Tool Advice

[fuzzyoctober]

This year, the Windy City Rollers are entering not one, not two, but three carts in the annual Chiditarod urban shopping cart race and food drive. Two of the carts will be decorated like a pair of skates, and the third cart is being headed up by the Fury, who will be doing their own thing

Comments

[kothoga]

You could ask my parents about bolt cutters. I don't know if they have any, but they have a lot of tooly things.

[fuzzyoctober]

sweet!

[polyfrog]

I will gladly help.

What kind of timeframe are we looking at, here? I mean, how long do we have to lock them down? Seconds? Minutes?

What springs to mind is some aircraft cable. Put a loop on each end. Feed end A through the bars of the cart, then feed end B through the loop on end A. Then take end B and loop it around a phone pole. A cheap lock through the loop and around the running line, and ta da! Locked up tight. Gotta cut the cable (difficult) or the lock (could be easy or impossible depending on the quality of the lock), or undo the loops (annoyingly time consuming but not difficult if you use cable clamps, very difficult if you use ferrules).

I may be able to lay hands on a pair of bolt cutters.

[fuzzyoctober]

Yes, this is the kind of thing I am thinking of.
I am banking on nary more than seconds; how long would you leave your cart unattended with saboteurs in the area?

Is there any way to clamp the cable together and avoid the locks all together? Do you have the tools for clamping? What do I need to buy?

[polyfrog]

I can't immediately think of any way to instantly attach the cables together that would not be just as instant to undo except locks.

There are two ways to make the loops: Cable clamps or ferrules.
Cable clamps lock down with nuts and bolts. You feed the two pieces of cable through the eye, and tighten it down. Usually you use two per joint.

Ferrules, or crimp sleeves are much more secure, much harder (more or less impossible) to get undone, and need a special tool to fasten.

As I see it, if we use cable clamps and locks, they will be able to reasonably easily get unstuck by undoing the nuts on the clamps, but may be distracted by trying to get rid of the locks.

[polyfrog]

The locks I'm thinking of are the sort you might get from a dollar store. Semi-impressive looking, but really worthless.

[graphiteowl]

That sounds like so much fun! An alternative to cable might be those plastic zip cords...you know what I'm talking about? Those thin strips of plastic that have a hole on one end that you can pull them through, but you can't pull them back?

Also, I'm not really sure what happens in this race, but slicking the handlebars with oil might make is hard for someone to hold on and steer. Do the part on the bottom of the cart where someone might stand and they won't get a good foothold, either. Hmm...can't think of anything else right now, but the week is young.

[polyfrog]

Stretch film pallet wrap. Basically you'd be shrink-wrapping the entire cart, either by itself or shrink-wrapped to a stationary object. It would take a under a minute, be annoying for a couple of minutes, and look cool as heck.

[howdybeck]

oooh!! this sounds like so much fun!!

what about ZIP TIES!!!

i hate zip ties...they're a pain in the ass. but they are cheap and easy to attach if they are long enough. and if you use enough of them it will take forever for them to cut them all.

but i'm not sure what the longest length of zip tie you can buy or what you can find on the street to zip tie a grocery cart to.

hmmm...what if you stuck something on the wheels to keep them from rolling...like lots of gum that they would have to scrape off. or duct tape. or ya know something gooey that will get hard in the cold and stick.

[polyfrog]

A stout bag (canvas or something) slipped over one of the front wheels and zip-tied in place, is a suggestion I was just going to make, actually.