Scaffold

“ In process of time, the scaffold gives way and falls, when the relations of the deceased bury the whole of the remains, with the exception of the skull, which they place on the ground, forming circles of a hundred or more, all with the faces looking inward, and all resting on fresh bunches of herbs. ”

“ A scaffold, as used in building, is a temporary arrangement of timbers combined and supported in various ways to enable the workmen to proceed with their work, and where required, to afford facilities for the lifting and carrying of the materials. ”

“ The scaffold itself consists of a climbing platform made to travel up or down by means of four posts which have racks attached to their faces, and which are fixed to the under frame and securely braced to resist racking strains. ”

“ A scaffold is usually within a few inches of the building, except where breaks in the wall of the erection occur, so that rails and edge boards are not usually necessary on the inside of the platform.
In allowing a reasonable distance on each side of a ladder, consideration must be given not only for the landing of workmen but also for material being carried ”

“ All poles before being used in the construction of the scaffold should be barked.
This is generally done, but is imperative when the poles are to be used as standards. If not ripped off the bark acts as a sheath to the pole, and having little adhesion thereto will slip under pressure such as is exerted by the ledgers.
11. No work should take place on a working platform until its construction is complete, unless the portion incomplete is effectively guarded from the men using it.
In the course of building, the working platforms have to be raised as the work progresses. ”

“ THE STRENGTH OF A SCAFFOLD The strength of a scaffold equals the resistance that its members and their connections can offer to the strains that act upon it. The timbers used may fail in various ways. ”

“ Tied at their crossing-point, connections are made to all the main timbers of the scaffold with which they come in contact. Braces are fixed in all exposed situations, and generally where the scaffold is more than one pole (30 feet) in height.
Fig. 23
The only exception to effective bracing being carried out is where the building, being of irregular form, creates many breaks and returns in the scaffolding. It is obvious27 that where a scaffold butts against or breaks with a return wall, the tendency to lateral motion is lessened. ”

“ A light repairing scaffold lately put on the market has a platform which is supported and not suspended, but otherwise affords about the same scope to the workmen as the painters’ boats. It consists of one pole and a platform, the latter being levered up and down the pole as required by a man standing on the platform itself. The whole apparatus can be moved by one man standing at the bottom. ”

“ All bridging runs between different portions of a scaffold or building, and from which a workman could fall a distance of more than 8 feet, should be not less than 18 inches wide. If composed of two or more boards they should be fastened together in such a manner as to prevent unequal sagging. ”

“ A [Pg 27] scaffold, about ten feet high, being erected, the logs to be sawed are placed thereon, when one man is placed above, and another below, who alternately pull and push the saw, thus forcing it through the logs.
Aaron was busy at this kind of work, when he observed several strange visitors approaching him, whose business he did not at first suspect. He was requested to come down from the scaffold, as one of the gentlemen wished to talk with him about building a barn. ”

“ Having mounted the scaffold, she seated herself on a low stool covered with black, while the warrant of execution was being read. When it was finished, she signed herself with the sign of the Cross and (as an eye witness says) , "She looked upon the assembly with a joyous countenance, her beauty more apparent than ever, a bright colour in her face." Mr. Fletcher, Dean of Peterborough, then approached the scaffold railing and began to address her. But she paid no heed to him, except to inform him that he need not trouble himself further, for she was settled in her religion. ”

“ The scaffold had been made against the wall of the Palace of Whitehall, by the banqueting chamber, and the King, coming through one of the windows of this same chamber, stepped upon it. It was hung about with black, and in the midst was a block and an axe, and by the block stood two men that had their faces covered with masks. A great number of soldiers stood about the scaffold, so that the people could not come near it ”

“ As soon as the scaffold is ready, the body is borne by the women, followed by the female relatives, to the place of final deposit, and left prone in its secure wrappings upon this airy bed of death. This ceremony is accompanied with lamentations wild and weird that one must see and hear in order to appreciate. If the deceased be a brave, it is customary to place upon or beneath the scaffold a few buffalo-heads which time has rendered dry and inoffensive; and if he has been brave in war some of his implements of battle are placed on the scaffold or securely tied to its timbers. ”

“ Thirdly.—As ties and braces, they may fail to resist tension; that is, a strain tending to pull a beam asunder by stretching.
The loads that act upon a scaffold may be dead, that is to say, they do not create a shock; or live, which means they are not stationary, and may cause shock and vibration.
A live load causes nearly double the strain that a dead load produces. If, therefore, both are of equal weight, the timber under strain will carry as a live load only one half of what it would carry as a dead load. ”

“ The poor old father had engaged, as we may well believe, one of the best places from which the eye could take in the whole of the terrible scene, where so many men of noble blood were to perish on a vast scaffold covered with black cloth, erected in the middle of the open square. ”

“ In such places where the scaffolding has not been erected by the direct employer of the men using it, or where its management has not been under his personal or deputed control or supervision, he should satisfy himself either personally or by his agents before allowing his employees to work thereon that the foregoing suggestions are kept in force on that portion of the scaffold and building with which he is concerned. ”

“ Pole Scaffolds
Bricklayers’ Scaffolds.—A bricklayer’s scaffold consists of a series of upright poles or standards, to which are lashed horizontal poles, termed ledgers. The ledgers and the wall of the building carry the putlogs, on which boards are laid to support the workman, his material, and tools (fig. 13) .
The standards are first erected, and may stand singly or in pairs. In a repairing job, unless of great height, and where there is no great weight of material, single poles are sufficient. ”

“ This makes it practically impossible for the scaffold to fail by breaking away from the building under the influence of the loads it may carry. Shoring or tying is therefore not so important. Wind pressures have, however, a greater effect, especially when the direction is not at right angles to one of the faces of the scaffold. If in that direction, the tied putlogs would offer resistance. Braces are therefore imperative, and they should be fixed at right angles to each other, each pair thus bracing a portion of the height of the scaffold equal to its width. ”

“ No scaffold is to project beyond the foot-way pavement where it is narrow, nor more than 6 feet where it is wide enough to admit of such projection; any deviation on account of special reasons is to be stated upon the license. ”

“ The best and strongest cords are those of white Manilla hemp. The fibres for scaffold cords are often dipped in hot tar before being made up into rope. The ropes generally used b the scaffold er are either “shroud laid,” having three strands of fibres wound tightly around a core, or “three strand” which are similar but without a core.
The erection of scaffolding demands nerve and physical strength, as well as skill and discretion. The timbers near the ground are fixed by hand labour alone; the higher poles are raised, by pulley and rope. ”

“ He studied the best height for the mortar box and brick pile, and then designed a scaffold, with a table on it, upon which all of the materials are placed, so as to keep the bricks, the mortar, the man, and the wall in their proper relative positions. These scaffolds are adjusted, as the wall grows in height, for all of the bricklayers by a laborer especially detailed for this purpose, and by this means the bricklayer is saved the exertion of stooping down to the level of his feet for each brick and each trowelful of mortar and then straightening up again. ”

“ Two forces which tend to create a loss of equilibrium are: the pressure of wind which acts from any direction in a horizontal plane, and the force of gravity due to the weight of the scaffold and that of attendant loads. ”

“ Practically the only tool used by the scaffolder is his hatchet, made with a hammer-head for driving spikes and wedges; the wooden handle he often uses as a lever to tighten knots and cords. Scaffolds should not be too heavily loaded, and the weight of materials should be distributed as much as possible. This applies especially to bricklayers scaffolds, for heavy concentrated loads, even if not sufficient to cause the scaffold to fail, tend to injure the brickwork. ”

“ Each new workman brings new tools, new ideas, and his own extensive experience with him, and tackles the whole structure from different points of view. Then the scaffolding is removed, and a mighty building appears, which scarcely gives any idea how diverse were the plans on which it was founded. So, too, this contribution to our knowledge of the functions of the cells may be considered only as an attempt to adjust a new stone in the already existing structure, and to construct a scaffold from which further progress may be made. ”

“ There is some objection to this method of scaffolding where the wall is more than 1 foot 101⁄2 inches thick (which is the greatest depth of brickwork over which a man can reach and do finished work) , for the mechanics, in order to reach the outside joints, have to kneel on the freshly laid material, which is detrimental to good workmanship. For this reason the system of carrying up an ordinary pole scaffold externally until the height is reached where the wall is reduced to 1 foot 101⁄2 inches in thickness, is to be preferred. ”

“ Their every action was ridiculously futile, ending in disaster. If a carpenter ascended a scaffold, the scaffold broke, giving him a hard fall of ten feet and undoing all the labour accomplished by his comrades ”

“ Petersburg poles are the most generally used for scaffolding. They are weaker than the Christiania poles, breaking shorter under cross strains, are whiter in colour, have a smoother bark, are straighter in grain, and therefore make better ladder sides. ”

“ The graft in this case is only used as a scaffolding. (Our assumed workers with all their ingenuity are not equal to the task of throwing out cantilevers into the void.) But the planks of the scaffolding become an organic part of the new structure, and when the new material used is foreign, we find the marks of divided purpose in plan and construction. The new bone [51] takes longer to form and the work is not so well done. ”

“ Scaffolding used in Ceylon and other Eastern countries when erecting buildings is odd. The supports to which the floors of the scaffolding rest are bamboo poles, and the crosspieces and other material used to work on are held together by rope, no nails being used. The scaffolding is so bulky, crude and shaky that the walls of a building look as if they were out of plumb, but the scaffolding nearly always hides the new building entirely from view. ”

“ There is no sight in any country that raises my own spirits so much as a scaffolding. It is a tragedy that they always take the scaffolding away, and leave us nothing but a mere building. If they would only take the building away and leave us a beautiful scaffolding, it would in most cases be a gain to the loveliness of earth. ”

“ Tier upon tier of lightweight metal scaffolding rose on all sides of a twenty-foot-square area of flooring. Riveted across the angles of the scaffolding were coils and condensors, insulators and sparking forks of synaptic wiring, whirling cams and clattering selectors, banks of glowing lights that danced on random pattern, deepset labyrinthine nests of wire that glowed a brilliant orange, then faded to dull grey, then glowed again, accompanied by a rising and falling hum of urgent power. ”

“ Where increased strength is required a small rope can be attached to a larger one by means of a rolling hitch. The whole arrangement comes apart as soon as the strain is removed.
No. 41. A method of lifting scaffold poles in a vertical position by the use of the timber hitch and half hitch. If it is required to free the upper end while the pole is being carried, the half hitch can be replaced by a cord tied round the pole and the lifting rope.
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CHAPTER VI
SCAFFOLDING ACCESSORIES AND THEIR USE Ladders.—A ladder consists of a pair of sides connected by a series of oak or ash treads or rungs. ”

“ Twilight rears the scaffolding first, then hangs the Night upon it. Otherwise the darkness would simply fall in lumps, and lie about in pools and blocks, unfinished--a ruin instead of a building. Everything must have a scaffolding first. ”

“ Those on the lower steps of the scaffolding jumped. The stage hands ran in to catch the others; but the higher little girls could not leap without risking both life and limb!
A pandemonium of warning cries and shrieks of alarm followed. The scaffolding pulled apart slowly, falling forward through the drop which retarded it at first, but finally tearing the drop from its fastenings in the flies.
Swiftwing, the hummingbird, did not add her little voice to the general uproar. She was safely held by the wire cable hooked to her belt at the back.
But the butterflies were helpless. ”