Building a Spreader Bar

My good friend Andrea has come up with a rather clever new aerial apparatus called Flyweight Chains involving a bundle of chain of similar mass to to the performer's body weight acting as a counterweight.

The chain is attached to a steel cable the other end of which is attached to the performer, the cable is then suspended from the ceiling of the venue by two pulleys. The result is the performer being almost weightless...

I started getting involved on the edge of the flyweight chains project around about the time of Andrea's debut performance at the Wellington Circus Trust Christmas Cabaret performance back in December 2011. My involvement at that stage was filming said debut performance:

Now the main issue with the system has been, the pulleys have to be rigged a very precise distance apart with the correct orientation to the audience. At cabaret this wasn't an issue however the requirements have limited the number of possible locations that the apparatus can be successfully be setup.

Andrea mentioned to me that  a spreader bar of approximately 1800mm in length would allow the apparatus to be rigged from a single suspension point... As a bonus the whole rig can also spin....

It was time to do some good old fashioned engineering; Jez, (rocket scientist) Andrea and myself set about doing some design work. That was after some rather NSFW trawling of the internet for all information possible on spreader bars, it would appear that such a piece of apparatus isn't just used for industrial lifting purposes...

After many many many different iterations, the design we can up with was to use plain and simple steel pipe for the bar with load rated eyes at the ends. Jez's rocket science method and my "use the scaffolding standards" both came up with a bar that would be good for approximately 2 tons in compression.

The cleanest way to buy load rated eyes off the shelf is to use either shouldered eye bolts OR eye nuts, we chose to go with eye bolts that would screw into threaded sockets in the bar. Said sockets are M20 threaded rod coupling nuts, modified slightly on a lathe and welded into the ends of the pipe.

Buying the coupling nuts turned out to be a lot cheaper than an equivalent piece of steel and cutting the required M20 internal thread.

The final result showing the pulleys, top cables and the free running steel cable.

The whole spreader bar and cable assembly was then proof tested at Steel and Tube... They issued the bar with a shiny test certificate proving that it had been tested to 500kg with no signs of distress.

Below is the creation in action at The Life You Imagined show in June 2012.



Also see: Andrea's blog post on this spreader bar.

Plumber vs Electrician...

This post may start a war... If it does I shall giggle from the sidelines and toast marshmallows on the resultant fires.

My parents have just bought a new house in a new town. As part of my recent holiday I stopped in for a few days to do a couple of electrical wiring jobs and other bits and pieces. One of those jobs was to rework the area under the laundry sink to properly install the washing machine.

What greeted me caused a slightly alarming increase in blood pressure, the plumbing was clearly installed after the electrician had been and gone from the house.

Not only were the washing machine connections installed so as to completely obstruct the power socket intended for powering the dryer and washing machine. The taps are placed such that their handles were directly located behind the shelf.

I am picking that the RCD is going to trip if there is ever a leak from the left tap. Perhaps the plumber did it deliberately? An advanced leak detection and early warning system for the left tap only?

I think this illustrates how some tradesmen here in New Zealand tend to "just do what they were asked to" without any regard to what others might have to do in a house, let alone the homeowner actually wanting to use their house to live in.

Mr. Plumber despite your sticker on the sink proclaiming you can be here in 60 minutes, our future business will be taken elsewhere.

New Cannon

This creation is a new attachement built to go with the pNuke system of pneumatic mortars. These have been used for such fun as attempting to break the sound barrier and all kinds of effects in Shihad's Sleepeater.

Mike Bailey put me on to The Rock's Perfect Pie challenge... To build the world's greatest pie launcher. The PiNuke was the result....

Usually all pNuke plumbing is 50mm, now I wanted the pies to be shot intact complete with wrapper for effect. This required the new barrel to be approximately 100mm in diameter to fit a Big Ben pie whole.

A length of 100mm steel pipe was sourced along with a 50mm to 100mm bell reducer and a 50mm male BSP fitting.

The parts were Tig welded together in record time (there was only a week available for the competition)

A quick video was shot and edited the next day just in time to enter, turns out frozen pies at speed inflict rather a lot of damage to microwave ovens...



















Fast forward a couple of weeks and I took the cannon away on holiday with me (weird I know) Zac, Jonathan and myself set about launching some nefariously fun projectiles such as fence posts with the cannon.

Fun with a cannon and cameras down on the farm

The cannon was strapped to an unsuspecting tree and much fun ensued... Of note: Dead leaves used as waddings and the flying soft drink bottles.