2x4 Becomes a Jack - Cool Trick

this morning I'm going to fix this garage door jam the return wall was clipped by a vehicle leaving the garage knock the trimmers off of the plate which was not a huge deal because this is a gable end wall not a bearing wall so there's not a whole bunch of weight here so what we're going to try to accomplish here just to take the weight off of this header the end of this header over this garage door enough to slide the bottom plate back up onto the stem wall now you can take a hydraulic jack and you can put a 4x4 under here and you can jack it up and that works great but there's another trick that has all sorts of applications on the jobsite for lifting and holding especially when you're by yourself it's a method where one guy can lift a serious weight with a nail gun can capture the load so it's perfectly stable held in place do the work that it needs to do and then let the load back down with no muss no fuss nothing jumping out you don't need another guy there to help you the distance from the edge of the driveway slab which is fairly level to that finished jamb is eighty four and a half inches I'm going to use as a target eighty four and three quarters as a distance that I would like this to come to rest when it is on the post when it's in place that will lift the bottom plate the load off the bottom plate so I can slide it in where it goes to do this I'm going to cut three pieces two of them will add up to eighty four and three quarters I want to keep track of these two so I'm going to make sure that those stay in contact I let the bottom piece of what of the two pieces at that add up to my net height extend below the arbitrary length piece perhaps an inch I hope you can see that this reduces the net increase in length that happens across the hypotenuse of a triangle but it leaves the square end at the net distance now I take the piece that will add up to the total net height and I snipe the leading edge I put it in place I take the nail gun which is not going to set this nail I snagged the tailing edge with the bottom in position far enough away from the work that it won't be in my way with this in place and lean this out there is post action see that that comes straight this serious way [Music] so what we just did was use the leverage that is available in the last few degrees between an angle piece and the piece when it becomes straight creates a big mechanical advantage and it creates a situation where one guy can capture the load and hold it safely while he does the work [Music] [Music]

Channel: Essential Craftsman

Views: 1,331,670

Rating: 4.8651505 out of 5

Keywords: Pro Tips, Framing, Construction Tips, Framer, Craftsman, DIY Jack, 2x4 jack, Construction, Pro Tip, Pro, acroprop, shims, miners wedges, bottle jack

Id: 2UFFx7Sslzs

Length: 5min 42sec (342 seconds)

Published: Sat Apr 08 2017

Reddit Comments

[u/[deleted]]

I've been watching his channel for a while now, guy is skookum as frig.

[u/kramph]

I worked at a number lumber forever ago and a guy building a garage bought 2 8' foot garage doors, but 20 footers for a continuous header because he figured it would be just a matter of time before his wife or kids took out the center between the doors.

[u/UnderPantsOverPants]

Important to note: Don't do this if something bad will happen if it fails. For that situation you want to jack it up and put something a little sturdier under it, fastened into place. Classic don't work on your car using just a jack situation.

[u/RWCheese]

Extension cord wrapped correctly. Subscribed.

[u/Potatobobthecat]

As Uncle Bumble fuck said, 30 plus years of top tier skill knowledge, can be had for free

[u/justanotherpony]

This came in handy a wee while ago when i had to put up a bit of ply for filling in a hole in a bison slab floor, tho i only used 1 length of cls cut in half, put in a couple screws for the hinge point, and another to hold it once leverage applied, simple but works well.

[u/tcpip4lyfe]

That guy is a fucking pro.

[u/terry_quite_contrary]

I was always taught to use a single stud cut 1/4" or more, then apply big hammer to bottom of stud. Seems less time consuming. Also I didn't see any protection for the metal wrap around the door frame. Usually a piece of cardboard or something soft will suffice, or none, depends on how careful you are.

[u/BoomhauerTX]

Interesting, but I liked the truck leverage trick more than the primary header jacking. Getting appropriate leverage in the horizontal direction is more challenging. Personally, I would've used a hydraulic floor jack and a 4x4 for the header.