Hanging the Chandelier!
As those of you at school will already know, the chandelier was actually hung a couple of weeks ago, but we’ve only just got round to writing about it!
In all it took a few days to do the whole operation due to the usual teething difficulties. The first step was fitting the cantilever arm that the chandelier hangs from. This cantilever was designed by our structural engineers as a big lever, with the chandelier on one side and counterweights on the other side. After some final measurements and adjustments the installers lifted up the steel arm on their scissor lift.
However once it was up there we discovered that the arm was sitting a bit lower than expected. After some quick calculations we decided to leave the arm where it was and adjust the chandelier’s cables to fit.
Here is how the whole thing looked befre being loaded with the chandelier or weights.
The next morning was very exciting as we started adding weight to the arm, first with one counterweight, then a section of chandelier, then another weight and so on until the chandelier was hanging a couple of feet off the ground.
All that then remained was for the installers to hoist the chandelier to its final height of 4 metres and connect the steel cables that connect it to the cantilever arm. They then made sure everything was just right and plugged in the chandelier!
Everyone is very pleased that the chandelier is now finished and up, and we are looking forward to the official launch on September 1st. However if you can’t wait til then, there are some sneak preview pictures on the right..
