Was something like this ever used, or was it a "conceptual idea?"
Wednesday, August 31, 2011
1914 half tone print
Posted by
Wade G. Burck
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A Blog designed for discussion of topics related to, but not limited to, Circus, Zoos, Animal Training, and Animal Welfare/Husbandry. Sometimes opening up the dialog is the best starting point of all. And if for nothing else when people who agree and don't agree, get together and start discussing it, it will open up a lot of peoples minds. Debate and discussion even amongst themselves opens a window where there wasn't one before.
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11 comments:
Cap Curtis did use his spool wagons to raise all of the Sells-Floto big top center poles at one time. The risk of doing so, and securing them once in position, must have been judged too great and the practice wasn't sustained. These views were taken from real photographs.
Anonymous,
How did they get the top up? Did it raise up "under" the supporting guy ropes?
Wade
Wade, all bale ring tents are like that. The center poles get guyed out, then the tent raised beneath the guy lines.
Wade,
The guy ropes were indeed actual ropes for many years. Made of good old hemp material, they frayed and stretched but worked rather well.
The fires in the tents caused these ropes to burn as well allowing the entire thing to come crashing down.
Eventually, the states passed laws making cables a requirement from the poles down to the stake, where a rope could be attached to the stake. Then the tents had to have cables inside the "seams" so that the structure of the tent would hold up even if the fabric tore or burned.
While the idea of raising all the center poles at once goes back to Cap Curtis, it is still in use today, although almost all bale ring tops that are left are rentals and not really circus oriented anymore.
You may be more familiar with the newer towers used by shows such as Carson and Barnes and Cole Bros. where the winches to pull up the tents are actually inside the towers now.
Bob
from Jim Stockley: This strikes me as a very odd picture. Why would anyone pull '8 poles in line' from the side? I have never seen that done before. The usual way would be to pull them all at the same time, but from the end? I would have thought the leverage on the spool-wagon would have pulled the wagon over? Also, where is the canvas that was on the spool-wagon? I don't see any canvas laid out? Normally you would pull up the kingpoles before you laid out the canvas, so the spool-wagon would usually be full of canvas when the poles went up, not empty as in this picture? Interesting ;-)
Jim,
The fact that it appears to pull up from the side, instead of from the ends, as you state, is also what struck me as odd. I didn't realize there was canvas on this spool. I figured it was like the reel of a fishing pole and that only the cable/ropes were wound around it. That's why I was asking about the top and how it went up.
Wade
Indeed you are looking at two different views. The top photo does show them all being pulled up from the end as Jim has mentioned.
The bottom view has them all standing and guyed out with just the wagon parked in front of them.
Bob
from Jim Stockley: I'm afraid I disagree with Bob (sorry).
IF the poles were being pulled from the end, then the side guys going off to the right and those going off to the left of the picture would already be set fairly tight (the distance from pole top to stake is the same when the pole is down as when it's up, so they can be set?)
In the top picture all the main guys going off to the right are tight (and long) and all those to the left are hanging slack, which seems to indicate that the poles are being pulled from the side?
Also, where has the canvas gone from the spool wagon? I have never used such a thing but surely the canvas stays on the spool until the poles are up?
Jim,
You must of have used it at one time. I see a Union Jack second from the right. :)
Wade
It's a mystery. If the spool wagon is being used (and it is on the side, not at the end as Bob suggested), then at best, it could only be winching up the center pair of poles. What is pulling the rest of the guy lines? I bet if the picture was posted on the Old Movie Blog, there would be a lot of theories.
Anonymous,
The 'old movie blog!!!!' LOL If you were to go back in the manure pile you would find that most of the most of the folks from the 'old movie blog' are also following along here. They don't comment as much any more, because they don't like their "theories" being disputed/debated. They are more comfortable with naysayers being censored and deleted. They still read regularly as their ip address bears out. They just don't comment as much any more, once they found out their "theories" weren't necessarily written in stone and no one was going to be censored because they may disagree.
Wade
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