Because of the torrential downpour causing quite a bit of subway delays, I got a bit of a late start. When I finally did arrive at the shop, I first stole some casters from one of the many dollies we have lying around. I quickly mounted these on the legs of the gantry. Well I say quickly because it is something that seems like it should go quickly, but drilling 9/16" holes in 3/8" plate steel without a drill press is pretty tough. In any case I got it done.
Then I stood back, took a look at what I made and decided that even if the beefier one would be sturdy enough without braces, I wanted them for symmetry.
Twenty minutes later, I was all braced up.
Now here is where things got interesting and a bit stupid. I started drilling holes for the cross beam mounts. This took quite a while, as you might expect, since I was drilling many many many holes in very thick steel. By the time I had everything drilled and was ready to hang the beam, it was fairly late (for me), around 8:30.
Now, I should have known better than to keep working when tired, because it's always in that last half hour that you make stupid decisions. For some reason, which I still don't understand, I decided that I was going to assemble this thing upright. I don't have pictures of what I was doing, so I'm just going to have to describe it. You see that space in front of the corrugated gate, the area where the curb is chopped away? I lined up my two uprights sideways against the section of wall above the curb. Then, I grabbed a ladder and set it up between the uprights. The idea was that I would rest the center of the beam on the ladder while I bolted up the two ends.
What you can't pick up in these photos is exactly how heavy this thing is. Each of those main beams probably weighs about 100 lbs, so I was working with around 300lbs of steel, most of it 9ft off the ground. I manhandled the beam sort of into place, and got one bolt loosely bolted and was moving to the other end when the whole assembly decided it was going down. It turns out 10lb aluminum ladders aren't able to stop 300lbs of steel falling sideways.
It was a slow fall, and I was able to direct the direction of fall so it wasn't a big deal, but it's always interesting to be completely overpowered by something.
After that, I made the right decision and assembled everything sideways, and quit while I was ahead. I will make some braces next time.
When I left, it was a beautiful, damp night in the South Bronx.
-W.W. SBSS
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