DIY disastersI just can't do power tools. They always fly out of control and end up embedded somewhere they shouldn't. I've no idea how I've still got all the appendages I was born with.
Add to that the fact that nothing ends up square, able to support weight or free of sticking-out sharp bits and you can see why I try to avoid DIY.
Tell us of your own DIY disasters.
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chthonic, Thu 3 Apr 2008, 17:19)
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Working construction equipment is a delicate taskrequiring skill, precision and oodles of experience. Those little tracked diggers are prime examples. Top-heavy, jerky, and light in comparison to what they can lift, you need a cowboy's trigger finger to twitch the hydraulics to just how you like them.
If, for example, you're digging a trench in someone's garden for a conservatory foundation, you need to extend the boom, angle the bucket back and get the arm about 20degrees from vertical, then drag the whole combination towards you. You need to lift the boom and curl the bucket as you pull the main arm towards you, so that you scrape a tender two inches from the lawn surface at a time. That way, you will expose any buried pipes or cables that you didn't know about. You do not attack the ground in voracious scoops like a divorcee with a tub of Ben 'n Jerry's.
Jumping into the cab and waggling the joysticks like an 8-year old playing Space Invaders is therefore NOT the way to do things. I, a sober serious child of the 80s, understand the finer points of joystick control and my Dad, a dinosaur of 70s pub game machines, does not. Which is why he's always the one ripping the gas main out for the whole street every time I take a five-minute break from the machine. The cry of "Fer facks sake, boy, we're on a deadline 'ere," inevitably preceeds "schkoop, schkoop, clonk, pfffssssst and "Oi son, I fink we've hit a snag." And I, as machinist, get the fucking blame every single fucking time.
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Grrrmachine the indifference engine, Fri 4 Apr 2008, 14:35,
2 replies)
"voracious scoops like a divorcee with a tub of Ben 'n Jerry's."*click*
(, Fri 4 Apr 2008, 14:38, closed)
My friend had a similar oneNot tracked, but designed to attach to a tow bar and then it used the car as ballast. Looked great fun, git never let me have a go mind, but he never seemed to be overly careful. Mind you, he was making motocross jumps in a field so guess the likelihood of hitting a gas pipe was lower.
Looked bloody good fun though.
What the hell do you do if you've hit a gas main, apart from run for cover?!
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LemonEntryMyDearWatson This time, Moriarty, the hand is on the other foot, Fri 4 Apr 2008, 15:03,
closed)
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