Masonry Magazine March 2001 Page. 17
studying and planning various schemes for his method of attack. He used horses and carts to transfer the brick from a railroad spur to the site. Inclined runways made it possible for the horse drawn carts to deliver the brick to the various levels. Then laborers unloaded the carts and placed the brick close to the bricklayers (see photo 2). A tower was built in the center of the site and from this vantage point, the superintendent could see all areas of the project. The tower was equipped with telephone, megaphone and field glasses so that he could direct the delivery of material to the areas that required it. We must remember we are not discussing 8-, 10- or 12-inch masonry walls, but 36-inch solid masonry walls that required a tremendous amount of materials, in addition to a unique process for laying the brick into the wall.
For this he developed the Gilbreth Scaffold/Packet type. In retrospect, this scaffold embodied many of the basic principles found in our modern day adjustable type scaffold. Wood was the dominant scaffold material, so he used wood to construct the towers and moving platform (see figure 2a). Gilbreth said that his scaffold made for better workmanship because "it kept the bricklayer at a constant height; the brick could be best bedded because the work was always at the right height; the bricklayers' platform is clear at all times and the tender is out of the way of the bricklayer and does not interrupt the bricklayer as he passes back and forth."
METAL/FABRICATED FRAME SCAFFOLDING
In the early 1930's mason contractor, Reinhold A. Uecker, was working on a church steeple from a wooden scaffold when it collapsed due to faulty wood. While recovering from his injury, he decided there must be a better way to build a scaffold. It had to be safer, stronger, and the fire hazard and breakage problem had to be solved. In his spare time he worked on this idea, assisted by one of his employees, Ingar Rambo (see figure 3). Neither of them had any experience in metal fabrication, but they used some discarded metal pipe and experimented with it. From this they developed scaffolding for use by his company. The new scaffold was easy to erect and
This illustrations shows the Gilbreth Adjustable scaffolding using timber as it's main material. It embodies many of the features of today's tower and frame adjustable scaffolding.
Frame scaffolding soon became the contractors choice for it allowed the mason to work at greater heights with greater safety.
The first prototype of tower type adjustable scaffolding developed by Gus Morgen in Yankton, SD. Note the bucket and pulley arrangement delivering the mortar to the labor on the platform.
Reinhold Uecker's concept of frame scaffold which received U.S. Patent in June 1934.
Here's American Road Equipment's first modified farm tractor with extended reach servicing a tower adjustable scaffold at the Pepsi Cola Bottling Plant in Rapid City SD. Guy Van Nice was the contractor on the project.