My apologies for taking so long to reply. Things here at the old homestead have gotten very...interesting. With only two active brain cells (and one of them is on life support), concentrating on more than one thing at a time is pretty much a thing of the past for me.
Ok, first, please understand that I had no illusion that anybody here would want to build a stand like this. I did point out at the beginning of this post that this stand was
designed for my unique situation. I have a large concrete slab in front of my barn and workshop, and, even with the larger footprint of that first stand it was never in the way from the time I assembled it in the Spring until I disassembled it in the Fall. During that time I used it countless times, and, as clunky as it was, it served my purpose perfectly. The new version will do so even better. I'm an old fart (retired from Air Force in '89), and need a stand like this, something that greatly simplifies working on my mower without breaking my back or requiring that I get down on the ground, breaks down easily to small parts and stores in a very small space.
But just for arguments sake, I'll make some comments about your comments -
However for service work I use a yard crane .
Prior to that I used an engine hoist ( still do some times ).
I'm no expert on either yard cranes or engine hoists, or much of anything really. Far from it, especially compared to the people here on the forums.
And I understand that these are options that appeal to many of the forum members here, especially those who find such things useful for many other things besides lifting mowers. But I personally would have no other uses for a yard crane or engine hoist, and wouldn't want to try to store them in the very limited space in my barn. For
my situation, this stand is the answer.
The problem with the set up you have shown is it takes up a lot of real estate if left fully assembled.
It really doesn't. For me, this was "real estate" that I didn't need for anything else, and this new version will take up even less space. And unless I was only going to keep the mower up there for a quick whatever, I removed the ramps.
And if disassembled then it take a long time to set up.
Gotta strongly disagree with you on this one. It assembles easily and quickly using nothing but wing nuts, disassembles just as easily and quickly. But this is not really a factor for me, because I only do each once a year. I like the fact that it's there when I need it, just attach the ramps and it's good to go.
The engine hoist set up also allows free access to the wheels & underside.
Yes, I'm sure it would. But, for me, safety is a priority, and working under something that might weigh 500 lbs or more while it's suspended above me wouldn't give me a warm fuzzy feeling. Plus, wouldn't it have a tendancy to move about while you are working on it?
When I need to access the underside, I can just move the cross brace as needed, or remove it completely if necessary. Same goes for the rear cross brace.
And if I need to remove a wheel, I'm thinking about cutting slots as shown below, then I can just insert a plank to use a scissor jack.
Again, I have no experience with yard cranes, and I haven't used an engine hoist in probably fourty years, so maybe I'm speaking about things that I shouldn't.
Sorry I didn't make it clearer that I wasn't suggesting that it would be something that anyone here would want to build. I posted it here merely to maybe get some comments and/or suggestions as to how I might improve the design, before I began the actual build.