Greetings!
We humans love stone.
We want to associate with it, we want to identify with it, and we want to be close to it. But, often the stones are not where we want them to be, so we have to figure out a way to move them from where we found them. Even if you are the strongest specimen of human being, you can only pick
up so much and there is a good chance you could hurt yourself. So, there is an art to moving stone safely.
In our April event day, we will be looking at all the options of moving stone.
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| Island of Nias, Sumatra, Indonesia 1915. This is how we used to do it. If I had to guess, the guy in the center on the stone with the vest is the boss... (Image from WikiCommons) |
In the morning, we will have Scott Hackney, the owner and stone mover extraordinaire of Marenakos, talk to us about rigging. I cannot stress enough the importance of rigging. Rigging is how you hold the stone while it is being moved.
We will see some ingenious ways to use braided chokers, endless straps, double eyed nylon straps, chains, and more.
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Our veteran boom truck operator, Roger, with a large Huckleberry Column.
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(If you don't know what these are, you have to come find out!) Scott will share with us all he has learned through the decades of moving stone.
There will also be a talk about our crane, as well. This crane is the second biggest knuckle crane in Seattle and will have a 60' reach with 6000 lb. load!
Then we will go out to the yard and
actually
see how the stone is moved using our boom truck. We will see how the grapple can "grab" stone, how we can strap, choke and chain stone to the hook of the bucket.
You will get a good sense for what it takes to have us set stone and how it is done, the time it may take, and the reach of the boom crane. I've seen it millions of times, but it is still pretty impressive.
In the afternoon, we will have Craig from
Issaquah Honda-Kubota, to show us what machines are out there to buy or rent to move stone. Tom will be bringing a bunch of his machines to the Marenakos yard for us to see
and operate.
Tom assures me that renting/buying and operating
equipment is not scary. You just have to be diligent, take care, and have proper respect for the
machine, and it will do all you want.
Tom and his team are the nicest guys, and as you might have guessed it, they love to talk about anything machine and equipment related. Bring all your questions. This is the time to ask!
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| The machines! Craig will be bringing some of these for us to see and operate in the Marenakos yard. Bring all your question about operating renting/buying equipment. |
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