I am building a guillotine and I want to pull the blade up to the top and I want it to release when it reaches the top. I don't want the rope or wire to drop with the blade. Any advise on how to hook it up. Hope I made sense. Mike

I made one sort of like that in metal shop in High School, what you need is a loop welded to the center of the top of the blade, and you put a releasable hook on the cable. Thus, you pull it up into the locked position, and then release the hook and it drops free of the rope or cable. There are quite a few different types of releases you can rig depending on the type of hook, you choose. Go to a hardware store and see what they have and play with it a bit, you will find something that will work.

I'm not finding any releases and I've looked thru thousands of pages of catalogs. I'm in homecenters seven days a week and I'm not finding anything there. Does anybody know of a place. thanks, mike

Hey Mike,
PM'd You

Nick

This is off the top of my head.
Use magnets to hold the blade to a wood frame. When it reaches the top there are dowels attached to the top of the Guillotine pointing down. These line up with holes in the frame of the blade. These dowels are longer the the thickness of the frame so when it reaches the top the dowels stop the blade, allowing the frame to seperate and the blade to fall. You could have metal at the top so the frame didn't fall when you let go of the rope.
K&J Magnetics ( I think) and Supermagnetman.com should have the magnets yuo need

Here's a quick CAD drawing of a hook design that will work. When the blade reaches the top the release lever will be forced downward (arrow) and the hook will pivot out of a ring on the top of the blade. You might be able to find one like this as a stock item, or any competent machine shop can fabricate it easily - especially if they have CNC machinery.

TW

Click here to view attached image.

Some old Grant Guillotines used a scissor device whose lower ends came together like pincers to grip a loop on top of the blade, and whose upper 'handles' spread apart to release the 'pincers' when they pressed against a wedge-shaped piece of wood at the top of the illusion. The scissor device pivoted on a central rod, attached to the hoist chain.

Thanks to everyone for all the great ideas. I will put it together and let everybody know what worked best for me. Thanks again. Mike