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Bridge crane materials:







Ingersoll-Rand ZRS3 material handling rail. It comes in 20' sticks, and I have 3 whole sticks + 1 cut in half. The building is 30 x 22. The 30' dimension will be the rails and will be covered by a stick + a half, while the 22' dimension will be the bridge and will be covered by a single 20' stick. The front and rear ~1' of the building will not be accessible by the crane. Oh Darn. Each stick weighs close to 200 lbs.

The place from which my dad's semi-retired used to be a supplier for IR. IR lent them a roll former. My dad's employer would roll form the rail halves from something like 3/16" x 9" steel, then spot weld them together, then drill the end fixture holes, then weld on the end attachment fittings, then run the welded assembly through the powder coating line. A few years back IR awarded the contract elsewhere, took their roll former back and haven't been heard from since. My dad's employer had a fair stock left,but had nothing to do with it since they could no longer sell it as IR product. It was essentially scrap to them. My dad and I secured the few pieces you see here. It really wasn't that hard to make, but IR charges an arm and a leg for it. The retail prices for the stuff are insane, but we got it for free. There wasn't enough of the ancillary components around to do a full IR installation in my garage. That's fine with me. The IR hardware has multiple DOF's and is made to be pulled on my neanderthals three shifts a day, 7 days a week. The important problem it had for me was that the IR ancillary hardware would cost me a lot of hook height. Under a 10' 9" ceiling, I'd be lucky to get a hook height as high as 8' using the IR hardware. I designed the beam clamps previously shown, truss tie bars not yet shown and bridge end fixture hardware yet to be shown to maximize my hook height. I should be able to keep the hook height close to 9' with my designs.

The beam clamps I showed previously will clamp onto the back of this rail and interface with truss tie bars that attach to both the upper and lower chords of the building's roof trusses. With the relative stiffness of the rail and the trusses, the load should spread very well and I'll have 200 lbs or less on each truss, even with the full 1000# rated load at one end of the crane.

Also, will be rebuilding the south wall with R22 worth of rigid foam insulation and plywood instead of drywall. Once that's set up, I'll build a pretty big modular shelf installation to hold all my crap.

I've been working on installing the bridge crane.

The first step was to cut slots in the ceiling where all the hangers are going to be:


and



Those are along the back wall. The front wall looks similar. In the second pic you can *just* see the wire I'm using as an alignment reference. I'll discuss more later.

The next step was to use some .060 plastic shims and my 6 foot level to measure the relative elevations of the lower chords of all the trusses. Most of the trusses fall within the 1" range of installation elevation I allowed in the design of the tie bars, but three each at the front and the back will require me to have new tie bars with longer "necks" cut because those trusses are up to 1 1/2" higher than the lowest of the others... the building wasn't built terribly straight. That's why it's important for me to be particularly retentive about aligning everything... it just won't go together otherwise.

Here's the adjustable mount for the wire. The vertical leg goes down to a 25# weight. The wire is .031" galvanized steel. The setup is a screw hook screwed into the lower chord of the very end truss that sits on top of the south wall with a turbuckle for adjustment and then that shackle to get the adjustment range where it needs to be.



This is a tie bar in a test location. This particular truss is one of the highest, but the tie bar is showed adjusted all the way up. I was simply using that location as a reference for setting the elevation of the wire to coincide with that at the other end.



I don't need to use C-clamps to hold the tie bars in place... these cheap ass spring clamps from Harbor Freight will do just fine.




The building had varmints living in the attic for a bit... they entered through a hole in the soffit. I put a stop to that shit, but there are still signs (like droppings in the insulation, chew marks, etc.).

Here's another indicator:


Notice how the insulation is blackened around the bare wires.

Been installing the tie plates from which to hang the rails. This particular one has been modified to install adjacent to the flue for the wood stove currently in the building. That thing's going to leave as I need the floor space. I'll hang a heat pump from the ceiling or something.



5 of 15 trusses at the rear were outside the 1" of height adjustment I built into the tie plates, so I had to have a second run of plates with longer "necks" made to install at those locations. The situation was similar at the front, but for only 3 of 15 trusses. The second run has been cut and I will get them cleaned and painted this weekend. With both wires set up and all the parts produced, I just need to put in the hours setting up and screwing in the tie plates. I'll also need to reinstall the drywall patches I cut out to keep attic air out of the shop volume. That will pretty much have to happen before we install the rails, but should only be a couple of hours of work.

Brought up my dad's friend's builder's level today. It's a Dewalt sight level using a three point adjustable base with a swiveling telescope that has a level vial attached. So as you set it up, you swing the telescope over each adjustment screw and adjust the vial level. This should fairly quickly level the base and then you get to work.
However, it didn't. I checked by swinging the scope 180 and the vial didn't read the same as it did the other way... Sigh. My definition of level is apparently better than that of the guy who calibrated the instrument... who probably worked in the Dewalt factory on the day the gizmo was built.

I compensated for the calibration error and was able to dial it in quickly after I knew about the problem.

The rear wire was 1/8" out of level over 30 feet... not bad for using a 6' level and some plastic shims to measure the relative elevation of crooked-ass trusses.
My dad and I had been debating the level state of the front wire. I thought the south end was 1/4" low based on the data from the trusses, but to arrive at that conclusion, I had to throw out three measurements (out of 15) that weren't matching up. He was using these measurements to come to the conclusion that it was fine as it was.
The sight level said I was right

We adjusted the wire at the front of the building level, but did find that it's 11/16" higher than the wire at the rear of the building. That's not a huge deal, as I can compensate for that in the end fixture plates that will attach the bridge to the rail trolleys.

The "rails" are usually called the "runway"... but since mine's not built into the building structure, I have a hard time calling it a runway.

Been working hard on the crane this week.

*ALL* of the tie plates are installed... 12 screws each times two per truss (per rail) times two rails times 15 trusses is 720 screws. It's actually more like 710 as a couple didn't grab, a couple had to be trimmed and lost a screw hole as shown above, etc.

One of the obnoxious things I had to do was borrow an oscillating plunging cutter to cut out some weird 24" squares of plywood. The builder drilled holes through them and ran cables through the holes, then screwed the squares to the trusses... very weird way to run wires. Those are out of the way now. I may have to go rewire most of the shop anyway.

Here are the FIVE different parts I had to have made because my garage is built so crooked:



Here are the tie plates installed for the front and rear rails:





In the process of reassembling the drywall to keep the hot attic air out of the shop:



Laying out the materials for the rail installation THIS F@#$ING WEEKEND!



I found the engineering data for the rails on Ingersoll-Rand's website. They say the ZRS3 is 10.06#/ft... so the 20 ft pieces are a bit over 200#... not fun to move those on my own.

Deflection measurements:

"Standard" ~250# load
Front without tie plates: 0.210"
Front with tie plates: 0.078"
Rear with tie plates: 0.050"

Using this setup, with an indicator on the ladder and applying the load directly to the tie plate:

We used a variety of items to help lift the rails into place.

I'm about half done with the drywall... I realized that I had to finish these panels *BEFORE* we install this rail or I wouldn't have access to be able to drive screws on the far side of the rail:



Chainfall lifting the 20' rail more or less into place and a friend of my dad's helping us:



Lifted further with a temporary cord tying up the far end:



Temporary cords holding the long and short sections on the front wall:



After I took that shot, I was able to go through and install two hangers per section... so two hangers on each 20' and two hangers on each 10' piece.
However, I didn't get photos then and it's dark now. I'll get photos of that tomorrow.

I ordered 3/8-16 x 2 qty 60 half dog point square head set screws ($1.73 each!) from Fastenal to use in the beam clamps. I called Fastenal to be sure that the parts would be here yesterday with the shipping option I selected, AND I indicated I'd pay for more expensive shipping to be sure I received the parts on time. The Fastenal rep assured me that they would ship Wednesday and arrive Friday.

Of course they didn't show (well... a small fraction of the order did, but not those screws)

So I had to use some cheapo temporary screws, which is why I only installed two hangers per section.

Here's a demo of the way the tie plates and beam clamps work together to make a hanger:



The tie plates have vertical slots to make up for errors in the installed elevation of the tie plates. The beam clamps have horizontal slots to make up for errors in the alignment of the installed position of the tie plates. I also included an inch of variability in the elevation of a tie plate as installed on a truss.

Holy cow... but it's all up, in place and about to be bolted together!

The rails in place on hangers:



Hanger detail:

Front is all buttoned up... just need to torque all the bolts once I play with the door shroud a bit. It's pushing on the side of the rail right now.

(well... actually, I had 28 beam clamps made when I thought I had 14 trusses... since I discovered I have 15, I have not been back to have two more made. I left two out of the short rail here because that's the easiest place to install the new ones later.)



Per beam clamp: one bolt, two set screws, two spacers, three nuts and four washers:



A fully dressed beam clamp:



So. Many. Beam. Clamps.

This is a half dog point set screw:



Beam clamp detail:



The rear is as buttoned up as I can get it without spending a LOT more time futzing with drywall work:

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAnnnnnnnnd the result, after getting all the plywood and foam installed:

Introductions are in order:



How DO you do?
How do YOU do?