Car Stands from wood?

Not a good idea to use wood blocking with the grain vertical unless you are trying to stop horizontal movement. Gerry :-)} London, Canada

Reply to
Gerald Miller
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And NEVER EVER use the end grain to support ANYTHING. If you use a log, put a plank across the end the car/truck/tractor or whatever sits on. If (when) the log splits, it WILL ruin your day.

ramps made from dimensional lumber, "nail laminated" together, make very safe vehicle supports. Use combinations of 2X4, 2X6 and 2X8, staggered layer to layer, with alternate layers having a peice or two running crosswise to keep the stack from splitting, and nothing made from steel will be safer.

Reply to
nospam.clare.nce

I also have a set of 6 ton HF stands...

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Big and beefy, go nice and high, yet don't take up too much room under the car. They'll last forever, just keep them dry when not in use.

The below link to a shot I stuck in the dropbox shows a way most of us probably wouldn't want to support a vehicle with wood. Not for the faint of heart...

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Erik

Reply to
Erik

Hey Dave,

I wouldn't worry about that thing falling on him. When that gas tank he is welding blows, the truck should head away in an nicely controlled arc, not straight up, so it won't fall back down right on top of him.

On the other hand, I do think he just has it aimed the wrong way. I think that concrete block wall may cause it to bounce back and land right on the buzz-box. Be a shame to damage that!

Take care.

Brian Lawson, Bothwell, Ontario.

Reply to
Brian Lawson

I've done this, before, using 2x12 lumber from the home center. I cut the lumber in descending lengths, and made ramps by stacking, screwing and gluing the lumber together at the height I wanted it. I chamfered the ends as they went up the ramp side, and I cut out rectangles in the inside pieces to reduce weight and warping. I had about 16 inches total height, and never had a problem with several cars that weighed more than most modern cars, including a '74 Ford station wagon.

Reply to
Kevin Singleton

Yeah, Larry, a good mechanic would have a pretty good grasp of this. In a world where there are still a few retrograde idiots that will pick up a running lawm mower to trim a hedge (as an example of extremes), that particular hoist strikes be as a Darwin Award precursor.

Do they actually sell jackstands tall enough to use with this hoist? That would be a decent solution for the OP, if the welds were to be trusted.

I will confess to not having downloaded the manual when I looked at the item page on the HF site, as my fencewire connection told me it would take about 10 minutes to download, and frankly, I was not that interested in waiting for it, since I am not buying one.

Cheers Trevor Jones

Reply to
Trevor Jones

If you realized how many items (and tools) in your life are manufactured by the Chinese, Indian, Taiwanese, Japanese, Canuck or American worker and minimum-wage/3rd-grade-dropout, you might be even more afraid than you are now. ;)

BUT, Darwin must be served, right? (Shhhh!)

Almost any jack stand could be used as a safety device. Heck, a chunk of log thicker than your body would work in many cases, too.

One way around that is to open another browser windoew and download it there while you browse elsewhere or peruse Usenet.

Reply to
Larry Jaques

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hoist?

Yes, I have used some six footers while under a 2 post hoist...

Reply to
Rick

That statement reminds me of something a fellow once told me. "I can't wead or wight but I can weld" And weld he could he was an excellent welder and repairman. Steve Steve

Reply to
Sven

Back when we used single-post inground hydraulic hoists, we had high stands that would hold the car at full height(aprox 5'6" - 6'). We also had a chunk of 2" Sched 80 pipe that fit between the hoist head and the floor (actually the hoist seal ring) that held the vehicle if it needed to stay up for an extended period of time. There were times when it was used EVERY time a car was on the hoist - to prevent an oily floor and a slowly descending vehicle.

Reply to
nospam.clare.nce

"Sven" wrote

I was a welder's helper while working in the Gulf of Mexico during the seventies. He could not read or write, but he could make two big pieces of pipe come together at an angle and hit it to a very close degree. He could cut out anything, and was a tremendous fitter/welder. He used sheets of paper, a pencil and small pieces of soapstone.

He could have a piece of 12 inch pipe on deck that was going to tie into a piece 50 feet up in the air. He could cut the 12 inch pipe so that when it was hoisted into position, it only needed a little dressing up.

Byoootiful 7018 welds.

Steve

Reply to
SteveB

Reply to
RoyJ

Actually concrete blocks are pretty strong, IF you put the holes vertical and put a 2x on the top (and bottom unless dirt). Concrete is very strong but will crumble if stress is allowed to accumulate at one spot.

Reply to
Nick Hull

Reply to
RoyJ

If that were really true no one would use them for the foundation of their house. In fact, when the ground slides and concrete block foundations crack, they almost invariably crack in a zigzag line of the mortar. If you are afraid to go under a vehicle PROPERLY supported by concrete blocks, how do you get the courage to go into your house and how do people manage to live & sleep in mobile homes supported by the flimsiest of concrete block stacks?

Reply to
Nick Hull

Not really. In their intended use, the loads are very evenly distributed. Setting the weight of part of a car on a small point on the block is a very different stress.

Well, put it this way. When we block up a car for an extrication in the firefighting world, we use wood cribbing. Cranes, as mentioned, use wood cribbing. Cement block for building, wood for cribbing. If there's a standard material for a purpose, why not use it? The load that a house puts on block is very even, and all compression. If your car puts a point load on the concrete, it puts a tension load on either side of that contact, and concrete stinks in tension.

Since it's a matter of putting your body under it, I'll go with what has been used for a few millennia, myself.

Reply to
Dave Hinz

Put another way: One shot from my .357 will completely destroy a 12" concrete block, biggest piece is 6" or so. The 8"x10 tapered timbers I use for car ramps wouldn't even notice. Same weight I might add. Net: Concrete is very good in pure compression, wood is very fiberous, concrete fails suddenly, wood fails gracefully.

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Reply to
RoyJ

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