Last Saturday I rigged my old 8 inch drill press onto a heavy duty shelf bracket I found at a garage sale for 5 bucks. It's been sitting on a milk crate since I moved into my garage on Maple Street back in 2021. Bolted it into the studs with some lag screws I had lying around and now I got my workbench space back. Anyone else use bracket mounts instead of building a full cabinet?
Last Monday I spent 3 hours rigging my 12 inch mitre saw to a fold down plywood table on the garage wall. Tuesday morning I got to the first cut and the whole thing sagged forward because I used cheap L brackets from the hardware store. By Thursday I had rebuilt it twice using some 2x4s I found in the scrap pile and now it holds solid. The lesson was I should have just started with wood instead of metal brackets. Has anyone else had a mount fail on them right when you needed it most?
Last month I got tired of my drill press taking up floor space so I rigged it to an overhead 2x6 using a $12 pulley kit and some rope. Expected it to sag or crack the wood but after a week it's still solid as a rock. Now I just crank it up when I need the bench clear. Has anyone else tried ceiling mounting heavy tools like this or am I asking for trouble down the line?
So I was at the Pasadena Home Depot last Saturday grabbing some grade 8 bolts for a welding cart build. Older dude in a stained Carhartt sees me loading up and just walks over. He goes 'you gonna lift that mill with 550 cord and a prayer?' I laughed. But then he dead serious pulls out his phone and shows me a photo of a Bridgeport hanging from two Harbor Freight 1500lb winches bolted to his garage ceiling. Said he's been doing it for 4 years and no issues. Meanwhile I spent 3 hours building a gantry out of unistrut and 4x4s. Has anyone else actually trusted those little winches with something heavy? I keep thinking about that photo.
I finally hung my 60 lb bench grinder from the ceiling using one of those $12 pulleys from Harbor Freight. Took me like 20 mins to rig it with some scrap rope I had in a bucket. The pulley actually holds steady even when I bang the grinder around. Anyone else use a cheap pulley for heavy tools or am I gonna come home to a hole in my floor someday?
Had a long talk with my uncle Mike who works at a rigging company. He told me those $5 harbor freight straps are fine for light stuff but once you hit 300 pounds they start slipping. He showed me how the cheap buckles bend after a few uses. I had a 400 pound drill press hanging from two of those straps for 6 months. Now I'm switching to cam buckle straps that cost like $12 each. Has anyone else had a strap fail on them or am I just being paranoid now?
I had my 50 pound bench grinder hanging from a cheap pulley I rigged up last fall. It worked fine until last Saturday when I went to lower it and the rope snapped right at the knot. The grinder dropped about 4 feet and cracked the concrete floor in my garage. No damage to the tool luckily, but it scared me enough to rethink the whole setup. What kind of rope are you guys using for overhead storage that doesn't break the bank but actually holds up?
I've been telling people for years that locking casters are a waste of money on a 400lb cart if you park it right. Tuesday I was moving a bunch of lumber around and bumped the cart just wrong. It slid about 3 feet then tipped hard to the left. My miter saw stand got knocked over and a blade guard broke off. Took me like 4 hours to get everything back together and level again. Anyone else been burned by cheap casters or am I the only one who learned this the hard way?
Everyone says pulleys are the way to go for lifting heavy tools into place, but after fighting with rope slip and alignment for an hour, I grabbed a $25 come-along from Harbor Freight. I just hooked it to a ceiling joist and cranked the press up by myself in under 10 minutes. Has anyone else ditched the "proper" method for something janky that just worked better?