Today, we resumed the challenge of lifting our very long rafter (well there are two of them waiting to go up .. but one at a time – thank you!) and after talking about different types of lifting mechanisms, we decided that the pulley “block & tackle” system wasn’t flexible enough (like for example, when we need to stop hauling, we would need to tie off. but when we need another 6 inches or so, then untie, pull and then tie up again!) so this morning, we abandoned the pulleys in favour of electric winch motors instead. We took the support arm down and adapted them again so we can slide the winches all the way along the arm, back to the vertical pole. We welded a couple of pieces of square 5mm plates on the sides of the support arm so it would lock the winch machines into place and stop them rotating and tripping the safety switch that cuts the motor!!
We went out with these new versions of our lifting mechanisms, installed them on top of the towers and then started lifting our DE rafter beam.
But ..
We didn’t get the tower lined up parallel with where the rafter needed to go so it was too far out and we bent our vertical pole section of our lifting support arm (again!). We took that one down again and straightened it out and tried again but this time, to get the tower lined up better with the rafter right up close to the tower. We were able to lift the rafter all the way this time, at last!
But ..
We discovered that the way the rafter needed to be fitted, our winch was NOT high enough to get the rafter clear of the steel I-Beam to allow the bottom end to slide back into the corner! Oh Blow! Drat! Phew!
Everything goes back down to ground level, disconnect electric, tidy up one winch set and cover it up against the weather and the other set was taken down completely so we could start thinking a new design, using bigger, stiffer, taller metal pole, this time another 1.5 metres taller!!
We found an old heavy duty pole that was an used for an old washing line and used that as our new vertical pole. It was just the right diameter to slide down inside the scaffolding tower’s poles in the corner but we had to bash out the dents made by the locking bolts. While that was being done outside, the new pole was having bits and pieces welded to it (like the old support arm off the original version).
Tomorrow, we will finish off welding of extra bits and pieces to this new pole and then we will try lifting our rafter for the fourth or fifth time – We Forget Now! Smile!
