Long arm for picking up rubble

Fabricating a grab hand shouldnt be too hard. Presumably you'd use 2 ropes to suspend it, hang it on one and it opens, hang it on the other and it closes. I expect rubber lining of the slightly jagged jaws would be necessary in order to get enough grip with a light hand. But what... that still leaves 2 challenges

1. Getting clear video from down there
2. Its going to be a very slow business when you've got very little control of rotation and horizontal position, and 17' to haul every single piece or rubble 1 by 1.

I suspect it would be a lot quicker to make an access hole low down and just lift the rubble out by hand.

NT

Ah, I think I had an old Tonka toy like that with plastic crabbers and two chains - lower each at the right speed and the grabber opened or closed. That gives me a good image to work from now.

It is mainly whole and half bricks, so it may not need many removing. Visibility is good with a desk lamp shining down.

It would need to be too large a hole to be worth it (why am I saying that here?;-) for an antenna cable at least. I would need to remove many bricks to get a whole big enough to pull out the bricks, even after smashing them up.

-- JJ

In message , Jason writes

MMMMMMMMMMmmmmmmmmmmm Should be fun, how well can you see what you are trying to grab? Maybe a CCTV camera mounted above what ever grab you use to aid the process?

A thought that would be less mechanically challenging, but would be a test of patience would be a small weight on the end of the cord with a quick setting glue on it that would attach to the bricks and allow you to pull them up one at a time.

I use my chimney as a cable duct from the lounge to the attic, no idea how I would manage without it.

Tell them there is treasure buried down there.

Sounds like you need a fruit picker, although it would probably be possible to modify a long reach tree lopper temporarily to grasp rather than to cut.

Colin Bignell

I don't know but back in the old days, the oil industry had a whole range of things like this called fishing tools, they probably still have but the cost a bundle!

Brian

I was perhaps thinking of a system like a long version of those devices available from stores for disabled folk that have a trellis like structure that has different ends that open and close for picking stuff up when you cannot reach the floor. another idea which might grip better than a grab is basically a giant crocodile clip, which you o position over each brick, then pull a chord to let the spring close it.

Brian

Set of drain rods, the round flat plunger thing on the end and a big blob of bluetak!

Feed down, push onto "stuff" see what you can pull up. Repeat!

Would need at least 17ft clearance in the attic though to lift it up and down so the OP may have to cut a hole in the attic roof. If this awkward access is the only way the OP wants to do the job then may be a powerful vacuum cleaner with a long hose would suck on the bits enough to lift then up. Another out of the box idea ,chuck a load of old nails down the hole followed by a load of glue. Then use one of those tool recovery magnets like a sea searcher that can be obtained in yottie shops. Seems a hard way to go about things though.

G.Harman

A GIGANTIC vacuum cleaner???

Probably done by ROV these days.

The nuclear industry had a bit of experience too. You *don't* want to know how much it costs!

Yes they have experience. I recently worked on a job where a guy was taken on on a 3 month contract and 17 years later he's still there and the retrieval system is being built for the 4th time - each time they get it close to complete, the regulations and the requirements have changed and they virtually have to start again!

On the other hand, having moved from an ex-BNFL company to a joint venture by non-ex-state companies, their workpace and arrangements to get the job done are a revelation! Even there, it could be done for a fraction of the price if the various parties could stop moving the goalposts.

SteveW

If they are engineering bricks you should be able to a magnet... ...well in my mind you should anyway.

make a doover similar to those grappling grabs on those coin operated amusements which open when dropped but when you pull on the rope they close the grab claws

Do you have any children (or grandchildren, if you are that old)?

The column to pull the bricks out of is about 17 foot deep, and

Foot square? Small child on a rope. ;-)

Tim

Dangle an angle grinder down there on a long lead. This chews up all the bricks and then you vacuum all the dust up leaving a clear cavity.

Snap! That sounds imaginative.

One day I expect we will be sending little robots up and down to do our brick- and cable-lugging chores.

Visibility is great, so nothing fancy needed there.

One day I plan to use it to pipe hot and cold air around the house too, to move the heat from the rooms where it is in excess to the rooms where it needs it (log stove in the living room, but it's not attached to the radiators at all). I need to get the insulation and draughts fully sorted out before I do that though, but the idea is always there, nagging me.