11 replies to this topic

[nickzeke]

I've been browsing these forums for a while and I got to thinking, when a chair derails, how do you get it back on to the sheaves? My guess is with a lifting beam, you could just pull it up with some sort of jack. But what about a chair without a lifting beam, such as Quicksilver at Crystal Mt, as this chair derailed last year.

[Peter]

Well in that particular case I know there was a cat brought in to help.

Attached File(s)

•  crystal 2-10-08 008.jpg (2.73MB)
  Number of downloads: 208

[nickzeke]

It looks like that picture was taken at the bottom of the lift, I was talking about the derail later in the season near the very top of the lift where the sheaves went under the line.

[SuperRat]

For our towers without built-in lifting frames we have portable (snicker!) bolt-on lifting frames. I laugh because they're heavy, awkward beasts. I was involved in a de-roping while doing summer line work on an old tower and we chose to drive a tele-handler to the tower and lift the rope rather than haul the portable frame out.

[Lift Dinosaur]

Yea, portable is sometimes a questionable term! You could also use the tele-handler to hoist the portable lifting frame up to the towerhead.

Dino

[nickzeke]

So after you attach the portable lifting frame, how do you get the cable back up onto the sheaves? Also, if you have pictures of this process, that would be fantastic!

[Allan]

With a chain hoist. You can see everything needed in this pic... You wouldn't have the work chair on a derail though.

Attached File(s)

•  IMG_1683.jpg (117.13K)
  Number of downloads: 155

[liftmech]

With the A-frame (finger-smasher) you use a hoist exactly as you would on a permanent lifting gantry. As you can see from Allan's photo there's a lot more rigging involved, and it takes a much longer time. I've used the frames at Crystal, and they're not too bad (relatively speaking, of course) to lift. They're still awkward to install, though, especially on those old Riblet towers.

[Allan]

Here's a better derail pic and rigging.

Attached File(s)

•  100_0824.JPG (1.22MB)
  Number of downloads: 169

[ghee]

Here is a riblet picking frame. We call her TINA she is a B

Attached File(s)

•  P1000014.JPG (2.64MB)
  Number of downloads: 104

[liftmech]

I can't really tell how that one's attached to the tower. The one I've used has two sets of saddles to clamp on the towerhead framework-- one for each side since it's asymmetric. The lifting frame then bolts to tabs in teh saddle.

[Flake O'Ripley]

As far as I know, every lift that did not come with a lift frame built on it, came with a "portable" unit similar to the ones pictured, no matter what kind it is, it's a bitch to get up and set up. We just put up a reengineered Riblet from Superior Tramways and I built lifting frames for all the towers and welded them on as they went up. The Superior engineers didn't like that we didn't ask for their blessing first but if (when) it derails, I only need the come-along. For our Hall lift, we built one for a tower and bought one of the bolt-ons from Skytrans (great folks) and will probably trying to add one or two a year.