Help! Setting up a new shop

[Ron Nossaman]

>I just put a little solvent on a rag and ran the chain through it a bunch 
>of times and it cleaned up plenty fine. You only have to clean the smaller 
>chain that you pull on. No real need to clean the chain that lifts the 
>plates - unless there is so much lubricant that it is dripping or whatever.
>
>Terry Farrell


Exactly, and that's what I would have done with new chain hoists, but both 
of mine were bought used, a year or so apart. The first was a big old one 
ton, with a good quarter inch of hardened oil/dirt paste over every part of 
it. I'd love to know where it had spent the last fifty years in alternating 
oil spray and dust storms to have accumulated that sort of patina. It 
worked fine gunk and all, but I was curious  to see what the lettering cast 
in the wheel said, so I cleaned it up. The two ton was just fine as it was, 
just a bit of functional funk, and I hung it without doing a thing to it 
other than shortening the loop chain like I did on the one ton.

I recently had a chance to buy a differential hoist cheap, three pulleys, 
two connected, one with the hook, and a loop chain threaded through. No 
gearing, ratchets, or fancy mechanisms. I always thought they were 
wonderful contraptions, but unfortunately impractical in a piano shop, so I 
reluctantly passed.

Ron N