We've been between jobs for the last couple of weeks and decided take the time to rebuild some of our equipment in the slow time.
The worst off was our poor old paddle mixer... that thing looked like it had seen some serious warfare. And it has made funny noises for a while when it was turning. It has served us well for the last 12 years with little down time. And it was so caked with hardened concrete you couldn't tell what color it had once been.
We tore it down to to the bare frame and then worked at sprucing it up. The worn shafts were sent out to be built up again and then turned to size for new bearings and seals. New belts and new hardware will make it function like new. I even welded extensions onto the frame to bring it up to a safe and usable height... and that means we don't have to prop it on some concrete blocks to get the wheel barrow under it when we dump.
Once we pounded off the concrete and ground the beast down to bare metal it was time to choose a new color.
After much deliberation we decided on purple. The color will serve to remind us how dangerous the machine can be if handled carelessly... hence the name 'purple people eater'.
The machine is now a hideous shade of lilac. We'll probably add some 'wonderful' graphics yet before we are done. I think it should be safe on our construction sites too... we could identify it in a flash if it was ever borrowed.
And wouldn't you know it... just when all the pieces of our equipment are scattered over the shop floor for repair the phone has begun to ring like crazy the last few days... we now have to quickly get back into high gear as the workload is now overflowing once more!
And that's the way it should be...
-grampa dan
Posted by Delzell (Member # 1965) on :
Nice story! That's why I paint my tools. So I know which are mine.
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