Building a totally halfazz’d pallet rack mezzanine

[LXCam]

Oh you critics of halfassed engineering are gonna luv this, so grab your popcorn, a good stiff drink and be prepared to be offended or impressed, eh whatever works

When I relocated to Arizona I moved my shop into a building provided by my employer. That’s worked out fine for a few years but then we moved a two hour drive away to a place that having a shop just isn’t going to happen.

Over the last two years I’ve been trying to find a commercial building that made sense and needless to say, obviously that never happened.

Well four weeks ago a large rv garage unit came up for rent in the same facility I store my 28ft enclosed trailed at. It’s a really nice place and this 14ft x 50ft x 16ft height happened to also have a 120/240V 50amp service in it. AND they allow fabrication work within the units with a limitation of no open flame.

All though this joint is half the size of what I need, it was a win and I jumped all over it. Finally a chance to get some of my stuff up north so I can do some work and not have a four hour commute.

Sorry for the long back story, I hope y’all are still awake.

Well on to the first of what might be a few projects that address some limitations of this space. First and foremost, no concrete anchors, second-no anchoring to the walls and or hanging from the purlins….check!

My first issue, I got a lot of **** that needs rack space. And in this case I needed more floor space so going vertical made sense. The downside of vertical is floor space for a forklift - ya that’d be the definition of a catch 22 situation.

So in my feeble mind I figured well I just some more pallet racking, line two walls and put some more cross arms between them and infill it all with 2X material. Easy enough right?

All I got was some basic stuff from a used place. Four 8ft x 42” uprights, 4000lb rated 8ft cross arms and several wire rack shelves. Made some joist hangers out of 3” x 1/4” flat bar and 2” x 2” x 1/8” angle (cause that what was laying around). A 3/8” nutsert kit and went to town.

Enough with the talk already.

 

[LXCam]

Keep in mind this little tid bit. At the shop in Phoenix I have several of my racks infilled with 2x material. Another words solid shelving more or less and all of it cut at 38.5”. So there was no need to blow a few hundy on stuff I had, I’ll just design around it which is why the center filler isn’t flush with the front.

So up go the two free standing racks


Then it was time to square it up. It sure would have been easier with another person but I added some technology to the mix to dial it in.

First up a parallel line off the back wall and the pencil marked for reference


Locate center and rinse and repeat for my centerline.


Drop in my cross arms which were drilled and bolted to my hangers with 3/8” hardware.

This sure made life easy for the back to back cross arms.




And since I only had three shelves worth of infill, that’s all that got done at the time of these pics.



And believe it or not, she’s rock solid.

 

[LXCam]

Tomorrow’s little chore is were the sketch gets a capital S. I’ve got the remaining boards to finish the infill on the left.

And to aid in my inability to no longer shoulder 100lb + boxes and climb a ladder I picked up this to add to it.

 

[cvairwerks]

I did something similar in one of my storage units, other than I used standard uprights and turned them the other direction and used 9' beams. Storage bay is barely 10' wide. Beam height is set so that I can walk under it and I used 2x6's for fill. Nothing heavy up on the deck, as it has to go up there while standing on a step stool.

Reminds me I need to go over there and dispose of some of the stuff on the deck and move some other stuff around, one of these days...

 

[jblnut]

I need to pick up a racking order to build a 48x7 deck 10’ off the ground in a machine shed. It’ll be totally freestanding with wire decking for the floor. I love pallet racking as it’s moveable and not all that expensive for what it can create.

Good luck with the rest of it and the new place !!

 

[Steve from Socal]

I have to give that a 3/4 *** build! I built a 1/2 *** free standing mezzanine in my shop years ago. I am in Merida Mx till sometime later this month, I will add pics of a 'real' half *** mez.

 

[LXCam]

Ya know those days when you thought you thought it through?…well maybe today wasn’t that day.

After cutting my upper and lower strut pieces I then double checked my centers on the crane.


Not a big deal right? Ya well that was before I aligned its mate. How’s this for a pita hole and possible bit breaker.


Luckily we got past that without issue and moved on the adding some additional bolts to the cross arms and got the supports clamped into place and a trail fit before slicing up some filler pieces.

 

[LXCam]

Nice thought HF, maybe next time drill and tap the hole for it


Just a heads up for anyone buying one of these. The axle of the winch is way too small a diameter for wire cable. It was a b!tch loading the spool and not letting it unwind. So after tensioning the cable on the spool I beat the hell out of it with a hammer working the coils tighter and hopefully giving it some memory.

Uncertain if that worked I wasn’t taking a chance so I did the best I could to keep some tension on it while I figure out a better solution or buy some wire rope to replace the cable with.

Anyhow, it works pretty damn good. Now to build a cradle for these bins but that’ll need to happen in Phoenix. I’m done for the weekend.

 

[whateg01]

I replaced the hand winch on a couple of things with a brake winch so that stuff can be lowered in a controlled manner.

 

[Bigblue&Goldie]

The crane is great idea! Looks good Cam!

 

[Farmall450]

I've had one of those cranes sitting in the shed for 2 years now - keep meaning to mount it in my truck where it'll store above the wheel well but swing out to lift heavy stuff.

 

[LXCam]

I replaced the hand winch on a couple of things with a brake winch so that stuff can be lowered in a controlled manner.

I’m considering it. I know I have a better winch with a gear reduction set up….i just got to find it

I really like this place. So far I’ve seen two wood working shops and two metal fab shops (those baffle me as the no arcs n sparks thing is spelled out in the lease).

But more importantly I feel really safe there. There’s cameras everywhere and so far I’ve seen three prevost and a couple other high dollar rvs in my row.

And as I was packing up the dude across from me was parking his toy. Man did it sound good too.

 

[whateg01]

I really like this place. So far I’ve seen two wood working shops and two metal fab shops (those baffle me as the no arcs n sparks thing is spelled out in the lease).

You stated earlier "no open flames". Maybe arcs and sparks are allowed because there's not an open flame.

 

[LXCam]

You stated earlier "no open flames". Maybe arcs and sparks are allowed because there's not an open flame.

You’re absolutely correct. Verbatim was no open flames, nothing about arcs and sparks.

It’ll take me at least another couple months to get loads moved and somewhat settled. I’m sure at some point I’ll make friends with some insiders to find out what the skinny is.

 

[mattthemuppet]

man, if you call that half-azzed, I'd love to see both cheeks together! That hoist will be real handy for a lot of things, especially if you can operate the winch from the floor. Now if I was in the armchair engineering game (me?) I'd be real tempted to figure out how to include a gantry crane between your two sets of racks...

 

[Bronson]

Looks good from my house, Cam.
Hey, if I buy some pallet racking, I can buy some more motorcycles.........

 

[LXCam]

man, if you call that half-azzed, I'd love to see both cheeks together! That hoist will be real handy for a lot of things, especially if you can operate the winch from the floor. Now if I was in the armchair engineering game (me?) I'd be real tempted to figure out how to include a gantry crane between your two sets of racks...

Matt I’ve been running that thru my knoggin since I thunked this up. I found some 5 and 6 bearing Unistrut sliders that would work to capture inside and outside rail for vertical use. Build a cradle…..etc

But until I finish getting a bunch of **** up here and organized, I can’t take on another project

 

[LXCam]

Looks good from my house, Cam.
Hey, if I buy some pallet racking, I can buy some more motorcycles.........

I got this **** down pat now Don….shipping might **** but hey..!

 

[gregs]

I did something similar years ago but truly half azzed. Setup 2 pallet racks 10' apart. On the top inside beams I attached 2x6 joist hangers with tek screws 12"o.c so that the top of the 2x6 would be flush with the top of the beam. Dropped in the 2x6's and screwed them to the joist hangers. The pallet racks are not bolted down and I didnt deck the area. It was primarily done to accommodate some palletized items that used 6' deep pallets. But I ended up storing some stuff in the dead space behind the ends of the pallets.

 

[antman213]

I've got a similar set up for keeping my quads out of the way. There 2 ontop and I use a winch to pull them up the ramps at a pretty steep incline. and 2 more 4x4 quads under the "mezzanine"

 

[LXCam]

Guess we’ll see if this works as a bin picker upper. I put the engine level thingy on it so I could do the same with biasing the bin (or bins) tilted a little backasswards. It’s tall enough to do two bins but if I need to cut it down that’s a hell of a lot easier than the other option.




She’ll get a spray bomb and a piece of diamond on the base after I know fur sure it works.

 

[SilverJimmy]

Too bad you don’t know anybody in your hood who could lend you a hand when you need one. Be a shame if you got hurt going solo….

 

[whateg01]

Having to go solo is why I build a lot of the fixtures and machines I do. ***** needing help and everybody is busy.

 

[WoodsTruck]

I've got a similar set up for keeping my quads out of the way. There 2 ontop and I use a winch to pull them up the ramps at a pretty steep incline. and 2 more 4x4 quads under the "mezzanine"

Any reason not to slide the "T" squares over so the long leg is in front of the upright support?
Seems like it would end up being in the way less when accessing items on the shelf behind them in their current position?

 

[LXCam]

Too bad you don’t know anybody in your hood who could lend you a hand when you need one. Be a shame if you got hurt going solo….

Damn shame huh? If I had any foresight I’d probably wait until the day(s) come where it’s time to unload stuff like this

 

[SilverJimmy]

You call, I’ll haul!

 

[LXCam]

I’m supposed to be working right now but I had to know…


And here’s what I found out. That load was a tad over a hundred pounds. There was zero deflection or spread of the frame . But that was the upper limit of using a cordless drill to drive it. I also wasn’t comfortable with the amount of jerkiness with the drill motor, lotta vibration going on causing the load to dip left/right. Nothing super scary but it needs to be much smoother when it’s time to throw a couple hundred pounds on it.

Looks like another trip to HF for an electric winch is in today’s schedule.

 

[gregs]

I was lucky enough to pick up a used Vermette 512A material lift for home. I have a wall of pallet rack shelving with the top at 12'. The lift allows me to get up to 500#'s up there. Since its on 4 casters its pretty easy to move around. Its not as nice as one of the Genie lifts with the telescoping mast, but for $100 I wasnt complaining. I use it for so many things in my home shop. I have said many times that it was the best $100 I spent.

 

[LXCam]

I was lucky enough to pick up a used Vermette 512A material lift for home. I have a wall of pallet rack shelving with the top at 12'. The lift allows me to get up to 500#'s up there. Since its on 4 casters its pretty easy to move around. Its not as nice as one of the Genie lifts with the telescoping mast, but for $100 I wasnt complaining. I use it for so many things in my home shop. I have said many times that it was the best $100 I spent.

I have a really old one that’s at a buddies shop in California. There’s three issues with it that need to be addressed
1: it needs new casters which means it needs to go to my shop in phoenix so I can use the forklift to see exactly what I need and fix.
2: it only goes 5ft high so that means it needs to go to my shop in Phoenix so I can figure out what I need to do to extend it to reach 8’6” and of course, build it.
3: did I mention it’s in California?

Why this is a bit of a rush is I’ve been storing my toy up north for the last few years. And my buddy needs it gone as he has some plans for the building it is in. And I needed to make room for it asap.

If I wait until snow starts hitting, I’m screwed. And other then this weekend, I’m screwed thru Christmas on making it happen with my works schedules.

 

[LXCam]

Well the lifter do-hicky worked out well enough to spray bomb it.



And while the paint was drying I had to whip up a new mount for a different winch on my open car trailer.

Since it all kinda ties together I’ll put these in here.

All I had at the shop yesterday that would work as a base plate was a piece of 1/4” x 8” flat bar. So once again I’m having to fab off my tailgate with cordless stuff. At least my cordless collection is up to the task.

Those two 3/8 bolts used to hold down my other winch. When I installed that one I also installed tubing so the frames rectangular tubing couldn’t crush with it bolted down. So might as well use those again right?






Marker for the winch mounting bolts.



Winch bolted on - check!



And done for now. I’m going to have to use jumper cables for the time being until I get a chance to do a new battery box. My poor trailer needs some loving anyhow in the near future so we’ll do a refresh before next summer.

 

[whateg01]

...Looks like another trip to HF for an electric winch is in today’s schedule.

Which? Or hoist?

 

[LXCam]

Which? Or hoist?

Hoist, my bad.

 

[rharman]

Not sure if you have the headroom, but I'm guessing you could make a friend in the complex that has a forklift when you need it.

 

[SilverJimmy]

Did you happen to notice this BAD BOY? 100% duty cycle @ 200 AMPS! At your disposal!

 

[Dig Doug]

That’s a great idea and good use of space !

I love the lift

I was thinking about some like this using 12ft cross beams and taller uprights

I saw these on line somewhere -

 

[LXCam]

Not sure if you have the headroom, but I'm guessing you could make a friend in the complex that has a forklift when you need it.

Oh I have no doubt that day will come……just around the time I no longer need one.

That’s a great idea and good use of space !

I love the lift

I was thinking about some like this using 12ft cross beams and taller uprights

I saw these on line somewhere -

thanks Doug. 12ft’rs were available and I thought about it but I really wanted to maximize what I could (14ft width). Also I have several more uprights and cross arms of the exact same stuff in Phoenix so when the day comes that all this changes it’ll be an easy move.

 

[LXCam]

Did you happen to notice this BAD BOY? 100% duty cycle @ 200 AMPS! At your disposal!

Thanks Sterling but I’d feel guilty as heck putting a single fingerprint on that bad boy

 

[rust in the eye]

I'm diggin' it.
If I were to make any change I'd somehow attach that Unistrut supporting the crane to the pallet cross rails, if the end frame were to spread at the top....

 

[LXCam]

I'm diggin' it.
If I were to make any change I'd somehow attach that Unistrut supporting the crane to the pallet cross rails, if the end frame were to spread at the top....

You’re right and I didn’t mention or take pictures of what I did. For the moment I did #14 teks and fender washers holding the bottom pieces up. But I plan on installing some more 3/8” inserts and bolting it. I had ran out of 3/8” fender washers when I slapped it together so maybe today I’ll disassemble it and finish all those details.

 

[SilverJimmy]

Thanks Sterling but I’d feel guilty as heck putting a single fingerprint on that bad boy

Admit it, you’re afraid the Miller Mafia would come break said finger!