I'm interested in learning how to carry out engineering work without modern equipment.
Far from a LARP, I'm working on repairing a castle and related defensive structures and the problem we keep running into is access to confined and elevated spaces. Basically machinery won't fit anywhere.
I've had a lot of success recently and would like to discuss this specifically as it really is quiet a practical subject.
You may simply not have the equipment at the time you need it, you may not be able to afford equipment, you may not be able to get equipment onto site, you may have neiche problems with the specific equipment available to you.
On rollers:
Rollers are one of the first tools I learned to use properly because they work on both a large and a small scale.
The first problem is how to get somthing onto rollers in the first place. If you're taking about a quarter ton stone block you can probably lever one end up, pin it in place, then lever the other end up.
But what about when the object is too heavy to lever? For example if a long steel pry bar would simply chip the edge off, drive the fulcrum into the ground, or you can't exert enough force on it?
I've found a few tricks here. Firstly you just use two guys with two pry bars, all things being equal its the best solution.
But another way is to use a series of boards and weigh them down with sandbags. Quickly you will find yourself limited by the strength of the boards, but if you place the boards on a metal plate to stop the fulcrum chopping them you can lift implausibly heavy blocks high enough to get a roller under them.
If your blocks were monolithic you would actually dig under them, lay rollers under them in the trenches you dug, then sap the obelisk so it fell onto the rollers half a foot below where It started.
>The first problem is how to get somthing onto rollers in the first place
Start with very small rollers getting gradually bigger as you roll along
How did the coral castle guy do it?
I'm not sure but this is very much the territory I'm in. There are dozens of methods you need to employ.
Some ancient, like rollers.
Some modern, like bottle jacks
Some are very clever hybrids, using modern materials and ancient methods (steel rollers) or using ancient materials and modern methods (stone ball and wooden rail scissor jacks).
The other day the boss couldn't move a block with 10 people and a forklift, so the next day I moved it by myself in my lunch break using my good friends, tortion, rollers and levers.
Have you heard about the american guy who moved 20t blocks by hand?
I have indeed, his technique of adding weight to shift the center of an objects balance was very valuable to me. I tend to use sandbags with heshian handles.
This is probably the method used to raise standing stones because despite its drawbacks it scales very directly. I think he uses like stacks of planks as a fulcrum, but in excavating stones I've found that you might as well just shovel dirt and let the stone compact it, using the same rocking motion to raise the stone.
This avoids the fulcrum damaging the stone, and also allows you to sap the fulcrum to shift the stone a bit in one direction or other.
One convenient method of weight movement is just having people walk on top or pull ropes
People waking on top aren't as reliable as sand bags, if they saw a snake or got scared of lightning or were fed up with work and simply jumped off the results would be catastrophic.
No, much like texasguy I'm a one man show and this is a big part of why I need pre industrial techniques. Many industrial machines can't be operated safely by a single person or can't be moved by a single person.
There's nothing wrong with cranes, if you can use a crane then that's what you do, and rather than a pivot crane you just put a frame over the block, and the rollers under the frame. You can parallel park blocks this way if you build four little brick pillars on either side of the wall you're fixing.
Consider also that water has many advantages over sand where you need dead weight and stored energy...lots of ancient methods that still work today used water to power them -
>cams were used in water-driven trip hammers by the latter half of the Western Han Dynasty (206 BC – 8 AD)
It's helpful too to realize that lots of concepts like that that are used in modern industry were conceived in antiquity and had to wait for materials and reliable power supplies to catch up to become practical and/or affordable.
Reading up on this guy and the people and ideas that inspired his "Book of Knowledge of Ingenious Mechanical Devices" from 1206 is a very enlightening rabbit hole, especially where it relates to hydropower-
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ismail_al-Jazari
One of his earlier inspirations-
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ban%C5%AB_M%C5%ABs%C4%81_brothers
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_of_Ingenious_Devices
>The mechanical grab, specifically the clamshell grab, is an original invention by the Banu Musa brothers that does not appear in any earlier Greek works. The grab they described was used to extract objects from underwater, and recover objects from the beds of streams.
>Book_of_Ingenious_Devices
I see the poo skins were at it a millenium ago aswell
>if they saw a snake or got scared of lightning or were fed up with work and simply jumped off
kek
>EEK A SNAKE!!!
this thread is really quite interesting, nice job anon. i'd love to hear more about ancient construction machines, apparently
Ropes can be pulled from the middle using other ropes for considerable mechanical advantage. Maasdam rope pullers work well for that sort of thing as do boat stuff like fiddle blocks.
>Far from a LARP, I'm working on repairing a castle and related defensive structures and the problem we keep running into is access to confined and elevated spaces. Basically machinery won't fit anywhere.
I found this video interesting to move a 150kg stone in a cramped place. And he made others too.
Yea he's using the board/fulcrum lift same as I do for blocks of this size.
But his scaffolding is bullshit at least in this video, and IDK why he uses a metal pryn bar instead of a wooden wedge and mallet, like I said metal levers are great but they do s lot of damage to the stone edges.
I often soft knap even large stones, using Metal chisel is too likely to split parts off,
>But his scaffolding is bullshit at least in this video
Yes I had seen that too at the time and it scared me.
>why he uses a metal pryn bar instead of a wooden wedge and mallet
A steel bar is the easiest solution but working with wood is much better for preserving the stone.
>I often soft knap even large stones, using Metal chisel is too likely to split parts off,
I don't know too much about stone cutting and I haven't done much masonry with stones so my knowledge is very limited and I won't be of much help.
here he is moving a 500kg stone.
The USMC rigging manual is a free download and worth a read. Winches can accomplish many things along with snatch blocks to increase leverage and ground anchors if needed as deadmen. Pay out enough cable and your winch can be anywhere. Hydraulic and PTO winches on large trucks, wreckers and heavy equipment can lift whatever you desire.
Winch gear and cables are safe single person moves (and one can use a cord to pull a line to pull a cable). Pneumatic jacks (big truck air bags) are powerful and don't take much air compressor power or you can and I do sometimes use a CO2 cylinder. Salvaged steel pipe and rod make excellent rollers.
Oy vey, too much technology. OP is a lazy Black person, why would he bother reading a manual?
>USMC rigging manual
yo
https://archive.org/details/Fm430.31RECOVERYANDBATTLEDAMAGEASSESSMENTANDREPAIR2006
You need to read the Vitruvius books, that'd be what your average middle-ages castle builder would have on hand
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_architectura
I have a copy on order.
Steel makes poor rollers because it's too hard, there's poor traction and stone skids across it and it ends up diagonal
Sometimes poor traction is an advantage. Depends on the desired result. I move a lot of steel where it's good news.
The wedge or inclined plane is another ancient technology used to develop mechanical advantage and lift/move heavy objects precisely, that lessens many of the risks involved with levers that "float" the load. They're slower but safer, especially with rounded or otherwise unstable objects that want to roll or topple if tilted. Wedges can lift and secure against that happening.
Screws and screw jacks and essentially a long wedge combined with a lever/fulcrum.
For lots of ideas and examples of heavy work done using rudimentary machines, read up on pre-industrial shipbuilding and operations, where massive structures and their parts had to be moved to the build site, put into position, and then the entire thing gotten into the water without damage. Once it was there there was cargo and sail handling as well as things like moving massive rudders without the benefits of steam or hydraulics or even draft animals.
One very practical ancient mechanism everyone should know is the Spanish windlass (pic related) that can be adapted for all kinds of uses from clamping to witching and tensioning of other ropes, bending timbers and metal, etc.either as a temporary tool or as a permanent adjuster, like a turnbuckle.
The foremost experts on this subject today are undoubtedly the builders of the Guédelon Castle in Treigny, France ( https://www.guedelon.fr/en )
They're building it slowly, over a period of 25 years, to get the most out of this experimental archaeology project which allows as many people as possible to learn and rediscover the many skills and the period technology on site as they go.
Giants