A UNIC mini spider crane was hired to help build the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse, a new indoor Jacobean style theatre, at Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre in London recently.
The UNIC URW-376 mini crane was used to lift dozens of heavy oak timbers to create the wooden skeleton of the new venue. When completed, The Sam Wanamaker Playhouse will seat 340 people, include a two-tier gallery and the stage will be lit by candles.
It took seven months for carpenters to hand chisel each of the 540kg oak timbers used to construct the theatre’s interior. The UNIC mini crane spent a 32 whole days working within the limited space inside the theatre to lift each wooden beam into its position for fixing.
The 2.9 tonne capacity UNIC URW-376 model was selected for this job as it had plenty of lifting strength to handle the heavy timbers and enough reach to lift them right the way up to the theatre’s ceiling. A searcher hook was fitted to the crane’s boom to install the pieces closest to the roof.
The mini crane was able to squeeze through the theatre’s narrow 1460mm wide entrance and its working area limitation mode meant that it could safely work around the sections of the theatre’s wooden framework that had already been constructed.
Watch the UNIC mini crane working at the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse in this Youtube clip. The Sam Wanamaker Playhouse will be opening its doors in January 2014 with a production of the tragic drama “The Duchess of Malfi”.
