Canterbury tale

Demag Cranes & Components, has installed a crane system at Canterbury Cathedral's purpose-built 400m2 stone saw shop.

The facility is operated by the Cathedral's inhouse team of stone masons. Ongoing restoration and conservation work currently involves the import of over 25 cubic metres of stone per year, weighing almost 65t.

Raw stone scants are delivered to the saw shop and offloaded by the Demag crane which then loads scants onto the saw, where they are cut into smaller blocks. These are transferred to the masonry workshop for cutting.

Demag supplied an 18.25m span overhead travelling crane, rated at 10t SWL.Mounted on the crane is a 10t SWL Demag DR-COM electric wire rope hoist. The system has long travel speeds of 20/5m/min, cross travel speeds of 5 to 20m/min and lifting speeds of 4.0/0.7m/min. It is controlled by a mobile pendant, which lets the operator position the stone accurately on the saw.