Hi Roger and others:

Thanks for going that extra mile Roger and finding William Bell's book on Google.

I tried to click on your location marker and was blocked for some reason, anyway thanks again this time for William Bell.

He was from what I understand an architect and builder in his time and seemed to know what he was talking about.

Was the book for sale on Google?, I was just wondering how you were able to review the book's content.

NH

The link should work or at least it works for me. The book is public domain and is free to view and download through Google Books.

http://books.google.com/bkshp?hl=en&tab=wp

Type in the search window title and author.

I believe that the content on google books may only be accesible in the States. I know that a forum user in the UK last year couldn't access a book I had linked to.

Gabel, that makes sense. Since copyright laws vary nation by nation it could be useful for UK or Canadian members to do a search from Google Books UK or a Canadian Google portal.

Hewer, the page from Bell that I linked to is 43 from the 1859 edition.

Hello everyone:


There are many good topics floating around on the many different chat subjects, I would like to talk a bit about raising frames.

I am a personal great believer in using man power to raise frames safely, I feel that you have much more control over things providing that you have sufficient bodies around to make it happen.

Mechanical power in an historic sense usually was a gin pole, i have had to utilize it when sufficient man power was not available, but found it less than OK when taking both options into account. I guess the chance of mechanical breakdown is always there to haunt one when the lift takes place and the ropes tighten and you can hear and see the strain as everything slowly settles into its lifting mode.

I always felt very confident when just ropes and pike poles were the main lifting factor.

Anyone have any comments?

NH

The main lifting factor is human effort, fine as long as its well planned and executed. On stick frame jobs I've been hurt when too few men tried to tackle more than they could, when one person loses heart in a pinch everyone else suffers. From something I read once it was common in communities of old to see men who were victims of a lift gone sour. If you are a good planner, communicator and excell at directing groups then it works fine. I prefer to let some form of machine do the heavy work and I control it. I'm more a creature of the deep woods and don't care for the frenzy of groups. Although I don't care for the time pressure it instills, if I need to a crane is my preference.

This shot is a windlass gin we rigged up to tip up a few bents. Using a simple machine my wife and I tipped these up, no hurry, no flurry, no liability. No one is in the path of a drop, a cable failure could still get us I suppose, we were at a fraction of the working load of the cable. A runaway windlass handle was probably my greatest concern. A round windlass wheel and ratchet catch would lessen that possibility greatly

Give me a lever long enough and a place to stand.

Hi Don:

Thanks for stopping in with a great pic, and your approach to the lifting mode problems.

Boy, When you mentioned the round windlass wheel, it sure brought back old memories from days gone by.

At UCV we had in storage, house and barn moving equipment that included rollers, and the winch apparatus which was a simple wertical wooden shaft about 8 " in diameter set into a moveable skid with a bottom and top wooden bearing. tha vertical shaft had near the top slots to insert a long pole maybe 12 feet in
length.

You could literally move just about anything including a 3 bay barn or house by mooring the skid to a dead man or other permanent object, and then attaching a cable or heavy rope to the object to be moved and thence around the vetical shaft.

If the object was really heavy you could insert a set of pulley blocks between the winch and the object to be moved to increase the pulling power of the winch. This scheme could again be increased by increasing proportionatly the number of sheaves in the pulley blocks

I interviewed a gentleman who specialized in moving buildings with such an apparatus, and he said he often used only the power of one person walking around pushing the pole on the winch, he said it was sufficient to move a very large barn.

I also ran across a winch in a driveshed that was mounted above one of the bays, it consisted of just a round axle sitting in 2 wood bearings at the ends, and had smsll round poles that were inserted in the shaft near one end, that could be used to rotate the shaft to lift any number of different objects, a good alternative for today's stationary hydraulic\electric power units

This is alittle off subject but I also ran across water powered winches that were used to hoist bags of wheat and other forage grains to various levels of gristmills. These winches were very simply constructed using again horizontal wood shafts and friction pulleys their adaption can be explained more fully if anyone wishes just ask.

Thanks for coming on board everyone, I hope you enjoy this foray into the days of yesteryear and to peak into the uneducated minds of those that could really imagine solutions to countless numbers of seemingly unendless moving and hoisting problems, of course one being to raise the frames of large barns\houses outbuildings and mills in times of low manpower. This is not to mention tearing out tree stumps and moving large rocks in the land clearing early phase of the settlement of any area.

NH

Similar to what was described:




Windlass that we made from above picture:





Sometimes called a "beef roll" as it was used to lift livestock for butchering:



This one had a wagon wheel on the end to use so that the pull rope went over the wheel which increased the mechanical advantage.

I just thought I'd add some pictures to show what was described....

HI Jim:

Thanks for coming on line and also with the wonderful pics of both types of lifting and pulling apparatuses

Both of the types that I described were quite a bit cruder in construction especially the overhead one that I stumbled across in the Schwerdfeger driveshed, it just had hand made poles stuck in holes at the end of the shaft.

The barn moving apparatus that I described was I believe (from the photos you posted) mounted on a heavier skid. You would have really enjoyed I am sure talking to Mr. Burchell the lad who I intervied and who had made moving buildings his main source of income for many years. He got out the fiddle and we had a great time for part of an afternoon.

I wonder if you had ever ran across early historical mill windlass equipment like I described. The ones that I examined were in mills close to Staten Island and in southern New York State, and Maine.

Thanks again for posting for everyone to see

NH

thanks for all the good info everyone, everyone starts at the peanut gallery. im a sponge.

p.s. cranes are too obtuse
trees for big machinery
driveways aren't too wide