Near the end of January, I took delivery of 70 sheets of drywall for our new barn. I hung the last few pieces yesterday. The lengthy process definitely boosted my core strength. When I got started back in January, lifting the 12-ft. sheets was a struggle, but now I can do it with comparative ease. Even though it has helped my fitness, I won’t miss hanging drywall one bit. It’s hard, dusty work. I never did get the hang of the drywall router I inherited from my dad. I messed up the cutouts in the six or eight times I tried until I finally gave up and went back to measuring and cutting the boxes with a knife and a jab saw. I think I’ll sell the drywall router.
The lift I bought and describe here worked pretty well after I disconnected the annoying safety mechanism. I also had to adjust the tension on the lift wheel. The wheel is attached to the frame with a single bolt equipped with a lock nut. This nut tightened by itself to the point of making the wheel extremely difficult to turn within the first few uses.
I first feared the problem was with the winch mechanism, but the sticky wheel was easily freed up when I loosened the self-locking mounting nut a fraction of a turn. I’ve had to loosen this nut twice now. Other than that, my cheap lift has worked just fine. I haven’t yet decided if I’m going to keep it, though. It’s handy, but pretty big. I used the panel lift for all of the ceiling and a few extremely large wall panels, but I found it faster and easier to hang smaller sheets on the wall without the lift.
I’m now facing the prospect of finishing all that drywall. To save money and reduce waste, I created drywall returns for the door and windows and drywalled the beams made from dimensional lumber. This has created a lot of extra inside and outside corners that will also need to be taped and finished. I’m so glad I was recently introduced to Pandora, as my finishing will give me plenty of time to listen to good music.
You can read more about my barn here.
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This was the last 12-ft. sheet to go up. Laying out and making the many cuts seemed to take forever, but it fit surprisingly well. I found that when hanging the walls, it worked best to lean in the top when it was close to the ceiling and then raise the panel the rest of the way.
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I found that the best way to hang walls with the lift by myself was to push up one corner tight to the ceiling, drive a single screw, and then go to the other end to lift and fasten.
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I used these retrofit rings for low-voltage wiring because they're so easy to install. The shape is traced on a level line with a pencil and then cut with a knife and jab saw.
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Once the rings are fit, they're secured like most plastic old-work electrical boxes, with fold-out wings that deploy when the front-mounted screws are tightened with a cordless driver.
