# Gantry Crane



## Boswell

One section of my shop is a little over 600 sq ft with a 17' ceiling. As I am starting to do more with steel and have borrowed a friend engine lift to help move things around but this is awkward. I have been looking at a gantry crane like this one. Gantry Crane. I would add a manual chain hoist. I feel I have plenty of room and it sure would be helpful for moving heavy stuff around and unloading stuff from the truck.

I would like to here what other peoples experiences are with gantry cranes


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## benmychree

I had a shop built gantry crane in my shop; found it akward to use, mostly used it over a 30" lathe, much better was a 360 degree jib crane that I built under one of the roof trusses and braced with rods with turnbuckles to the two adjacent truss corners, it worked quite well, it had a reach that was nearly right up to the corners of the truss that it was underneath, it pivoted on a plate anchored to the floor with a large tapered roller bearing and a 2" dia. plain bronze bearing at the top.


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## samstu

I have one ,I've used it sparingly, it lacks wheels and I have a tractor with a front end loader and a engine hoist.  

A friend has one he uses all the time which has wheels and his shop is over 10.000 square feet, so he has a place to store it.  Wheels are nice but it's a two man job and slow.  He also has an electric hoist on his.

An electric hoist hoist is very helpful so you aren't moving crane around when pulling on chain hoist to lift load.  An electric hoist also allows for separation between you and load in case of failure.  

Note, ratings on cranes, etc have changed.  It used to be they had to be tested at something greater than rating (maybe 150%), now they only have to prove to hold rated weight.  An then there's the whole china quality thing.....

Depending on your situation, an electic forklift might be the right answer, especially the walk behind type.  Used examples are often competitive to crane and hoist.


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## rwm

I have that exact gantry crane. I find it to be reasonably well built. I have a CM chainfall hoist. I use it primarily to load and unload a trailer and it is excellent for that purpose. I find it safer to raise the load and then back the trailer under it rather than move the gantry when loaded. I guess it depends on the load. 
Robert


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## C-Bag

I’ve used gantry cranes and they work good for unloading but are cumbersome like samstu said if you are trying to move something. Like he also mentions if it were me and one came up I’d find an electric walk behind forklift. I liked the one we had at my last job better than a regular forklift because it could get in super tight places and pick up a lot. There has be a couple around here for around $1,000 and while that more than the gantry it would take up less space and you can move stuff by yourself which is almost impossible with an gantry even with wheels. YMMV.


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## BGHansen

I have a Harbor Freight 1-ton with a 2-ton trolley and chain fall.  Don't use it a lot but it sure comes in handy when I do!  I ran a string over the top beam with no load, then picked up my BP at a touch over a ton.  Had maybe 1/8" deflection in the middle.  Have had no issues with mine.

Bruce


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## Buffalo21

samstu said:


> Note, ratings on cranes, etc have changed.  It used to be they had to be tested at something greater than rating (maybe 150%), now they only have to prove to hold rated weight.  An then there's the whole china quality thing.....




I have friends that work in lift/crane manufacturing, they say the standards are going up,  a much stricter procedures  for the certification process.


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## gr8legs

The one from Northern Tool is supposedly a 4,000 pound rated unit and if you need that much capacity then it's probably the best route.

However, Freight Harbors is a 2,000# rated unit that is a tiny bit wider and much cheaper when you consider the freight charge and the usual 20% coupon. Wider is better  for truck/trailer unloading, etc.

They are usually in-stock at local HF stores. (no freight)

Do some shopping and budgeting and see which is right for you.

Similar stuff also often shows up on your local craigslist at good prices.

YMMV

Stu


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## Boswell

Thanks everyone for you feedback and Ideas. I have been watching craigslist for awhile and not seen anything that I can use. Usually too big.
I was I liked the 4000lb model because the height adjustment process looked easy and could be done by myself. Also I tend to fall into the "if its worth doing, it worth overdoing" .  the one I linked to with freight, trolly, chain hoist and tax would be around $1200. I'll take a look at the harbor fright model. there is  harbor freight outlet just a few miles from my shop.


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## Bi11Hudson

Looking at the advert, I would trust such a hoist to load maybe 250 pounds. It may have been tested for the advertised load doing a static dead lift. Moving the trolley along the strongback exceeds that.

Hoisting equipment needs at least a 5:1 safety margin. For "general" shop use, a factor of 10:1 is more appropriate. If you need such a lift, I'd say build one. A mobile home "I" beam put together with pop rivets would be stronger than that. 

I'm feeling particularly "salty" this AM. *Hoisting equipment is no joke*, There should be a serious safety margin for anything that gets lifted off the ground by even an inch. OSHA has a standard that one doesn't walk under a lift. My perspective is even tighter than their's.

.


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## Tim9

I don’t even have a high enough ceilings for a gantry but since this thread is about cranes... I’ll post a couple of pics of my Uni-Strut system I installed. I love it so much, I was going to start a thread on it and actually took these pictures the other day when I was swapping lathe chucks. That’s really when I mostly use it. But, I can move something from one end to the other,,,,cover every square foot of my workshop. Granted, there’s tons of specs for the unistrut and it all depends on how many hangers and their spacing. My rough estimate is about. 200 pound capacity on my system. I’m pretty sure that it actually a little higher according to specs and the way I have mine installed.
  Max capacity can be as high as 500 pounds if my memory serves me correctly.. 

But as a safety factor I keep my usage lower....around 200 pounds. I have three tracks running the length... 24 ft each. I then have a cross strut hanging from those three.....and the hoist is attached to that strut.


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## BGHansen

Tim9 said:


> I don’t even have a high enough ceilings for a gantry but since this thread is about cranes... I’ll post a couple of pics of my Uni-Strut system I installed. I love it so much, I was going to start a thread on it and actually took these pictures the other day when I was swapping lathe chucks. That’s really when I mostly use it. But, I can move something from one end to the other,,,,cover every square foot of my workshop. Granted, there’s tons of specs for the unistrut and it all depends on how many hangers and their spacing. My rough estimate is about. 200 pound capacity on my system. I’m pretty sure that it actually a little higher according to specs and the way I have mine installed.
> Max capacity can be as high as 500 pounds if my memory serves me correctly..
> 
> But as a safety factor I keep my usage lower....around 200 pounds. I have three tracks running the length... 24 ft each. I then have a cross strut hanging from those three.....and the hoist is attached to that strut.


Great idea! I was looking at doing something similar using pole barn door track for chucks and rotary tables.  The 90 lbs. 4th axis on my Tormach seems to be gaining weight.

Bruce


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## C-Bag

BGHansen said:


> Great idea! I was looking at doing something similar using pole barn door track for chucks and rotary tables.  The 90 lbs. 4th axis on my Tormach seems to be gaining weight.
> 
> Bruce


Same with my 110lb 10” rotary table. It’s not just that they are heavy, they always seem to need to be lifted higher and further away than even when I was younger would have been comfortable with. Unistrut properly mounted and with the right shackles is great for these kinds of weights of below 200#. I was only in one shop that had a real overhead and it was wonderful to say the least. I really like this setup for smaller stuff.


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## Buffalo21

I put a jib crane on the Franken-Mill to lift up the 10” rotary table and the 10” lathe chuck, I use on the RT. I wish I had a overhead crane system in the whole shop.


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## Tim9

BGHansen said:


> Great idea! I was looking at doing something similar using pole barn door track for chucks and rotary tables.  The 90 lbs. 4th axis on my Tormach seems to be gaining weight.
> 
> Bruce


It’s the first time I ever used Unistrut. I just love it. The rollers which you attach the hoist to or the crossbar to are only like 25.00 on Amazon. But the Home Depot Chinese knock off struts are really sub par. There’s no quality control. I’m sure they are fine for attaching electrical stuff to a wall....but the width and the rolled over inner curved part of the HD struts just don’t match up when going from one length to another. I had two lengths which I regret installing. Every time I would roll something over those transition points in the track.....The roller wheels would jamm up. Also....on one track the roller cocks sideways. In other words one roller is lower than the other side because the track itself isn’t uniform. I’m guessing they are just stamping these out and God only knows what’s going wrong. But the Unistrut tracks just aren’t uniform. They don’t match up when going from one track to the other. I’ve had to remove them twice to smooth them over and grind the track. It’s okay now....but I’d search for US made Unistrut brand if I did it again.
Anyway....I’ve got a really bad back. Plus no balance due to drop foot both feet. It’s quite hard for me to carry 30 pounds and walk across the shop. So this Unistrut trolley has been an absolute life saver. I love it.
   I know if you google it...and check out the dealers....one of them does free engineering for designs of trolleys. My system is probably maxed out around 175-200 pounds. But they can handle much more. It’s an incredibly versatile system. I was looking for the link of the catalog I had which spelled out many of the design planning details but just couldn’t find it.


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## rwm

That  Unistrut crane is brilliant! I also ran across Unibilt which would do the same thing.
Robert


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## Tim9

rwm said:


> That  Unistrut crane is brilliant! I also ran across Unibilt which would do the same thing.
> Robert


I’ve looked all over for a PDF in which I ran across a couple of years ago. It’s what gave me the idea. So I really can’t take credit for it.   I’ll look for it again because it had a lot of different ideas on using and designing the Unistrut system. It wasn’t hard to install. But like I said earlier..... if I did it again....I’d go to an electrical wholesale supplier and source a USA strut instead of getting my struts from a big box store. 
  Only other advice is I set my system up so the crosstrack strut hangs from rollers loosely . That way it doesn’t bind.


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## DavidR8

I'm definitely interested in those plans @Tim9


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## Buffalo21

I hope the Unistrut system works out for you, I seen 2 of the overhead Unistrut trolley systems fail, both with about 50-60# hanging on them. I work with Unistrut everyday and I would never trust it, in an overhead situation.


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## C-Bag

Can you elaborate on what exactly failed?


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## Dabbler

@Boswell - if you are still considering a gantry crane, two years ago I built one, as the materials cost was about the same as buying one.
It will lift safely 4 tons (with a 4* safety margin), and I use it a lot more than I thought I would.  It adjusts between 6'6" and 11'4", and I use a chain around the beam to mount the chain fall.  It is 11' wide, but I also have a 4' main beam for it as well, for use inside the shop.  It runs on 4 - 2600 lb rated casters.

Saved my buns a few times...  Here it is:


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## Buffalo21

C-Bag said:


> Can you elaborate on what exactly failed?



On one the roller mechanism broke and the other the lip area when the wheel rolled bent, allowing the roller to fall out.


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## C-Bag

Thanks. I was around unistrut a lot but never as a structural thing. Like Tim9 mentioned there are a lot of different makers or grades of strut so just like all projects like this it’s best to be careful with all the details.


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## Buffalo21

C-Bag said:


> Thanks. I was around unistrut a lot but never as a structural thing. Like Tim9 mentioned there are a lot of different makers or grades of strut so just like all projects like this it’s best to be careful with all the details.



If you are going to do it, make sure it all the best and make sure the Unistrut is secured solidly to the ceiling. The last thing you want is a rotary table or any other heavy load, falling on you or your mill table. Anything hanging over my head is always a viable concern to me.


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