a fairground life

Yes we're still in the shed, yes we're still working on the miami and yes we're still waiting on the pump & motors being serviced. So not much movement then. The splats are finally finished, the man hours on them must be around 120. Designing the digital print, picking it up, getting the polycarbonate , monitors,plugs. Then making the monitor boxes and re wiring half the ride to power them up. Anyway after all that we had to find somewhere safe for them to travel that wasn't an operation at pulling down time. Eventually after much searching we decided to hang them on the backflash. With hooks that protrude to hang them on and an eye at the bottom to paddlelock them to. The polycarbonate is supposedly unbreakable!! So to test it we placed an off cut on the concrete floor an "r" blootered it a couple of times with a claw hammer. It survived and only had a slight dent to its surface. So the I put it between two blocks about 75mm from the floor to give it bending room, hit it with the hammer as hard as I could. From the recoil it shot up into the air about twenty feet. I repeated this a couple of times-sure enough it seems unbreakable! The last couple of days have been spent rubbing and filling the paybox ready for re decoration. But NOT with paint- this is the 21st century after all, so it's digital print on vinyl that has been laminated to protect it from UV and other nasty stuff. It looks a million dollars but is a bit tricky to put on. We have managed to do so thus far without getting any creases in it. Only two more panels to do and that will be us. I wonder who will be the first to do a whole backflash in print? It can even be printed onto aluminium sheets now. One thing I noticed though was that the half naked ladies now seemed very explicit and I had to strategically place text to take the edge off. This week coming is the last before starting out, hope we get the gear back soon. The plan (wish list) was for the 24th but I really don't know. I have attached a couple of photos of the paybox and a splat. I wonder if these are the first splats to have monitors fitted into them?

a fairground life (time will tell)

We're still working away in the shed. The motors and pumps are still away being serviced, but hopefully a little over a week and we will (maybe) get them back. The work has kept on going so not to waste the opportunity that we have had in the shed waiting for the motors etc. It is very expensive but they should last another 20 years now and that will probably see me out. The ride has been painted under and over. All the lights have been removed and cleaned, splats are being made with fitted LCD screens in them. We have designed digital printed vinyl for the paybox and end panels. The paybox has had a few downward pin spots fitted to light up the front where the punters walk up to pay. So all in all a good winters work, Oh and we have nipped up the brakes and changed a couple of brake chamber air hoses. The front spot banks have been re wired and plugged so that they no longer have lengths of trailing cable attached as they are packed away. Not only that the top ram for the back flash has had new seals fitted. The paybox has new laminate flooring and the leaky roof has be re firbreglassed.Countless other wee jobs have also been done that probably never would have been if it wasn't for this scenario.

Every single bulb on the ride is working!! Certainly a first for any ride I've ever owned!!

So the big questions are-

1 when we get the motors n pump back will there be any oil leaks?

2 will there be an improvement in performance?

and if there is a no to any of the above questions,

3 will I survive Mrs Showman's wrath?

time will tell!