From TN....

**hankll** · Feb 4, 2016, 02:43 PM

Thanks for an opportunity to peek at everyone's unique tools and problem solving....
I hope I can contribute some ideas....but most of all I hope I can learn from others ideas.
I work mostly on riding lawn mowers... and sometimes I modify an attachment and it needs some finesse "engineering".... well you know, special repairs. So I'm just gonna lurk a bit, and then every so often I might be able to contribute. Thanks
to

**Jon** · Feb 4, 2016, 02:51 PM

Hi hankll - welcome to HomemadeTools.net

We mostly learn here too

Do you see any ideas here that particularly catch your interest? Anything you might be adding to your projects list?

**kbalch** · Feb 4, 2016, 02:57 PM

Hi hankll,

Welcome!

Has anything around here jumped out at you as being useful on your mower projects? Let's see some of your inventions…

What are you working on currently?

Ken

**hankll** · Feb 5, 2016, 04:37 PM

Oh yeah! I've been trying come up with a scissor lift...and there are some here on the board that will give me some ideas. My skills with hydraulics is lacking. I have a Mighty Mule threaded actuator gate opener I was going to use it to power the lift. What I don't know is whether it will have the torque to power the lift with the weight of a riding lawn mower... the newer ones might weigh in at 350 Ib but some of the old iron I have, probably hit the scale at around 750 lb. So if I can do it with the actuator set up, it'll be relatively easy to put together. I'm using 2.5 x 3.5 x 1/8 aluminum tube that were old load locks that I picked up for free. These are 8' long. Right at this point, I'm leaning towards 5' length for the X pieces and the remaining ends cut off will be the width and cross pieces. The pivot isn't exactly decided yet. With the weight, I'm guessing that a piece of all thread with a iron pipe cover for spacer use. Then add washers between the X pieces. Add Nylock nuts and it should be good. Only one thing is the aluminum will wear so I'm thinking a piece of the same size iron pipe inserted flush to the walls should give any wear issues a minimal problem. I just have to do the cutting of stock and physical mating of the frame X pieces. I don't have the ability to weld aluminum so I plan to used 1/8 plate sandwiching the X pieces corners with bolts through the aluminum. I was going for the 1/8 plate to give bracing to the frames.
Well I sure did a long professor dialog on this. Sorry about that.