Fun at work

[pajoube]

Harv,
In one of your past threads (I can't find it) you mentioned a pipe bender you liked. I want to work with some 1 and 2 inch square and also 1 inch round pipe. Would appreciate if you could let me know the name.
PJ

 

[wroughtn_harv]

Morning PJ,

Here's a link to <A target="_blank" HREF=http://www.lowbucktools.com/hossfeld.html>my Hossfield bender</A> at Williams Low Buck.

As I was notching or coping some ends on some two inch o.d. tubing yesterday I thought it might be fun to do a photo how to for anyone interested.

We'll see.

BTW Williams is one of the smartest men I've ever bought stuff from. I've sold I don't know how many of his pipe or tubing notchers for him. Guys have come up to see how I was doing my notching and then the next thing I know they have one.

He's just one of these men you have to label as one ingenious mother./w3tcompact/icons/laugh.gif

And do check out his other products too!

 

[pajoube]

Harv,
Thanks for the info and thread to Hossfield. Have ordered their catalog.
PJ

 

[wroughtn_harv]

Yesterday morning started off like a typical day, different. It got more that way the more day it became.

A crew has been clearing the windrow in front of me. But they had to pull off to regular work for the customer. The last tree was a big old Hackberry.

I had a couple of problems. First I was by myself. Second they had pulled all the shrubs and trees around the Hackberry and then backfilled. Then overnight a nice floater had came in and it was now a mud hole.

There was also the thing with the telephone cable two feet over on the one side and the water line about three feet away on the other.

It was interesting I must say digging a four foot deep trench on on all four sides of the tree but I got it done. It would have been easier on the nervous system with a spotter. The good side on that equasion is panic does make the heart work. Sorta like running.......with a bear on your tail.

Then I pushed it over with the front loader. Actually what happened was I pushed. It started a nice slow fall. Then the front of the tractor fell into the hole where part of the tree once was. Now some things can make your heart just stop for a second or three. Stone gorgeous member of the opposite *** giving you a come hither look is one. Fifteen thousand pound Cat 416C on it's nose is another.

But sheer terror and no blood pressure combined to clear the reaction system so that a little FEL work and I was clear and back on level ground. It's amazine how quick and accurate the reactions can be when they're cleared to do what they're trained to do after the brain freezes.

 

[wroughtn_harv]

Here's another view of just after heart attack and recovery

 

[wroughtn_harv]

One more. If you look closely you will see two front tractor wheel marks on the left side of the hole. I have a matching set of similar marks in my shorts.

 

[wroughtn_harv]

Of course downing the tree is only a small part of the work to be done. There is the thing about removing the tree so that I can start laying out the fence line.

This is Iris doing her best imitation of a log skidder.

And you thought that was a home made back hoe attachment /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

 

[wroughtn_harv]

Here she is with her forks attached doing a haul log deally do.

Yup, Stihl oh two six with about a twenty inch bar doing triple duty.

Note the last eight feet still attached to the trunk. I took the Stihl around that puppy but there still was a little tree about six inches in diameter we couldn't get. Severe beating, shaking, woggling, and more than a little cussing did what the saw couldn't.

 

[wroughtn_harv]

This is the stump out of the hole.

Now that was fun. /forums/images/graemlins/tongue.gif

After hooking up a chain and figuring out the front loader was awflu weak in the jeans when it came to lifting it out I tried the back hoe. It also could only grunt when attached to the mass of wood and mud.

I gave up, went in for a break with the old boy and his wife who lives on the property. He's almost ninety but grumpier than if he was a hundred and ten. He did enjoy my defeat. I think it had something to do with what had happened earlier.

I had no sooner started digging along the four inch PVC water main when he came out his skirt in a knot tighter than ugly on some modern art. I'd cut his telephone off.

It took some checking to prove him wrong. After I called in the trouble to the telco and gave him my cell phone in case he needed to make a call. Just before lunch he came out a waving and hollering that I had a call. It was some lady wanting an estimate on a job to be done yesterday. I referred her to others. Tomorrow's full and so's next week. Yesterday doesn't have a chance.

After I had cancelled the call I handed him the phone. Then I mentioned him closer. He leaned over the fence to me. I kissed him on the cheek. He was shocked and even a little surprised. I explained to him that I always gave the secretary a kiss on the cheek when she gave me the phone for a call.

He doggoned me and called me some very unnice names. I just smiled.

The way he was grinning over my defeat with the stump sent my back up.

I got back on the tractor. First I filled up the front end loader with wet sand. I wanted it as heavy as possible. Then that stump and me danced.

This is her next to the rest of the tree. Once I got her out I tried to push her with the tractor. Uh uh, no way. It had to be moved with the hoe pulling. I'd guess her about five thousand pounds of ugly severely beaten.

 

[wroughtn_harv]

This is the hole I've got to fill this morning. Then I get to do what I do.

 

[wroughtn_harv]

We had to bring power into the new building. We decided to do it via underground. Electric co-op said the trench had to be at least eight inches wide and three feet deep. The perfect job for Iris and her home made back hoe attachment.

Here's she's cleaning out cave in's from the trench being open for a couple of days.

 

[wroughtn_harv]

the trench

 

[wroughtn_harv]

digging

You gotta love Iris. She is so willing and she doesn't mind get down and getting dirty.

 

[cjw]

Sure would like to see that power hammer.

 

[wroughtn_harv]

The power hammer is a Little Giant, fifty pounder, Myers, made in and around about nineteen teens. She is a sweet heart that can hurt you if you cross her. /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

I don't have a picture of her but I do have one of my favorite little girl impossibly stuck.

 

[wroughtn_harv]

and another view

 

[wroughtn_harv]

I would never have thought that even I could get a four wheel drive tractor impossibly stuck with only one wheel in trouble.

 

[wroughtn_harv]

I don't know if any of you have ever met Miss Lob Lolly. If you have you can understand my situation.

Sunday I moved about a hundred and twenty five yards of surface sand from this area to around the front for for a driveway. As I crossed this swell I'd made I noticed Miss Lob Lolly showing her hand. Just about the time I thought she thought she had me I'd move over a bit and we'd start the dance again in a different place. This was with me driving the fifteen thousand pound Cat 416B.

So yesterday morning I put on the digging bucket that is really too big for Iris and started cleaning the swell. After all Iris weighs just a tad over a third of the Cat and Miss Lob Lolly works on the gravity principle, something very similar to Murphy's law.

As I started to spin a one eighty with a full load in the too big bucket Miss Lob Lolly grabbed the left front wheel and sucked it down faster'n I could drop the bucket. It was kinda sorta a little like doing a one handed hand stand in a bucket of jello.

One tiny bit of a second I was doing a slick one eighty and the next even smaller bit of the very same second I was in a push up position with my hands against the front ROPS of the tractor getting a good look at dirt up close and personal.

Yes. The pucker string was so tight a feather could have severed it with ease. No. My life didn't pass before my eyes. They were closed tight. Probably from the vacuum effect of "OOPS!!"

Motor was still running but the hydraulics weren't powerful enough to disengage from Miss Lob Lolly's squeeze. We had us a situation you might say.

 

[wroughtn_harv]

But only until the Cat became involved /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

 

[wroughtn_harv]

We're on the downhill side on the fence part of the job I've been on up next to the Red River. Yesterday I laid out and dug forty some holes. I got about half of them set. We started with a hundred and sixty five posts.

The digging here is about as easy as can be found. Usually I can just about screw in the auger and then lift up.

I thought some might enjoy a tour of the process.

I use upside down paint and or a claw hammer to mark my holes. When the dirt is loose the paint ain't worth dating, much less getting involved with. That's when a good framing hammer comes in handy.