Julian Cope presents Head Heritage | The Modern Antiquarian Forum

GordonP

474 posts

Re: Yay!

Aug 19, 2003, 11:40

Hi Nigel

For a 10 ton stone I had in mind something like this, 20ft long, 3ft 6ins wide and 2ft deep. Something like that would make a spectacular erection (no laughing ladies) in concrete. At 157lbs per cubic foot that makes just over 10 tons. Apparantly concrete weighs about the same per cubic foot as the sarsen stone according to the archaeologists and has been used before in archaeological experiments. However if we use natural stone and all we could get was a big 10 ton boulder we could use a sort of timber raft to rest the stone on and lever the raft along.

Larch levers, I used larch on advice from the timber merchant, maybe he had plenty available, but any of those you mentioned would probably work. I'm a bit dubious about ash though , it may be to flexible. Oak would be good but might be heavy. We should test some different timber before deciding. I chose 20ft as the length because I thought that was about as long as one man could handle, after doing the experiment I now think that might be a bit long. We should test different lengths also. Whatever we use should,I think, be green.

Regarding the head height business. After each lift the lever needs to be lifted clear of the fulcrum log to reposition for the next lift, this means that the end of the lever nearest the stone actually rests on the groud during repositioning. When this is done the lever moves along the track at the same rate as the stone without the need to stop the rowing action.

Fibreglass? I do hope your joking, people already think I'm mad.

Regards Gordon

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Re: Yay! (nigelswift)

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Re: Yay! (nigelswift)

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