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Long story short, making a freestanding wooden frame to support a ceiling mounted sliding storage system for all my bikes. It’s going into a log cabin, so no handy rafters etc to attach the monorail to.
Kind of like my very simple picture.
The frame will have to be self supporting, as there isn’t anything hugely suitable to attach it too.
I don’t want to over engineer it and make it stupidly heavy. The top rail has to be circa 130mm wide to fix the ceiling mounts to. It’ll take 8 bikes, but spread over 2200 mm.
My question to the gurus here, is there a better approach to the design and construction of this, so it doesn’t weigh a tonne, doesn’t look (too) stupid and most importantly doesn’t flex worryingly when I put on and take off bikes.
I have plenty of 4x4 and 4x2 leftover from some landscaping work in our back garden.
Any pointers on how to do this to the correct STW standard would be brilliant, or just take the mick, either works.
I forgot the picture. Here it is.
Make sure the 'feet' are long enough that it won't fall backwards/forwards. And you'll probably need something to brace between the top piece and the verticals so stop it wobbling left to right.
I'd just go A frames, but you'd also want some cross bracing too, which is going to be tricky.
These points are contradictory though, I don't understand it.
The frame will have to be self supporting, as there isn’t anything hugely suitable to attach it too.
The top rail has to be circa 130mm wide to fix the ceiling mounts to.
can you not wall mount some battens and use joist hangers to make pretend rafters?
The top rail has to be circa 130mm wide to fix the ceiling mounts to.
Oh hang on, I get it now. 130mm wide to accommodate the ceiling mounts that you can't put in the ceiling, which is why you need the frame.
Well I'd still make an A frame, with the cross of the A towards the bottom of the legs.
To brace it, could you screw one of the uprights to the wall of the log cabin?
the top rail will be 2.1 metres long and 130mm wide / deep for the mounting brackets.
by self supporting I mean the frame won’t be attached to a wall or the ceiling ( ceiling is really only 12 mm roofing slats and insulation and some boards, then felt)
can you not wall mount some battens and use joist hangers to make pretend rafters?
The wall is only 45mm thick “logs” 🙂 nothing is going to stay hung on there for long, let alone 100kg of bikes.
i did have the red braces as shown above, but thought they would interfere with the space of bike storage.
as for what wood, was hoping to use my plentiful supply of 4x2 somewhow. I do have some 4x4 but that feels like overkill.
@tthew do you mean like a swing frame ? Like my drawing above. Am sure it was below, but hey ho.
Yes, like that. And with the cross members towards the bottom of the legs as you have drawn.
Corner braces will impinge on space, but without them you're quickly going to get bored of picking your bikes off the floor and screwing the frame back together.