Share your DIY hatch lift handle

[TimC]

For my new Foamie, I'm seeking a good looking design, preferably homemade, hatch lift handle.

On my Woodie I used a chunk of stair railing. It is round with a flat on the bottom. I routed out two recesses in the flat portion, drilled rope sized holes in each end and then anchored the ends of the rope in the recess. It worked well and I might repeat that design but wondering if anyone can suggest a different design.

The ol' Woodie's hatch handle...

[tony.latham]

[TimC]

Nice! You can't go wrong with Chrome...

[Tom&Shelly]

Nice! You can't go wrong with Chrome...

Ours is also chrome. I wanted black, but Shelly pointed out it gets hotter in the sun.

Rustic wood is also nice, but I wonder how having a foamie would influence the handle?

Tom

[TimC]

...
Rustic wood is also nice, but I wonder how having a foamie would influence the handle?

Tom

I didn't know that foamies were influencers?

[Tom&Shelly]

It's 98 here at the cabin this evening and a foamie would sure influence me right now!

Tom

[steve cowan]

Used a metal outdoor gate handle with metal backer plate on inside.

[VanIsledave]

We used a drawer pull from nearby orange hardware store




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[TimC]

Thanks for all the examples guys. I've decided to stick with a closet rod contraption similar to what I used on my first TD. I finished it yesterday and I'm heading up north to Silver Lake Basin on the Dead River in Marquette County for a long weekend with Courage Inc. https://www.courageincorporated.org/

This is my first volunteer opportunity with them and I'm really looking forward to meeting the crew and participants. I took a ride up a week ago to make sure I could get there with my car. Fail! Five miles from the campsite I met a logger loading his semi and he was in no mood to move out of the way. I don't blame him, he had a job to do and I was just screwing around. So back home I went. The other day I took another shot at finding the campsite and despite a lot of washed out logging roads to navigate I did find the spot. It is beautiful and is ideal for the program. As I understand it we'll be setting up camping gear for the Vets tomorrow and expecting their arrival on Friday. Weather looks ideal... highs in the upper 70s and lows at night in the mid 50s. God I love our UP summers!

[Tom&Shelly]

This is my first volunteer opportunity with them and I'm really looking forward to meeting the crew and participants. ... Weather looks ideal... highs in the upper 70s and lows at night in the mid 50s. God I love our UP summers!

Thank you for volunteering with them Tim! Sounds like a lot of fun.

Probably can't make it to the UP/Wisconsin areas this year, but Shelly and I are looking forward to getting up there someday. (Shelly has friends who retired to Eastern Wisconsin, and we still want to see the Oshkosh fly-in someday.)

Tom

[working on it]

Used a metal outdoor gate handle with metal backer plate on inside.

We used a drawer pull from nearby orange hardware store

I used a lot of heavy-duty steel hardware in building my squareback trailer: galvanized angle brackets and corner braces inside, and black painted/powder-coated "gate" hinges, latches, and handles inside and outside. I'd grab some needed hardware from Home Depot or Lowes on my way from work or home, on my way to my friend's home race-car fabrication shop (where I was building the trailer secretly, for the first 11 months before bring it home to complete it, for another 11 months), as a surprise to the wife. If leaving work, it was 75 miles away, or if going there from home, it was 55 miles away. So, I was always secretly buying parts, and transporting them to the build site, in the back of my '09 Chevy HHR Panel (some parts were stored there for months, and she never noticed them).

P.S. after I showed her the trailer (built for her use on Bigfoot hunting trips with her friends...yes, she was a member of a BF group), she chose not to use it, due to her claustrophobia, and preferred her big tent. The trailer was for her safety and comfort, better than her tent for sure, but she still said no. Anyway, she never went camping again, and I took over the trailer as mine, alone!

Now, back to "HATCH LIFT HANDLES": I used two on each side of each door, and two opposite each other to lift up-or-down my simple hatch, and two inside, later, as a lifting aid to help me up in the morning (I have a bad back). They are very durable and strong, so they'll never bend or break (not even if Bigfoot yanked on one, hahaha), but the black ones just like them seem to have disappeared from the big box store (Lowes has a similar one, but it's not the same). Silver, galvanized handles are available there, but I could only locate similar black ones at Grainger https://www.grainger.com/product/Pull-Handle-Unthreaded-Through-1WAE5?opr=PLADS&analytics=FM%3APLA&a2c_sku_original=1WAD7&position=3

and Zoro https://www.zoro.com/zoro-select-heavy-duty-door-pull-steel-6-12-in-l-zinc-unthr-holes-1wae5/i/G2293584/?utm_source=google&utm_medium=surfaces&utm_campaign=shopping%20feed&utm_content=free%20google%20shopping%20clicks&campaignid=17863415718&productid=G2293584&v=&gad_source=1&gclid=Cj0KCQjw-uK0BhC0ARIsANQtgGMRQHLMQXmHs86UncEqlRRCAGCua5AUVglfao0IfTkCxOOsjRdQbU0aAqEeEALw_wcB&gclsrc=aw.ds

(whew, that's a loooong URL)

heavy-duty door-pulls, formerly gate handles, used in many spots.jpg (279.41 KiB) Viewed 891 times