Pulling Plates

[Terry]

You know, now that you mention it, after I had the plate refinished, I would
first wrap an old (clean) rag around the strut first, and then wrap the
nylon strap around that. Oops, scrap the nylon thing - I see now they are
polyester (I'm looking at one). They are 1-inch wide and 4-feet long. They
have a vertical capacity of 1,600 lbs. They have big loops at each end. I
purchased them at Wholesale Tool  http://www.wttool.com/ .

Originally, I used three of these straps only and hooked them into my
ceiling-mounted chain-fall. I would have to manually try to adjust their
positions to get an even lift - very less than optimal. After picking up
some ideas from this list, I am now using two adjustable straps between the
polyester strap on the plate and the hook of the chain-fall (I use the
adjustable thing on the two front straps and simply run the rear strap
full-length directly from the plate to the chain-fall hook - no adjustment).
The adjustable straps I am using are rather light-duty (I seem to recall a
breaking strength of around 400 lbs. - arguably somewhat marginal strength)
and do not have a ratchet, but rather a simply thumb-controlled
hold-clamp-apparatus (it's actually a thingee) - it has never slipped (yeah,
I know what you are thinking - me too!). Very quick to adjust and easily get
a nice even lift. When I see something similar, but with higher breaking
strength, in a tool store, I will pick those up and switch to something with
a greater weight rating.

If anyone wishes for a picture, I would be happy to take one and send it
your way. I've got a plate hanging in mid-air as we speak!

Terry Farrell

www.farrellpiano.com

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "John Musselwhite" <john@musselwhite.com>
To: "Pianotech" <pianotech@ptg.org>
Sent: Thursday, December 09, 2004 1:15 AM
Subject: RE: Pulling Plates


> At 11:19 PM 12/08/04 -0500, Chuck wrote:
>
> >I've been wrapping a thick, soft, nylon strap around struts, capo, etc.
> >for lifting.
> >
> >
> >Where you find this kind of strap Terry? How thick, how wide?
>
> One suggestion might be used auto seat belts since you can probably get
> them for free. I'd still pad them around the plate though. If you don't
> trust the quick release you could always sew D-rings or something into
them.
>
> As for something other than a rafter or engine hoist to hang your seat
> belts (and chain fall) from to lift out the plate, has anyone ever tried
> using a modified child's outdoor swing set?  You could probably pick up a
> well-built old one for next-to-nothing and if you cleaned it up, added
some
> decent bolts and cut the cross-tube down to the width of a piano it should
> be plenty strong enough for a plate. If you needed to you could even
sister
> a couple of 2x4s to reinforce the crossbar and add blocks under the legs
if
> it isn't high enough.
>
>                  John
>
> John Musselwhite, RPT    -     Calgary, Alberta Canada
> http://www.musselwhite.com  http://canadianpianopage.com/calgary
> Pianotech IRC chats Tuesday and Thursday nights and Sunday Mornings
> http://www.bigfoot.com/~kmvander/ircpiano.html
>
>
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