Have you seen the chain-mail encased air bags rescuers use to lift vehicles when victims are trapped underneath and the car needs to go straight up or be tilted up from one end, or side, and it needs to happen
NOW!!? Rescuers hastily place these 'armored bags' wherever they need them, keep center of gravity and structure of bumpers (etcetera) in mind and lift amazing amounts of weight with pretty surprising precision and control using air under very low PSI from pressurized air tanks and / or compressors normally found on tow trucks for topping up tires.
Here's a cheap trick I picked up from a touring show that may work for you.
When you're only raising scenery, in this case it was a couple of large sets of approximately 30' x 12' each and not saving any trapped victims, you may be able to adapt this technique to work for you:
The
road carpenter brought in a number of solidly assembled 3/4" ply boxes. They were constructed and kept in matched pairs of varying sizes.
One of a pair was placed on our
house deck open side up.
A standard rubber inner tube was placed inside with its filler tube extended.
The mating box was inverted and slipped over its slightly smaller mate.
When the boxes were mated, the inverted box also rested solidly on our
house deck.
A number of these mating pairs were placed in specific locations and the touring sets were built on top of the mated boxes.
When the inner tubes were un-inflated everything was solidly held in place by the weight of the heavy sets complete with all furnishings,
props, walls, windows,
drapes and decor.
When air was added each entire set lifted.
READ THE FOLLOWING SLOWLY A COUPLE OF TIMES THEN SIMPLIFY TO MEET YOUR NEEDS as it shouldn't be difficult (or costly) to scale down to your needs and budgets.
In this touring version, the first box down had four good quality 'triple swivels' on its bottom.
When the inner tube was put in, its extended filler tube exited via a hole drilled in the box's side wall at the very bottom.
When the matching inverted box came down over the top, it had a small '
mouse hole' straddling the filler extension and this box's depth was deeper, deep enough to come right down to the
house deck even though the first box was spaced off the
deck by the height of its 'triple swivels'.
Now you've got inner tubes protected within double walled boxes and un-pinched air hoses.
UN-INFLATED: SOLID SUPPORT.
INFLATED: LIFTS AND ROLLS ON THE CASTERS.
Realize you can't simply bung these boxes together with nails or pneumatic staples. If they're not put together extremely solidly with at least glue and cleats everywhere, they'll get torn apart by the tube when it's doing its best to raise the upper box.
Here's some of the pricier finesse.
This touring rig had all of its air lines coupled with quick-connects for convenience and to provide synchronization and pressure equalization. They had check-valves, tees and
solenoid operated bleeder hoses equipped with porous foam mufflers to minimize noise when they were bleeding air to lower the units off their castors. This elegantly simple technology allowed
deck hands to
roll an entire set in from the wings and
park it solidly on its spikes without having to modify our
house deck in any way. Scene changes were usually in black with any noise covered by prerecorded music although I think they also played a smaller (3rd) scene
down stage immediately behind the
house curtain and in front of our flown #1 black traveller.
Yeah, I'm THAT old. I remember a time before modern automation.
No, I will not tell you how they built the pyramids. (I'll leave that to Derreck and
@ruinexplorer.
Toodleoo!
Ron Hebbard.