I built a wooden gantry with a chain hoist hanging from the crossbeam, on casters so I can roll it where I need it. It's made of lumber and metal brackets, and it comes apart into pieces, so it stores in not-much space. It was a super easy build, and it has come in handy a bunch of times.
Does it fit in the car? (September 2022)
Once it was assembled in the basement, I thought it would work to move the Bridgeport I'd bought, and that it should fit in my car in pieces, too. So I took it apart and checked.
It fit easily, and it was pretty easy to carry, too. Three trips on foot to carry the pieces.
Then the real test, the same day: lifting the heavy ram of a milling machine with the chain hoist. It worked perfectly.
A couple of weeks later, back in my basement shop, lifting the ram into place.
In use (March 2025)
Years later, I finally found a photo of it in action, straddling a machine in a garage shop.
One piece of advice about the hardware: use a forged eye bolt rated for the load you want to lift, not an eye screw or a drawn eye bolt. One of our robots unwound a 1/4" wire eye bolt lifting itself not long ago, which is not how you want to find out.
You want the ones that look like this:
Not this:
