Anybody bolted a pickup truck crane to their Bridgeport?

Sounds like it's time to rearrange the shop and put the Bridgeport and lathe back to back and share the rear mounting point on the Bridgeport for both machines.

Interesting idea.

But it'd be tough to make that work though because my 28ft x 30ft shop doubles as a hangar for my helicopter and I have to leave the middle of the floor open.

My mill, lathe, welding booth, toolboxes, benches, gantry, cherry picker, drill press, 12in sander, vertical and horizontal band saws all line the walls. It all goes together like a jigsaw puzzle. I'm trying to figure out where to put my pedestal grinder which currently resides in my attached garage! :)
 
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The 4" floor I would view as a non-issue. Most of your load is going to be at the top wall attachment point. I would take a short piece of micro-lam/LVL and span 2-3 studs at your top attachment point and lag it into your 2x6 studs. Cheers, Mike

Hi Mike

Your comments got me to thinking about "pull-out capacity" of lag screws in wood.

I Googled it and found a chart of various size lag screws in various species of wood. It's copyright protected or I would post it here, but I'm sure you can find the same thing if interested. It's published by Zilla (www.zillarac.com).

The highest strength combination in the chart is a 3/8" lag screw, 1" depth into Southern pine, and is rated at 451 lbs of pull-out.

With proper anchoring at the floor alone, the typical free-standing jib crane would be able to hold the load with an appreciable margin. Also anchoring to the wall should provide over-kill for the task.
 
Update:

Original Poster here.

I've been deliberating how I wanted to implement a small crane or hoist to mount and demount my 10in rotary table and Kurt D688 vise on my Bridgeport, and to change out chucks on my lathe.

I've scoured the web for ideas, and looked at both Harbor Freight pickup truck cranes, and the Unistrut trolley systems, as well as others. I actually have other lifting devices for heavy lifting, but they don't fit well into the corner where my tools are.

The Skyhook has it's fans, but they're spendy, and I've never seen one in person, so I checked Craigslist for a used one. One popped up in Muskegon, Michigan, and included the cart and counter weight accessory pack. The unit is basically new and unused. Some of the packing material is still attached!

I briefly debated whether to make the 2 1/2 hour drive, each way, but the asking price was $400 which is approx $2000 less than the published asking price at places like MSC. The seller says they bought a couple of them but then consolidated some shops and didn't need two. He agreed that he would hold it long enough for me to drive there.

I met the seller in Muskegon, we loaded it into the back of my SUV, and I am now the proud owner. This may even qualify as a tool gloat! See attached pic.

The only downside is the floor space the cart takes up, in my already crowded 28 x 30ft shop. If I decide I don't like the cart I could probably sell it for most of what I paid for the shooting match, and keep the crane. The crane is easily movable to any place where I have fabricated posts to accommodate it. It also has a bunch of mounting accessories available.

Owning a crane takes all of the fun out of looking for a crane!

New_sky_crane_m.jpg
 
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"Owning a crane takes all of the fun out of looking for a crane!"

I believe that quote is the sign of a true tool-aholic.......

Lornie
 
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