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THE NEW TOY The Boom Lift Just in case you did not see the picture of this remarkable piece of machinery on the "Coming Soon" webpage, here it is again. The orange one is the New Toy and the white van is the baby! LOL This unit is four wheel drive and you can even drive it around with the boom extended. It weighs some 7 tons and extends up to 55 feet in the air. It is an expensive proposition to rent but after figuring out the total cost and the man hours that it was used in 28 days it all broke down to about 8.00 per hour. Well worth it. Two other options were considered. Pump jacks and scaffolding. Pumping up to that level would take an effort and would be wobbly when trying to paint details. Getting up to the roof to secure the pump jack brackets would also be a little bit of an issue. The roof where we had to work is not reachable with a 40 foot ladder. Scaffolding would be a stable work platform but building it in place and then having to move it to the next side of the house would be a costly expenditure of time. I would still have to climb up and down repeatedly, using up a lot more time to get some things accomplished. The biggest issue would have been that on the side of the house with the bay window and side entrance door, erecting the scaffolding would have been impossible to get to where I had to be. The scaffolding would have had to be purchased and then try to resell it at the completion of the work. Another issue. So anyway, lets get to more pictures of this sweet toy! It was a little rough getting it up on to the property as you can see. The first attempt at delivery on a rainy day did not happen at all.  The control panel was a no brainer. With icons, joy sticks and flashing lights ... it was like playing a video game ! The basket work space was all of 5 feet wide. It could be tilted and swiveled. It was self leveling. It was a dream to work with. All loaded up with tools and adding my cooler, some days I wouldn't even come down for a good four hours at least. And yes there was power on board for tools. Look at that !!! In fact this picture shows how impossible a scaffold setup would be. Stepping back a little to give the general idea of how high up this actually is. See the porch steps that would interfere with scaffolds. Me manuvering the bucket inbetween the front left dormer and the roof of the front peak. I got good at operating this toy and I miss it already. The bucket is now where I want it. I can climb out and work on the sides of the dormer. It's a good think I love action park rides. This was a little tricky. The view looking down from up in the bucket. Vertigo anybody !!! and maybe there will be some more pictres of me up in the lift that the homeowner took. I'll have to ask him. Otherwise ... that's all folks for the TOY pictures. This page was last modified on Saturday, July 14, 2007 04:48:41 PM |
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