Lifting devices and miles of marble

["Clive Murray-White" <clivemw@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi all,

Some time ago some of you may remember helping me brain storm portable
lifting devices and after your advice I went off to have something made.

Well I nearly had it made! but someone showed me an awesome device, a bag
trolley, hand truck that powers itself up and down stairs in and out of
trucks and doubles as a small forklift, good as it was it couldn't do some
of the things that I need done, but it did prompt a bit more planning. It
was also very expensive.

I realised that one of my problems was stairs as quite often I have to get
quite heavy sculptures up two or three steps into various galleries.

I went back to looking at my small engine lifter crane as the basic lifting
device because it could do most things but it did have its own problems,
cheap castors that would lock up when you least expected it with a heavy
load. It couldn't work on rough ground, it couldn't fit through a normal
door way and of course it couldn't get itself up the stairs.

Answer: new top of the range wheels, some modifications to make the whole
thing fit through doors and a set of portable rails.

The rails, in 2 metre lengths, total of 6 metres in all, means that it can
work effectively on rough ground and can be laid on stairs so the whole load
can be easily winched up or down. Its up and running and seems to work very
well indeed.

UNLIMITED SUPPLY OF TOP QUALITY MARBLE

Miles upon miles of it! it was only discovered in 1983 in Chillagoe,
Northern Australia, 2 and half hours drive east from Cairns on the Great
Barrier Reef. As fine and consistent as you could find anywhere else in the
world, a huge range of colours too.

I've just got home after selecting a truck load, one of wildest experiences
of my life as a sculptor. Just try to imagine an outback town in Australia
where every hill, outcrop of stone and just below the surface is marble,
marble and more marble.

Never been blasted and has just sat there almost unaffected by the weather
since the time that South America and Australia were still joined
together!!!! they sometimes find perfect marbleised fossils of quite large
prehistoric animals in it!!

The funniest thing is to see what they do with the waste, the bar-b-q in the
camping ground is just one massive lump, looks awful because its just been
dumped there. All the stone used for garden edging....marble, you could say
that the streets of Chillagoe were paved with marble but that wouldn't
really be true because no one has attempted to do any paving they just dump
it where ever they feel like it.

Most of the leases are owned by Cairns Marble who ship 20 ton blocks of it
all round the world, cut slabs, tiles and do some stone masonry.

If ever there was a place to have a sculpture symposium this is it. And
before you all start thinking that I'm going to try and organise it, forget
it, I'm no organiser and I'm far too busy with my own work.

The only vaguely near equivalent that I have ever seen is Carrara.

I just thought you'd all like me to share this with you.

Regards to all Clive Murray-White