Piano Mover

[Guy, Karen, and Tor Nichols]

At 09:23 AM 2/26/97 -0500, you wrote:
>Wondering if anyone has ever built a piano mover with a track (like an army
>tank) instead of wheels.  Would be great for going across lawns, up and down
>stairs.  Could probably be motorized fairly easily.  I have some ideas, but
>would welcome any input.
>
Dick,
	Guess you've never seen the "Roscoe" piano moving tank. Someplace around
here I've got a video of another one that was a lot shorter, and only cost
3000 bucks. And you only had to dead-lift a vertical 18" to get it on the
dolly!. The Roscoe actually works quite well. Arbogast is the manufacturer.
Don't exactly know where to find one, now.
	Rainwater and I got to use a thing called a "Western" dolly by the movie
crew that had it when we hauled a 5'7" across 3 miles of White Sands
National Monument. (I don't know ANYone that ever saw that commercial) The
parks people didn't allow any motorized equipment over certain areas of the
dunes, and you can't walk(or roll) in the bottom of the swells between
dunes due to fragile prehistoric bacteria formations.(way cool). Anyway,
the western dolly is a sweetheart. It's just a very low cart with off-set
wheel-barrow-type moon-buggy tires and a pulling/steering system much like
an old Radio Flyer. EVERYthing had to be harrumphed out to the primary site
by this thing, and of course it got dark after the dust storm and the
temperature dropped a bazzillion degrees...
	Now, for the fun of it, I'll try to describe my off-road dolly. A 2x4
rectangular frame with two extra interior pieces length-wise, where the
width between the two closest interior lengths is the same as the outside
width of my regular four-wheel standard dolly. Sandwich ed between the
interior and exterior lengths, dead center of the overall length, on one
axle, are two narrow (2.5") but big around(14") tires from the hardware
store. Functionally, this thing will swivel on a dime, go through 18" tall
grass, dirt, gravel, and so on with ease. The piano can be directly on it,
or be strapped to the regular dolly and the whole shebang strapped to the
AT. Sand is still a problem, and we've got plenty. Nothing small is great
in sand, so we just carry a little bit of porta-road with us in the form of
some 1/4" plywood. Pick it up, set it down, etc.
Hope this is helpful, despite it's length.
Regards,
Guy Nichols,RPT, chapter 799
nicho@lascruces.com