Live Overhead! ~ Saturday, December 24, 2022

It works!

I actually got this working a while ago, and have been sitting on this update. Sorry! Anyway, here's proof:

A big thanks to Corky Whitlock, for encouragement, tips, and a stash of wire and line poles!

Well, here's a few misadventures and observations from building all this.

• Mostly I followed standard NCAT designs, except that for hangars from span-wires, I used a simpler design from a German modelling how-to book. Basically just created a U of wire, and folded that over the span-wire.
• Appropriate wire is hard to find; I ordered some from The Instrument Workshop.
• I hung various parts independently. This way when things go wrong, there's less to redo, and less chance of losing your mind because fixing one thing breaks another.
  • On the downside, this means I can only use pantographs. I really wanted to make trolley poles work too. Next time!
• It would be good to make each span wire a separate piece of wire, instead of trying to make one wire wrap around a pole and cover two spans in a V. Also, when attaching to more than one span wire to a pole, it'd be good to solder them at slightly different heights, so that soldering one doesn't un-solder another.
• It's useful to leave extra ends of wire on as long as possible, so I recommend waiting to trim it til you're really, really done.
• Use lots of wooden jigs. In particular, it's good to have wooden blocks of exactly wire hight to hold up what you're working on.
• To get the wires under some, but not too much, tension, I clamped various tools to the loose ends and hung them over the side of the workbench.
• I hear it's very helpful to use liquid flux. I didn't hear that or think of it before I started, but it's a good idea.
• When you start hanging overhead, it's insanely difficult, but keep at it and you'll start to get the knack. By the time you're done you'll feel a little bit like ripping it all down and doing it over again "right" (Not that I did).