Unistrut Trolley for Lathe/Mill Tooling Handling?

Alan H.

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I want a small hoist over my lathe and mill. I am looking for examples of a trolley made of Unistrut. The trolley can be equipped with an electric wench or small chain fall.

I have a 1340 lathe and a knee mill with some heavy tooling like an 8" 4 jaw scroll chuck, BS-1 indexer, and 8" rotary table. There is likely more to come if I can find a solution for handling this heavy stuff without a hernia or back surgery included.

Fortunately the layout of the machines is such that one ceiling mounted trolley 10 ft. long could serve both lathe and mill. I am imagining a lightweight electric hoist or small chain fall on the trolley above these machines. The design capacity could be limited to 250 pounds. I have a ceiling height of 10 feet.

So any photos and insights you can offer would be very much appreciated.
 
Wouldn't unistrut bend too easily.
I would think either a square tube or an I beam would be better than something that is U shaped. It's too easy for the unclosed section to either bow in, or bow out.

On the idea side, are you looking for something that can swing around. I saw a nice setup in a basement shop a few years ago. The guy had a 12" rotary , he had a center point, and toward the outside he had a rail to support the arm. Then the trolley was on the rail.. Super clean , super rigid no risk of it coming down.
I will see if I can search it up. I don't think it will be easy. But what a nice setup.
 
My hoist system was made with angle iron track 2.5 x 1/4 inch material and held to the ceiling into the rafters with lag screws. I used a chain fall
hoist, 1/2 ton I think it is by Ingersoll-Rand. It lifts my 12 inch rotary table or 8 inch Kurt vise with ease and the unneeded piece is set on
a rollable table with three levels on it so it is easyP1020100.JPGP1020103.JPG to get stuff out of the way. I would seriously recommend a chain fall hoist since they have
to run up and down and will not drop something with serious consequences. The ceiling hook is hooked to the green piece of
channel which can't slip off the track. The home made trolley rollers on the green piece are inserted into the end of the track and
held in place securely so it is locked on to the track.
P1020101.JPGP1020102.JPG


The track is about 7 feet long so one can pick up something from the mill table and roll it away and place something else on the
rolling table. Hopefully my photography is good enough so you can see how the trolley was put together. If you need more
details or photos, feel free to ask and I will do my best to comply. Good luck. It is a very worthwhile improvement to the shop.
 
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I used "barn door" channel and a pair of modified barn door trolleys to mount a Harbor Freight winch to the trusses in my garage. I use it to lift heavy items up onto my work bench, lifting the front of my lawn tractor to put jack stands under it when working on the deck, etc. Winch is rated for 440 pounds straight line.

Mounting is via 3/8 threaded rod into 2x4's across 4 trusses to spread the weight out.

Youtube Video of Winch
 
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Check out this site Alan. I'm planning on building two of them for my new space that will cover all of the Machine area. should be pretty easy to put together, and not eat up any floor space. Mike

:dunno:
 
I used "barn door" channel and a pair of modified barn door trolleys to mount a Harbor Freight winch to the trusses in my garage. I used it to lift heavy items up onto my work bench, lifting the front of my lawn tractor to put jack stands under it when working on the deck, etc. Winch is rated for 440 pounds straight line.

Mounting is via 3/8 threaded rod into 2x4's across 4 trusses to spread the weight out.

Youtube Video of Winch
I did exactly the same thing, one over my 19" lathe and one over my #2 B&S mill; much easier on the back!
 
Here's video from a supplier of parts and pieces. The stuff is plenty stout enough for 250 pound design spec.

EDIT: Here's Unistrut's engineering catalog
 

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  • Unistrut-No-17-General-Engineering-Catalog.pdf
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I have some unistrut that I bought at Home Depot about 10 years ago. But the stuff they have at HD and lowes around here now, I would not trust.
 
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