Fun at work

[wroughtn_harv]

The posts standing up in the background are my my spotters. I do everything by eye. So I need something to sight down, spotters. /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

The auger is a twelve incher and this is the first withdrawl.

 

[wroughtn_harv]

Second withdrawl and now the account is almost empty. Actually I come back with manual post hole diggers to get any stuff left in the hole. I'm sorta particular about dirt in the hole. When the hole is a tad over three feet deep you can understand why I came up with my backwards diggers for cleaning.

 

[wroughtn_harv]

This is a gate post hole. So I changed over to a sixteen inch auger and when I'm done the hole will be so close to eight feet deep you won't know it isn't, if it isn't.

 

[wroughtn_harv]

I'm sure some have gotten out their scales and did some quick math. They've decided it would be impossible for that auger to go to eight feet without an extension.

They are wrong.

 

[wroughtn_harv]

Check it out.

 

[wroughtn_harv]

That's what you call driving it home.

 

[Bird]

<font color="blue">( Check it out )</font>

Uh, check what out? Did that last clap of thunder than made me jump cause you to hit the "continue" key before you included an attachment? /forums/images/graemlins/laugh.gif

Oops, I see you got it edited to include the attachment. /forums/images/graemlins/laugh.gif

 

[wroughtn_harv]

Then of course there are always the inspectors looking for bugs.

 

[wroughtn_harv]

Sometimes you get lucky in life. If you're really really lucky you get to radius' that is more like an ellipse.

Of course the hard thing is like all things hard, getting started. Since I do it by myself I try to find the easiest way. For me the easiest way to lay out a large radius if I can't pull it from a center point is with a water hose.

I lay out the water hose where I want the fence holes to be and then I mark it out. That is the easy part.

Here I have the road and it provides me with two challenges. The first of course is the radius isn't a radius as such. Secondly I have the pavement being as irregular as any anarchist.

So I laid out the water hose where it gave me what I thought was a consistant look.

Setting the posts is another challenge. It isn't as easy as just putting them in the middle of the hole and them concreting them in. An inch one way or another on a slow radius like this will not only affect one post, it'll affect about three.

There's nothing uglier than seeing a radius that weaves in and out in a fence line. It says the person who installed it either didn't know or even worse, they didn't care.

So when you are offered the opportunity to do something difficult that should require skill and dedication you are lucky. Yesterday I got lucky.

 

[wroughtn_harv]

Here's a shot of a section completed the other day. Right by the telephone pedestal is where I cut the water main. Man, that was fun. /forums/images/graemlins/crazy.gif

I know it appears the line is staggered. But that's okay in this instance.

 

[wroughtn_harv]

I like work. I think we were made for work and are happiest when doing it. It's what we're genetically engineered to do. /forums/images/graemlins/smirk.gif

One of the things I like about the kind of work I get to do is the challenges. I'm not talking about Everest or rocket science. I'm talking those things that come up sorta like acne to make you grow as a person and worker.

This job is a good example. Conventional construction of an ornamental fence wasn't appropriate. The cinder block wall with it's grout cap meant plates weren't a solution. It also meant coring would present finishing issues. Attaching to the outside of the wall would look about as good as a tutu on Vice President Cheney.

I suggested offset posts. Customer bought the idea and Payne Metal Works made the panels and posts custom for the job.

 

[wroughtn_harv]

Did you notice that alternate use for shrink wrap?

Twenty one of those bushes danced on me like I was an off colored step child that stuttered and had a horrible limp.

I had two hands on the post hole diggers, hand dug every hole. Two hands holding one bush over for clearance and then the last pair of hands holding back the bush on the other side of the hole. It was heck on a holiday wanting to party.

After about an hour of such fun and pleasure I started trying to free up some hands by tying the bushes back. That's when frustration grabbed common sense for a minute by the throat and choked us all. Just short of aphixiation a vision of shrink wrap appeared. Home Depot was only minutes away, so was lunch, two birds one trip alive and well.

It's those simple successes that make work so wonderful. One minute it's coming over the bow and the next it's cutting the waves like a big dawg.

There is this glitch on the highway to happy days though. First there has to be the challenge. That's the part that is often misunderstood and unloved. There cannot be the thrill of victory without the threat of disaster and defeat.

I'm not sure which is worse, management trying to eliminate challenges, sabotaging for goodness sake. /forums/images/graemlins/confused.gif Or the individual that hasn't learned that the challenge is just as important as the success. You can't the one without the other.

Here's another shot.

 

[wroughtn_harv]

I really enjoyed this job.

Of course I'm easily entertained. It doesn't take much. Getting to get in, do work, finish, and then have it looked like what you've done has been there forever, now that's fun.

 

[wroughtn_harv]

another view

 

[MossRoad]

Harv, you're the master! That is some beautiful work. /forums/images/graemlins/laugh.gif

 

[19th_VA]

Next time you're in Virginia, look me up! (and bring your tools!)

 

[wroughtn_harv]

Thanks guys, I'm not good, just lucky.

Here's a fun project I'm on now.

Five foot high schedule forty galvanized pipe fence, welded joints, two by four non climb horse wire, five foot high.

Here's some of the posts standing at ease waiting for captain concrete to show up so they can stand at attention.

 

[wroughtn_harv]

Here's a close up of a line post. I notch them before I set them.

One of the fun moments during a hard day is when someone comes by and comments about me not using a string setting posts or digging holes. Most folks just don't get it that the eye is the best tool we have for lining things up. I set for line and grade by eye, get lucky most times.

 

[wroughtn_harv]

I had twenty yards of remix (concrete sand and three quarter rock remixed) dropped in place for the job.

Yup, I'm the one that gets to put all that into the mixer, one shovel at a time.

I told you I was lucky.

 

[wroughtn_harv]

Here's the fit before welding.