How about making your freefall tower look like a headgear?
If you were feeling really adventurous you could drop straight down a shaft.....
I really like that idea! As it happens, I have been offered a set of sheave-wheels off a colliery headframe (not Gresfords).
I'm not sinking a shaft in boiler-clink though.
Would be as easy to clone headgear as build the one in your proposal wouldn't it?
Don't imagine the cost would be greatly different.
If I recall rightly one of your early ropework experiences was on a headframe?
Wasn't particularly thinking of a deep shaft, more the bottom fo the freefall dropping below ground level. Even if only 10 feet or so. Would be quite dramatic
It is certainly a good idea Mr Jagman. It would certainly look the part.
The council did say they could provide some ex-colliery sheve wheels for long-term loan, possibly the ones Newstuff was talking about. I bet they are very heavy though! Worth the conversation.
Yes you remember well some of my early SRT practice on the headframe at Groverake, many years ago! I did it with a helmet-mounted camera that I made from a bus reversing camera (over a decade before go-pros were invented). I remember putting the video online and cap-n-chris on UKCaving spouted out torrents of abuse because he didn't agree with more or less anything I did on the video. Pity...
Beneath my steely exterior beats the heart of a dashing hero