40x50 shop that is two levels). I never needed handrails when we moved here, but now I use them all the time. I don't have enough headspace for a lift with 10 foot ceilings so part of my "physical therapy" is getting up and down from the floor. It has gotten harder but it forces me to work a little harder. I hope it works in the long haul.
If I do end up building a shop in my upcoming retirement, it'll be a steel building tall enough for a storage mezzanine. It'll have stairs, but I'm also thinking if I position my lift close enough to the mezzanine I can also utilize the lift as an elevator for items too heavy or bulky to walk up/down stairs. Make a removable, solid fitted floor/platform for the lift, roll on the load, then lift it up. A section of the mezzanine railing will be a solid steel plank that drops down on the lift platform like a drawbridge. Then you can roll the load on or off to complete the upload or download without any lifting or stairs. If I build the shop with a side door or deep enough for a back wall mezzanine, I could conceivably back my loaded pickup onto a 4 post, raise it up, drop the tailgate so the bed floor is at mezzanine floor height and slide or roll the cargo straight on/off the mezzanine.
This sounds like a novel idea to me. Having both a 4-post lift and a mezzanine, I think it would take some careful designing to be fully practical. Experience has shown me that you want quite a bit of space around your lift or you run into problems. This means that the "drawbridge" would need some serious engineering to get it right. Other than that, I see three minor problems. First, for me anyway, backing a loaded pickup onto a lift sounds like a recipe for disaster. Second, it probably violates all of the local building codes. Third, I was able to accumulate too much junk just carrying stuff up the stairs; I hate to think of the amount you could accumulate hauling it in by the truckload.
Are you sure the lift will go high enough to get the truck bed as high or higher than the second floor mezzanine? While I like to see people put some thought into how to make a shop more "usable", I think you will find that a set of pallet racking along a back wall will hold more treasures than a second floor mezzanine. A mezzanine will require strength to support heavier items. A pallet rack goes up easier and will hold a lot of heavy stuff. A simple roll around ladder provides easy access but yes you have steps......but they have handrails as well. I just received my radiator the other day. It's brass and was in a big box. I put it on the handrails and pushed it up a step at a time.....then slid it on to the pallet rack till I'm ready to install it. Usually I try to put lighter things higher up. It also makes it easier to see where things are stored and even remember that I already have something I forgot about. Lots of steel scraps on one shelf that I can see the various shapes and sizes and reach up and grab something for a current need. With a mezzanine you wouldn't store this stuff because it gets heavy quick and you have to go upstairs just to look at what might be there. I'm not trying to criticize your ideas, just trying to suggest that when you can stand in your shop and look around you and see whats available, thats hard to beat. I remember a friend of mine when we were both very young and he built a quadlevel home. After a few years he complained that he couldn't go anywhere without having to climb stairs. My opinion is to try to optimize what you can do with minimal climbing......and minimal crawling. Here are some pictures from my shop. Yep I'm a hoarder, but this is my home away from home..."my toybox"so to speak! Click on the pics for a better view............. Think about it.......if I stored all of these parts up on a mezzanine, how many times would I have to go up there to get something or check on something? So my suggestion is to utilize all the wall space above 6' that's going to waste in most shops.
Not sure if this is geezer-izing, or just me being plain lazy. I have a small single car shop that always tends to have a car and a half in it There is enough room to move around stuff and use the workbench, but not enough room to work on fabrication or anything large. I tend to work a lot under the nearby carport, or failing that in the open driveway. Seems I'm always running air and power leads out of the shop. I bought a retractable air reel and a retractable power reel and mounted them under the peak of my shop roof. They are close to the rollerdoor, high enough that I can't hit them, but low enough that I can grab the end of the hose/lead (stretch up old man... it will do your back good ). The air reel is plumbed into my compressor, and the power reel into a 240V socket. I turn the reel off when I am not using it to lower the chances of a fire. Easy enough to stretch up and grab the hose/lead, sling it over my shoulder and walk to wherever I need to use them. Uses my legs more than my back. A quick pull on the end and they wind themselves up. I had a bad experience with big-box shop retractable garden reels, so spent a little more on industrial grade reels. Ten years in and still working well. I also seem to get distracted easy (attention span of a goldfish), and sometimes forget where I am up to. I walk away from a job for a few hours... and it sometimes turns into a few months. I bought a stack of red Remove Before Flight keytags, and some el-cheapo karabiners to go on them. You can see them hanging in the photo above. If I am halfway through a job and need to leave it then I attach a tag to it. Just like aviation ones, the red tag catches my eye and reminds me to tighten something. Cheers, Harv
Thanks for the compliment. I'm a sweat equity kinda guy. I get bothered by wasting my time hunting for things, and I try to put things in associated locations. Not everything has a specific spot, but it makes things easier if they are on a shelf. Get some pallet racking and you will see how quickly all the things you have to work around suddenly find a new and convenient home. I hate preachin the pallet rack gosphel, but its the godawful truth...become a believer.
That might be in the very near future. Got to make room in the garage for 3 vehicles and lots of stuff. One part of the garage is set up with a lathe, 2 drill presses, an hydraulic press, an antique Sunnen bushing grinder, and some miscellaneous odds and ends. But the whole outside wall, 30 feet long could be set up like you've suggested. Some areas would have the lowest shelf pretty high up to clear workbenches, but with a 9 ft 8 in ceiling, shelves could start at 6 ft up. Hmmm...
If you look closely at the first picture in my original post, You will see that I have pallet racking on my mezzanine. It extends all the way across the back wall. I agree that it is very useful and creates an efficient storage environment.
Depends on how high your outside walls are. Ahhh, pallet-racking *under* the mezzanine, spaced correctly to allow backing the cars up to the wall. Also does dbl-duty holding up the mezzanine, if you lay it out correctly. You need posts anyways, why not add a bit of storage around them too? Marcus...
When buying pallet racking, realize that there are several styles of holes used by different manufacturers, so you have to get beams that match the uprights. Also, different widths. Its gotten more expensive lately, so the best thing to do is comb thru your local Facebook regularly and look for stuff that individuals have. We just picked up a bunch of rails for my neighbor a few weeks ago. For about $300 we got a trailer load of beams. He will have enough to do his whole back wall (40') 14' high............and a bunch left over that he can resell. Probably going to break even if he resells them. That was an exceptional deal. We have 3 uprights and are watching for a 4th. It takes some perseverence (or luck) to find good pricing these days.
I agree Dave. Im thinking if mine looked like that I wouldnt have time to do anything else. Besides if I dont throw tools or parts back on the bench or floor where I found them I cant find them again until I go out and buy a new one.
Regarding pallet racking.....a couple (or???) of years ago the Shopco (sp??) stores in our area were closing and selling fixtures etc. I bought a bunch of odd ball stuff including rusty pallet racks that were outside. I think I had about $50 to $75 in two segments (20 feet) plus on a couple of pallets there were wire racks that were about four feet long. I was buying what else was on the rack but they priced it so good I took it. It turned out those wire racks placed on the pallet rack really worked good to store iron etc. plus water etc just ran through...yeah these are outside. In the deal I got some other racking that we use inside. The point is....watch for store closings there maybe some inexpensive solutions for your storage problems.
I was carrying a cast iron T-10 transmission down the steps when I slipped and fell. Fortunately, the transmission landed on me so it didn't get damaged but I did mess up my shoulder. That happened when I was only about 40 years old, so getting a hoist and working smarter not harder is a good idea at any age.
You're a better man than I. I was able to manhandle the "shoebox" Ford 3-speeds up and down the stairs back then, but couldn't quite make it with the B-W T85's (progenitor of the T10).
...when I was 40 I could throw a Mopar A833 across my shoulder...now I use a hand truck and a small forklift for such endeavours
I've got some pallet racking uprights available, left over from my house roofing project(~`18'-24' x 42". I can cut them to length if you need.). I've also found that you can bolt some different styles together, by lightly drilling out the holes & using 1/2" bolts to secure the rails to the uprights(recommended by the pallet-racking supplier I got them from). Not as easy as properly dropping in matching pieces, but still - safe & strong. Marcus...
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