On 20 Sep 2003 16:02:36 -0700, (Ryan) wrote:

I recently had a new 24x34 garage built. I will use it as a shop and
for parking two cars in the winter. I'd like to have some kind of
ceiling in it, to reflect light down, and to keep heat in during the
winter.

Finished, painted drywall would look the best, but be difficult to put
up. I'd have to rent a jack, and I constantly be worried about the
jack damaging my newly painted floor. But I'm not worried about it
getting dented (as I've read here before) because my ceilings are
about 10.5 feet high.

SNIP

Dunno what it's called, but we just sheeted the ceiling in the garage
using a quickie-built platform-thing.

A 4'x4' plywood scrap, a length of PVC tube, a length of closet rod,
and some scrap borgstuff.

Drilled a socket in a lump of borgstuff with a Forstner, to fit the
PVC. Screwed the borgstuff to the center of the scrap ply so it
formed a stringer down the middle of the ply.

Slid the closet rod into the PVC and cut it the same length.

Held the platform up against the rafters and let the rod drop to the
floor, then cross-drilled a small hole for a pin (ok, an old cylinder
head bolt), and a couple of more holes an inch farther down the rod
'just in case'.

Not too much of a fuss to use, and once loaded and lifted, it allowed
one of us to 'steer' the sheet goods and the other one to run the
nailer.

Did the whole ceiling in a day, including all the dodge-work around
stuff like the garage door opener supports, main I-beam, etc.

Cost was zilch 'cuz the scrap stuff was going out the door anyway.
Cheers,
Fred McClellan
the dash plumber at mindspring dot com