The new shop’s second story is a long ways up. When we stored wool in the old Red Barn loft, you could toss the wool boxes up, and the person in the loft could catch them. However, the new shop is much too tall for that. While going up and down the stairs may be good exercise, when there are something like 100 fleeces to move, that’s a lot of trips! West welded up the crane, we added an engine hoist, and Ken built a wooden platform to hold the boxes.
The result is the Woolevator! The idea is that you can put boxes on the platform and use the hoist to haul them up. When it’s not in use, the crane assembly can swing back into the shop, and the doors can close. Today, Ken and I moved all of the 2008 fleeces out of the hay barn, using the Woolevator to get them into the new shop.
It worked really well and was easy to do. Once the fleeces are up there, my plan is to set up the skirting table and do final skirting and prep upstairs. I do preliminary skirting as we’re shearing, but this is the final, more detailed skirting.
There’s plenty of room to store both the skirted and unskirted fleeces, plus the looms, with space to hold fiber guild meetings and do other craft work. I can’t wait for the final touches to be done.
