If your into garages, gadgets, or mechanical things… you’ve got to watch this.

If you plan on doing something similar for your garage, be sure to consult a structural engineer and properly calculate loads to ensure safety.

I also wanted to make a video that demonstrated the value of my trailer lift in a comical way.  I have since repeated this procedure many times.  This has been one of my most gratifying projects to date.

As a woodworker, you gotta have the ability to haul lumber and equipment.  I don’t have a truck.  So, I did the next best thing and bought a trailer.  It’s an awesome trailer.  It can tip pivot (for loading a lawn tractor) and its made from lightweight aluminum.

My wife was surprised by my unannounced quick purchase.  She didn’t see the value in spending $750 for this behemoth.  Thankfully, she has realized it’s value many times over… since being used on many projects around the house.

My Volkswagen Golf GTI VR6 isn’t known as a vehicle for hooking a trailer to, but after a fair bit of effort, I was able to attach a trailer hitch.

For all its benefits, the trailer did cause a very big problem.  Where to put it?  I didn’t want to waste half my garage just to keep my trailer.  Actually, I already had a plan before buying it.  I had decided to hoist the trailer onto my garage ceiling when not in use.  So once I had purchased the trailer… I was committed to engineering a working trailer lift / hoist solution.

Initially I contemplated a manual cranking winch (as you can see in this early sketch), but quickly changed my mind to a motorized hoist.

This is the space above the garage ceiling.  I had to customize a mechanical solution that would fit in this space.  Let the engineering begin!

Luckily, I have experience with many computer graphic tools.  This allowed me to visualize my ideas and confirm the alignment of the cables through the trusses.

For those who might be curious… these renderings were done with 3d studio max and mental ray rendering engine.

Here you can see the engineered trusses of my Pulte built home.  It’s deceptively strong.  Combined with the fact that my trailer is made of aluminum and is only 700 pounds… means my garage ceiling easily carries the load.

The hoist cost me only $70 at harbor freight.  Unfortunately, as you can hear in the above video, the hoist had some broken plastic parts rattling inside the gearbox.  So I had to exchange it and install a replacement which has worked flawlessly since.  Here you can see the hoist and the beefy structure I built to ensure the it wouldn’t come undone from its’ mount.

I used lag bolts to hold most major components together.  Here you can see how I redirect the cable downward through the ceiling at each of the 4 points.

The same pulleys were used to redirect the 4 down points to the single connection at the hoist.

The strongest link in the chain… a single stainless steel ring with a very high weight rating is connected to 4 carabiners and then the 4 cables.  Do you think 3 saddles is overkill for each cable?

This is one of the 4 drop cables just after coming through the ceiling.  I added some rubber coated lead weights to maintain tension on each line when the trailer is detached.  I did this to reduce the chance a cable would fall off a pulley track.

There are 4 additional STATIC lines where I connect the trailer after it has been fully lifted to the ceiling.  Therefore, the trailer has 8 lines connected to it when it is on the ceiling.

Here you can see 2 static lines and 2 pulley lines on the left side of the trailer.

Watch my garage trailer lift video.

Do you have unused attic space?  What are you waiting for?

This is my garage ceiling.  There is a large attic space above it and I am going to install an attic ladder to gain access to it.

Just a couple minor contraints to consider…
1. Limit the total weight of items to be stored.
2. The items must be able to withstand extreme attic temperatures.

I have the makita version of a sawzall (I love makita products).  It was the perfect tool for cutting the hole in the thick drywall.  It was a tricky balancing act while walking around on the trusses.

Attics have excellent storage space!  After finishing the attic ladder, I added insulation, plywood flooring, and fluorescent lighting.  If your like most people and have extra stuff that needs storage space, then you should investigate your attic options.  The effort required to make the space useable is definitely worth it.

Now I’m one step closer to organizing my stuff and insulating my garage.

I find my 12 inch disc sander to be very useful.  It can make quick work out of most sanding jobs.  Ocassionally, I have used it to sand aluminum, steel, and even glass.  I discovered that glass can quickly knock off the abrasive grit from the disc.  I won’t be sanding glass anymore.

Most woodworkers probably already know this, but in my rush to replace the sanding disc, I almost forgot.  There are 2 very important things to remember when replacing a sanding disc.

1. Use a quality brand.  I once used a cheap brand and it was fine until I tried to replace it.  The sticky gum on the back remained on the metal disc and it took a very long time to remove it all!  I have used NORTON successfully and as you can see here, I am trying DEER (I hope this one works well).  I also prefer 80 grit because it is a good multipurpose grit.

2. You should not remove the wax paper entirely and try to apply the sandpaper to the disc.  Because you won’t be able to slip it between the table and the disc without the gum catching the disc before you can align it properly.

I fold the wax paper 1/3 and then slide into place like this.  That way, I can hold the 1/3 sticky section away from the disc until I can get my sandpaper centered on the disc.

Once it is centered I can press the 1/3 sticky section onto the disc.

Then I rotate the disc 180 degrees and pull back the sandpaper so I can grab the wax paper and pull it off.

Press the rest of the sandpaper in place and Bob’s your uncle.

My new drill press was a big improvement over my old 8″ Delta.  It has many great features and didn’t cost too much.  But I soon noticed a problem.

I noticed something strange about the speed chart under the top belt cover.  It represented a 5 tier pulley setup, but the drill actually has a 4 tier pulley.  That made it impossible for me to determine the actual speed of the drill.  I could still judge the relative speed, but not the actual speed and this really bugged me.

I needed a method to measure the speed of my drill press.  I have an oscilloscope  and I realized with a little rigging… I could use it to measure the speed of my drill.

First I coiled some wire on a nail.

I stuck a strong small magnet on the chuck and clamped the coiled nail near the chuck, so that the magnet would spin past the coils of the nail.

Eureka!  Once I hooked up the coiled wire to the oscilloscope and turn on the drill press… The magnet induced a small current in the wire that appeared on my scope.

Now all I needed to do, was to employ my college degree (BSEE) and calculate the RPM of the drill.

I repeated the measurements for the entire range of the belts on the spindles.  Then I graphed the results.   It’s interesting to see how non-linear the graph is.  I stuck the new chart on my drill and now I have a very exact reference for my drill speeds.