Welcome to Project Week – crowd, standing in unbridled anxiety cheer with joy in their hearts… oh wait, they were apparently gathered to celebrate the selection of the new Pope. Well, if they were here for my post they would be cheering just as much (or perhaps not). It doesn’t really matter you are stuck listening to my ramblings on the latest episodes of Brian the Handyman. This also buys me some time while I get to work on another batch of real pictures and reset the bar on the reader expectations. Apparently a few of the previous posts were considered pretty good and I just can’t have that pressure on me.
The first project topic of the month is for you physics fans out there.. or mechanical engineers or carpenters or for that matter weightlifters. Let’s start with a problem. What’s the best way for two individuals to move 50 sheets of 1/2 inch 4×12 plaster base drywall from a garage to the walk in basement across a sloping grass path? Tick Tock Tick Tock Tick Tock
wait, let’s make this a visual daily double. Does this shot convey the enormity of the situation?
Maybe some additional context. A high school kid and I pulled these sheets off of a lift truck and hauled them into the garage – just the two of us – cocky high school kid and slightly fit 45 year old. This was one of those events that you resign to knowing you will be hurting after it’s done but you have no other choice but to get it over with – kind of like when I had my second degree black belt test and had to do my sparring time with the higher degrees. The latter left me with a severely damaged shoulder socket that had to be surgically repaired – the drywall unloading just left me with a locked up back. But I digress from the original question … what’s is your idea for the best approach to get these to the worksite?
Did you say .. “Duh, take some of your 2×4 stash and build yourself a hauler cart” If so, damn you are good. If not, then please accept our parting prizes. Needless to say, I went the Tool Man way and got to work building myself a cart. One thing that could not be overlooked is just how heavy those drywall sheets are. They were still tapped in pairs making them a force to be reckoned with. Yes, I could have separated them, but that would take the fun out of it and doubled the trips – double doo doo. First thing was to build a strong base. Taking a page out of the shelves I built for the basement, I went with the stacked 2×4 approach. I also added the same cross supports which made it a spitting image of one of the shelf layers. The intent was to design it to fit through one half of our double doors which was the constraint for how wide the carrier could be. Knowing that the weight was going to be factor, it was decided that the carrier should be evenly distributed over the base width. Noodling on it a bit came up with two options. One approach would be to slant the drywall across the entire width. Imagine a set of 2×4 straight up on one side and other 2×4’s connecting at the bottom of the base and then attached to the tops of the other 2x4s. Actually don’t waste your time imagining that because I decided to nix that idea. Instead I went with a two sided approach requiring an upside down V down the middle of the platform. Since I made that.. I can actually show you how that looks.
Hit the jump to find out how this all worked out!
Life Intrigued 