Troxy London restoration

[musht]

Anyone else use Henry powered hover boards?

https://www.ianvisits.co.uk/articles/behind-the-scenes-at-east-londons-art-deco-gem-the-troxy-50997/

Edited January 20, 2022 by musht

[alistermorton]

I was just reading that article. It's an interesting read, and the idea of Henry powered hover lifters is intriguing.

[ImagineerTom]

Who amongst us hasn't, at some point, dreamt of riding a Wurlitzer hovercraft across a stage in front of a crowd of thousands?

[richardash1981]

Clearly the ideal venue to perform Malcolm Arnold's Grand Grand Overture:

 

[sunray]

19 hours ago, alistermorton said:

I was just reading that article. It's an interesting read, and the idea of Henry powered hover lifters is intriguing.

back in the 80's when new racks of BT equipment were being installed the hovercrafts were made of cut down and inverted Aqua Vacs, later versions were far more professional and compact running on a hose from a separate blower unit.

 

the guy who came up with the idea got his inspiration from from a hoover vacumm cleanerfrom the 60's that glided around on its exhaust.

[Ynot]

On 1/21/2022 at 12:35 PM, sunray said:

.... the idea got his inspiration from from a hoover vacumm cleanerfrom the 60's that glided around on its exhaust.

That'll be this wee beastie...
Had one in the family home - they were almost bulletproof and lasted for years!

I remember that you could plug the hose into the outlet under the base and blow air thru - ideal for trying to unblock the pipe when your mum had sucked up one of those little plastic soldiers... 🙂

[sunray]

12 hours ago, Ynot said:

That'll be this wee beastie...
Had one in the family home - they were almost bulletproof and lasted for years!

I remember that you could plug the hose into the outlet under the base and blow air thru - ideal for trying to unblock the pipe when your mum had sucked up one of those little plastic soldiers... 🙂

That'll be the beggar.

We had a goblin in the 50's and in daily use until 1993 when my parents passedWhich had untold numbers of repairs but only for things like the hose and fittings, wheels, power switch. The motor never failed, I recall removing it twice: to replace the switch and the cable. Brother in law then used it as th prime mover for a dust extracter for dril/router/saw etc for years.

It had a hole at the motor end to use as a blower to blow dust out of difficult to reach places such as pelmets and the instructions recommended when first using as a blower to place the other end of the hose at the vacuum end to collect any dust left in the pipe.

Our neighbours had a hover and they were forever replacing the cable (Rather my dad was) until they found their boys standing in the middle of the room and swinging it round and round in circles by holding the cable.

Edited January 23, 2022 by sunray

[richardash1981]

I remember that the school workshop had a plastic dip coating rig which had been built by one of the staff/technicians which used a vacuum cleaner superficially like the Goblin above as source of air flow to keep the plastic particles suspended in air whilst the hot metal part (handle, bottle opener etc) was dipped in and allowed to collect a suitable coating.

[alistermorton]

We had one of those dip coaters at my school,  too.

[sunray]

Our school metal workshop head built a blue print copier, it was basically 2 semicircles of wood with perspex and a vacuum cleaner to suck the papers onto it. I never did understand much of how it worked or any detail past the 2x 13A sockets mounted on it and the widomaker lead used to provide power; to the yellow bulb (presumably sodium) and the outlet for the vacuum.

[Dave m]

Vacuum tables are common in plan copying.

basically a perforated top so the paper is sucked flat to the table (or wall)

as well as making artwork flat, it ensures focus is simplified.

 

I am intrigued to know how much lift a Henry can generate. I force an experiment with a plastic bucket and Henry.

[dje]

11 hours ago, Dave m said:

Vacuum tables are common in plan copying.

basically a perforated top so the paper is sucked flat to the table (or wall)

Also common in CNC manufacturing. Some flatbed CNC machines use a vacuum table to secure the panel being cut, but you also find them in robot cells.

Very common to use a rotating vacuum table with a robot so that the robot can reach all sides of the object being cut. The robot can pick up the object, place it on the table, turn on the vacuum to secure it, and then rotate the table so that the arm can see all sides of the object without reaching around it.

I installed a lot of these during first lockdown when there was no stage automation to do. Although we used somewhat more advanced vacuum systems rather than a Henry rigged up to some pipe 😄

Edited January 25, 2022 by dje

[Dave m]

it appeals to me as I did a gig at Bolton Arena and they had "big metal superstructures" that required a building site trailer style compressor but once powered were shoved around by a small crew. The stuff was kind of free standing catwalks that had an oil rig feel to them.

I watched a couple of USA based furniture lifting sales videos

We currently use large false walls that are basically boxes with small pallet truck holes in the base. When we want to move them we slide in a truck, pump and shift but it's a bit unwieldy and hard to steer.

 

As we have a new building planned I wondered about using air.

[kitlane]

43 minutes ago, Dave m said:

it appeals to me as I did a gig at Bolton Arena and they had "big metal superstructures" that required a building site trailer style compressor but once powered were shoved around by a small crew. The stuff was kind of free standing catwalks that had an oil rig feel to them.

I watched a couple of USA based furniture lifting sales videos

We currently use large false walls that are basically boxes with small pallet truck holes in the base. When we want to move them we slide in a truck, pump and shift but it's a bit unwieldy and hard to steer.

 

As we have a new building planned I wondered about using air.

This video of a changeover at The Derngate may be of interest

[Brian]

5 hours ago, kitlane said:

This video of a changeover at The Derngate may be of interest

 

That's the one. I was trying to remember where I'd done a show where a whole section of vertical boxes was just pushed out of the way on an air cushion.