I'm looking for ideas as to how to get large heavy logs up onto the lathe, and mounted between centers. Thanks.
Learn something every day. The inner tube is simply genius. I always have someone helped me with big logs.I use a hydraulic lift table from Harbor Freight to raise the log to the ways of my lathe. If it’s too heavy to get it mounted, I have an inner tube for a wheel barrow (Harbor Freight) that I place on the ways first. Apply air from the compressor to lift up for mounting between centers.
Hockenbery beat me to it!
For the overhead, I used a 7' I-beam with a "I-beam-car from Harbor Freight - runs down the axis. I have metal plates on the upstair floor with threaded rods supporting the I-beam.
The H-Gantry is a pleasure to use - I have a chain-hoist on the cross-hanger car. It's a cakewalk to mount a 300-lb+ log.
I doubt that I could understand the above - happy to talk you through.
You don't have to go to all the trouble to repeat all your information Steve. I was a mechanical engineer at Caterpillar for 30 years and understand structural issues very well. I'm not going to do a finite element analysis on my house structure. But if my structure is made to handle a refrigerator or full tub of water with a 400 pound women by either, I'm very comfortable hanging something that weighs 100 pounds less under them.Richard, everything you just mentioned is a load that the floor system is designed for (except the lump of wood), the live loads I spoke to previously. Having all those typical weights in place, and then adding another concentrated load that the building component(s) was not designed for, is what leads to structural problems.
Nothing we do in our shops (or homes)- structural, mechanical, electrical, or chemical, is ever a problem. Ever. Until the very instant when it is, and then these things we've been doing in the past suddenly cause a tragedy and big red trucks are parked in front of the house. We can learn from our mistakes, and we can learn before the mistake could be made. In my world I see examples of each nearly everyday.
Home builders generally do not overbuild the structural systems in the buildings. Instead they build to the maximum spans a member can support, then spread those member as far apart as allowed so they can buy less of them. In other words, they build to the minimum required, not something a builder should brag about. (Building to code should not inspire pride.) You ask good questions, though, the answers being... it depends. For example, is that floor joist a 2x8 spanning 12 feet, or is it a 2x12 spanning 8 feet? What species and grade of wood is it? Does it already have holes or notches taken out of it for other typical construction reasons? The variables are endless, but if we plan ahead for what we are doing we can avoid the problems those plans may want to give us.
I fully expect people to have some level of "king of the castle" after I leave the site, hopefully I don't ever have to return at the request of the fire department in the future, I don't like those phone calls.
I've been at this for over 25 years, and I learned long ago that free advice is just that. My point to all of this is before we ask a built structure to do something it wasn't built for, find out if it's okay first. If we don't, well, I'll keep my fingers crossed.
One if my favorite statements in life- "Just because I can, doesn't mean I should."
Steve.