I brought home a safe weighing 1200 pounds, and almost 6’ tall. I had no other
method, so I lifted one corner at a time about an inch, then put blocks of
varying thicknesses under the corners until I had enough room for cribbing. Then
I repeated the process, over and over until I got it up the the height of my
truck bed. Then I removed just enough cribbing to get the tail gate under it.
After that it was easy.

Arriving home, I got some help and laid the safe on its side, then we scooted it
off until one bottom edge was on my concrete driveway. Now, how to stand it up?

I drilled a hole in my driveway and inserted an eye bolt. Used a come-along to
tilt it up straight. Then used a big pry bar to inch it into my garage.  Where
it lives unto this very day. And I do not think it is ever going to leave.


On Jan 29, 2015, at 3:48 PM, james duprie  wrote:

> The part I'm having a hard time with isn't getting the Large Very Heavy
> Thing (about 1500 lbs) up on rollers. That's easy with a 10' steel pry bar
> and a brick as a fulcrum. The hard part is how to get it up the ramp and
> into the truck without an anchor point in the truck ( a winch or come along
> would be easy if there was an anchor)...
> 
> The current concept is to walk it up the ramp using the 10' pry bar
> (actually a digger bar, if you know what that is) about 6-12", wedge, reset
> lever, and repeat.
> 
> On a side note - the rollers I use are about 2-3" Can't recall exactly)
> dowels - probably oak - that I turned about 10 years ago. At that point, my
> daughter was 5, and she was thrilled that she could push the Large Very
> Heavy Thing across the shop by herself.....
> 
> -James
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: OldTools [mailto:oldtools-
bounces@s...] On Behalf Of Ed
> Minch
> Sent: Wednesday, January 28, 2015 8:22 AM
> To: Christopher Swingley
> Cc: OldTools List
> Subject: Re: [OldTools] Lifting heavy things
> 
> 7, 2015, at 10:47 PM, Christopher Swingley  wrote:
> 
>> 
>> Scott's mention of jacks and cranes and blocking earlier today 
>> reminded me of one of last summer's projects.  It involves old tools 
>> and wood, but not of a sort we traditionally discuss in this forum.
> 
> 
> Chris
> 
> Well done - and how common is a 50 foot straight log in your area?  They are
> pieces of wood that not only will warm you twice, but now have the potential
> to warm you a few more ties before it is all over.
> 
> I showed this set of pictures about 2 years ago, but here it is again:
> 
> https://www.flickr.com/photos/ruby1638/14097256262/in/set-72157644087
794668/">https://www.flickr.com/photos/ruby1638/14097256262/in/set-7215764408779
4668/
> 
> My brother lives on the Esopus Creek about 200 yards from the Hudson River
> below Albany.  The house is about as close to the creek as Chris' is, and
> was built in the 30's.  In 1955 there was an epic flood where the house had
> a couple of inches of water in it, so it was raised 2 cinder blocks higher,
> 16".
> 
> In 2011 there was a lot - a lot - of rain in the area.  In fact if you watch
> some of CHris' videos, at the end some videos of that flood come up - Irene
> by name.  The creek came up and put 2" of water in the house, so he and his
> wife had to move out and fix things up.  He devised a method where he cut
> the interior drywall at about 30" off the floor, cut out the wall
> insulation, and installed a chair rail and a baseboards with grooves at the
> back and a removable piece as a wainscotting.  He changed some wiring to be
> flood proof, re-insulated, and finished things off and moved back in.  Since
> Irene was the 100 year flood he figured he was OK for a while.
> 
> Sandy hit the area a year later.  The water rose 13 feet in New York City
> and actually filled a couple of tunnels under the East River - yow.  His
> house is 80 miles up the river and they got 7 feet of that 13.  The water
> was 22" up the walls of his freshly re-freshed house.  During Irene, the
> water came from upstream, but in Sandy it came from downstream.  Sandy was
> something like 34" higher than the epic 1955 flood!!
> 
> Again he moved out and in the spring raised the house.  He has a good friend
> who is in the Timber Framer's Guild and he works mostly on mill restoration,
> but I also watched him replace one rotted member of a truss in a big old
> stone barn without taking the truss apart.  I also had a fun day numbering
> and disassembling a 1740 Dutch barn with him and his crew.
> 
> He came with his 15 screw jacks and a truck load of timbers, and 4 of us
> spent the day lifting the house 28".  It was - lift and inch on this row of
> 5, lift an inch on that row of 5 and back and forth under the house all day.
> All the time wrestling big timbers to set the house on.  Pretty interesting
> day.
> 
> Our sailboat was a few miles away out of the water for the season on the
> Roundout Creek in Kingston and the water came up high enough that smaller
> boats were floating out into the road, but we need 6 feet of water to float
> so we were OK.  I included some pictures showing how easy it is to handle 12
> tons with the right equipment.  They have these machines that can handle a
> couple of hundred tons.
> 
> OT content - check those screw jacks.
> 
> Ed Minch
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> value, location, availability, collectibility, and restoration of
> traditional handtools, especially woodworking tools.
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