Moving Day

This  weekend The Fuzz and the whole family met to celebrate the wedding of the Younger Son and His New Bride.  It was an excellent affair.  But that is not what this post is about.

The subject at hand is moving a piano.

Some years ago, there was a group effort to move a piano up into a second story apartment.  If anyone wishes to be reminded of this, they can click HERE (1) (2) (3).

But of course that is all in the past.  Yet, as it has been said, "What goes up, must come down".  And so that time had come.  And this time it was not The Fuzz's problem.  After all, he's retired.

Any project like this requires planning, and the proper equipment.  (More will be said on this subject later)  In a situation like this, which requires lowering a huge (and heavy) object down a flight of stairs will benefit from any type of mechanical advantage.  And so a close friend of the owner made up this impressive set of blocks for the occasion.

The first task was to get the thing out of the apartment.  This was accomplished with little trouble.

In this shot we can see preparations being made for the next critical step in this operation.

The blocks were attached, the rope secured, and the piano was slowly guided down tis specially designed system of ramps.  Now we were safely on ground level.

Of course it was still necessary to get the thing onto the truck.  Here you can see this flexible ramp system reconfigured for this purpose.  The steps in the walkway were utilized to eliminate the need to lift the thing up into the truck.  It was simply rolled on, and strapped down securely.

One does not want something like this sliding around back there once on the road.

Naturally, getting the thing into it's new home presented it's own challenges.  The truck was backed up to the doorway, and once again, the ramp used to move it to the porch.  Note the dolly at the arrow.  The key to moving a piano is a good dolly.  Unfortunately this was not a good dolly.

Unfortunately, there are not any pix of this next phase of the move.  As the piano was being pulled up the ramp, one wheel slipped off of the ramp.  While the piano did not fall, the dolly broke.  It seems that plastic is not the best material for this sort of task. 

The piano was successfully moved the rest of the way up the ramp where the dolly was reinforced with a piece of plywood.

Here it can be seem in the tight quarters at the top of the last flight of stairs.

And finally in it's new home after an adventurous move.  

Here's a look at the equipment that did not fail.

And what did.

This will be going back to the Home Improvement Store, with a complaint!