This week we shipped a custom winch for Daedalus Design and Production for use in the new tour of Einstein On The Beach. The frame measures just 16” x 20” x 10” high and weighs only 80 lbs., which puts it well below our Pushstick winch. It was a fun project and it was nice to have a machine in the shop that one person could carry around!

This winch was designed with a yo-yo style drum, with the cable wrapping on top of itself (like a yo-yo) as opposed to the standard winch drum style where each wrap lays in it’s own groove. We chose the yo-yo style because the effect didn’t require much travel and a yo-yo drum can be made out of waterjet-cut parts and assembled in-house. The winch is required to move a 2000 lb. wagon along a track at a very slow speed, so we chose a 1 HP motor with a 50:1 gearbox.

Daedalus also asked us to build a double-scissor lift platform that got us back into the hydraulics swing. And as we’ve been discovering almost everyday for the last 4 months, having a full-sized shop and some extra people makes a big difference.

Just a quick update on what’s going on at the shop this week. If you saw my post from 2 weeks ago, you’ll remember that we have a lot going on this month. Well, the talking has ended and the work has started. Gareth spearheaded a big push to get most of our stock orders out the door and now we’re starting with the custom hydraulic work for Einstein On The Beach. We’ll have a video of that for next week.

When I say ‘We’, I’m not including our Product Engineer, Royal Marty, who had his nose repaired this week and is at home trying not to sneeze. He’ll be back full time next week when things really get moving around here. It will be nice to have him back. Get well soon, Royal!

We expect to put our Product Overview video up on the CCI website on Monday or Tuesday. I’ll let you all know when it’s up. Have a great weekend!