On Tue, 16 Aug 2005 16:56:06 -0400, "Lee Michaels"
wrote:

BIG SNIP

I would look into the horizontal elevator concept. I
have seen a lot of these with waterfront homes that sit on a cliff, high
above the beach.

They had a set of rails. Some were made of wood, but most were metal. They
would have wheels that were made to ride on the metal. A little platform
with wheels was constructed on these rails. This was then hooked up to a
winch of some kind.

You got on the little platform, closed the chain and pushed the winch
button. And yoo were lowered or raised along the rails. This was the simple
version that did not involve a long distance. For those applications, much
more expensive and complicated elevators were needed.

But with eight feet vertical distance, you shouldn't have too much of a
problem. Just make sure that your movable platform is rock solid and can not
come off of its tracks. It might be an idea to construct a set of stairs
right beside it. This would be handy in terms of providing extra security
to the load when using the movable platform.

A friend of mine used to make gym equipment. He did something like this for
his leg press machine. He would install casters to run on either angle iron
or the corner of square tubing. And he would install these on both the top
of the rail as well as the bottom. He would then fine tune the sled to slide
smoothly. And this thing was solid and secure. The casters literally
wrapped the rails. No way was that thing ever going to fall off.

I think that something like this would be much easier to build and design
than a more traditional vertical solution.

Hey Lee,

This is called an inclined elevator or inclined lift, and is as
illegal as the hoist type the OP wants to make. Gym equipment falls
under a separate safety category.

Brian Lawson,
Bothwell, Ontario.