Given the recent discussion about comealongs and TIC rings, I thought
the following post from last year would be appropriate:
Every year about this time my wife and daughter ask what I would like
for
Father's Day. I already have these items, which I think would make
great
Dad's Day gifts for Tower guys.
1) from McMaster-Carr (www.McMaster-Carr.com) a worm-gear puller-hoist
this is a super-duper come-along with worm-gear drive. Two nice
features
are that it fits between the rungs of Rohn 45 (and probably 25) -
hanging
from one horizontal rung to pull up masts. This works much more cleanly
than the typical lever-operated come-alongs. The second feature is that
it is very smooth - you can make very small adjustments up or down
unlike
the ratchet motion of normal comealongs which also tends to overshoot
slightly. This worm drive is a dream. $87.92 plus S&H item 33615T15
2) The GearWrench ratcheting combination wrench. I bought two, a 1/2"
and a 5/8", for about $9 each at NAPA auto supply. The nice things
about
these wrenches are that they don't have the large shroud around the
ratchet
like the Craftsman wrenches so they fit into really tight spaces, like
the inside of my ring rotors. Second, they only need a 5 degree swing
to
work - unlike a normal box wrench. They also have stubby versions of
the
same items, but I prefer the normal lengths because I'm not a gorilla
with finger strength. Sears is currently running a sale on a set
of 7 Gearwrenches for $39.99.
3) anything from K7LXC's Champion Radio - I especially like the medium
duty (300 pound) web slings, which are much more flexible than the OSHA
types normally found at McMaster-Carr and other industrial supply
places.
I use the OSHA yellow ones for the big jobs (like the 300+ pound 20
meter
/40 meter combo beam) but use the others a lot more, like for wrapping
around the ORION rotor and using a carabiner to hold it to the tower
rungs
so I don't drop it to the ground below.
OK, now I need something to tell my wife to get for me. Any ideas?
Terry Zivney, N4TZ/9
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