Welcome to Westwood Metalworks, What is he building in there?

[Dan Dubeau]

Not much shop related stuff going on lately. A local contractor picked me up off the out of work list at the hall for a shutdown a few weeks ago and has kept me around for other since jobs and will hopefully try and get me some steady hours moving forward. It was just a couple days after I bought all the steel to finish my sawmill carriage I got the call, so that project got put on hold for a while......I don't foresee getting back to it between now and winter, but we'll see how it goes. After 6 months of being laid off with sporadic work here and there I've been taking all I can, and it's really nice to be working again. I took today and tomorrow off though, so I could trench in a new water line before the winter comes. Been running a temporary solution since Feb 2019.....D

While I'm waiting for the mini ex to show up I figured I'd track down the source of the banging I heard outside last night, and found a broken screen door latch on the back door to the shop. Luckily I found one hiding in a nearby scrap of aluminum angle and saved another trip to town.

That should help me sleep a bit better now....

Here's a pic of my view earlier in the week. 120' up, and 60' out assessing some building facade repairs. My first time in a lift, and it wasn't as bad as I thought. Kinda fun actually. Way off in the distance you can see my house .

 

[Dan Dubeau]

No sooner did I make that post than the truck showed up. First time ever running an excavator, and within 30 minutes I popped/dug out a small stump, and an old fence post behind the barn that I couldn't get with my tractor a few years back (when it was running). This thing is fun and super handy. I really want one......Wish I had a few more days with it around here, but I'll try and bust ass in the morning on the trench so I can play around more tomorrow afternoon with it, as there are a few more things I'd like to get to if I can.

I'll go out and play with it some more after dinner to get a bit smoother on the controls. There's a few stumps at the side of the house I'm going to try and dig out if I can.

 

[Tom O]

Watch for the gas lines a contractor at my brothers house hit his line .

 

[Dan Dubeau]

I lied. Couldn't wait till after dinner. Just put 2 hours on it, and dug out 7 cedar stumps from the side of the house. 2 of them were as big as the excavator itself. One was a cluster of three 15-24" stumps and a root ball about 4'x6' across. Pretty impressive what this little thing can do. I went after the biggest one first, and honestly wasn't expecting much, but digging out around all sides of the root ball little by little eventually got it free. Maybe 25-30 minutes for that one. Once I pried it out of the hole I could inch it along pushing and poking at it to shove it back into the weeds.

Pictures...

The middle stump is about 24"

I cut those cedar trees out of there about 12 years ago (22 of them). Tried pulling a few out with the tractor at the time with little success. I never would have rented this machine to do that job, It wasn't a big priority, and I always figured it would take a much bigger one anyway. Long story short, I'm pretty happy with this "bonus job". It'll be really nice to be able to just run the mower up through there now. As you can tell, I gave up trimming it years ago. Now there's enough room there to build another shed now.....

Pretty impressive little machine. I'll bust ass on the trench in the morning, and then see how many more stumps I can pop out till it gets dark. I did grind out a couple a few years back, but I think there's still about 7-8 more hiding in there. If I can clean up the ones around the blacksmith shed I'd be pretty damn happy about that. If not, I'll rent one again in the spring....

 

[Dan Dubeau]

Watch for the gas lines a contractor at my brothers house hit his line .

There isn't a gas line around here for miles (I wish there was...). Buried electrical wires though.... Digging the trench for the water line will be interesting. Trying to avoid the existing line, and an electrical line running out there too. Will need a spotter, and that was the reason for playing around with the stumps tonight, to get some more stick time and get more comfortable with the controls. Still going to have to hand dig some of it, but should be able to knock most of it out with the excavator.

 

[Bandit]

Leave you stumps tall if you can, the extra leverage can help trying to get them loose.
Generally it is the " just one more bucket full a bit closer" when the line hits happen or the not even knowing there is anything in the ground and digging!
We had to start shutting down any digging that was being done that did not have a B.C One call in place (B.C.) and locating done to confirm any lines in the ground, this was gas, electric, water and sewer. Ripping and tearing caused a lot of problems.

 

[Stuart Samuel]

Here's a pic of my view earlier in the week. 120' up, and 60' out assessing some building facade repairs. My first time in a lift, and it wasn't as bad as I thought. Kinda fun actually. Way off in the distance you can see my house .
View attachment 53703

I'm not bothered by heights, so the few times we've had to do site work on lifts, its generally been me.

Ended up in a what I'd call a spider lift (tank treads, plus six stabilizing arms) in a church (St. Paul's, on Bloor by Mount Pleasant) a few years ago, assessing some lights, and showing the electricians how I thought they should pack them to ship to our shop. I think the highest we got was 50', pretty entertaining. The four electricians (Guild Electric, I think) were a hoot, two massive (6'3-5", 250lbs+) guys, and two really petite (5'4ish) Quebecois guys. I guess they'd always have muscle when they needed muscle, and access to tight spaces when that was needed...

 

[Dan Dubeau]

Well....last Sunday didn't go as planned. In a race against daylight (and a mid day diversion that pulled me away for a few hours) I lost, and only got most of the trench dug, maybe 90%. They came and picked up the excavator Monday morning, while I was at work.

Yes, I meant to smoke that porch extension with the bucket . I hate it, it's built poorly (pavers over plywood....) and falling apart as you can see. I wanted to remove it while I had the machine here, but the wife said one thing at a time..... I hit it with the bucket out of spite while she was watching....oops....

Anyway, that's as far as I could get before having to come in from the side, and doing that ran me into darkness. I just didn't have enough light to see what I doing, and it was pretty sketchy schooched up close to the edge trying to get the last 10' of trench down to my 5' depth in the dark so I called it a day. This is how I finished last Sunday night off. It's all the way to the well, but there is 10', that still is about 10-12" too shallow.

So close....I tried digging the last little bit by hand to depth, but I was into clay and with the long work days this week I just didn't feel like doing it when I got home at 8:30 so I just rented it again for today. Machine showed up at 9:30, and I got right to work. Finished digging to depth, then pulled the sides back up near the house so I could work comfortably, and safely to tunnel 4' under the porch into the house. FIL came over to help, and we got the line in and I got it all covered up just as the sun went down. I was rushing to get it filled in as they said they were coming back for it between 5 and 6 if they could make it tonight, if not they would pick it up Tuesday. Not wanting to chance it, I was hustling....

Here's how it looks right now.

Job done, it's 8:30 now and they haven't come back to grab it yet, so if they don't come in the morning to get it, I'm putting it to work again finishing some stumps tomorrow

Originally this summer I entertained the thought of digging this trench by hand. Glad I didn't even try. This was the biggest rock that stood in my way, but there were at least 10 more a bit smaller than this that would have given me a big hassle getting out by hand. Our soil is just so rocky here its a frustrating experience to dig anything by hand. I have no idea how long this would have taken me by hand, but even for the 2 day rental it was money well spent. Probably could have got away with a one day rental in the summer with more daylight, but the money for this project just wasn't there while I was off work.

3rd bucket digging up near the house I popped this guy loose.

Came out perfectly, no bends, just as it sits there. From 1973, the year my house was built and was about 16-18" down. Didn't find anything else except a bunch of broken bricks. I was also able to run along side of the old water line within about 8-10" the whole way down too, so that worked out well with no drama.

Fun little machine to run. The hydraulic thumb is super handy. I've wanted to rent one for a while as I was entertaining the idea to get one instead of a tractor with hoe. After running for this a couple days now I think the tractor would be more useful for my needs around here, and I'll just rent an excavator when I need it's capabilities. I have a few more jobs for one, and will just rent one again in the spring if I can't finish them tomorrow.

 

[Dan Dubeau]

I'm not bothered by heights, so the few times we've had to do site work on lifts, its generally been me.

Ended up in a what I'd call a spider lift (tank treads, plus six stabilizing arms) in a church (St. Paul's, on Bloor by Mount Pleasant) a few years ago, assessing some lights, and showing the electricians how I thought they should pack them to ship to our shop. I think the highest we got was 50', pretty entertaining. The four electricians (Guild Electric, I think) were a hoot, two massive (6'3-5", 250lbs+) guys, and two really petite (5'4ish) Quebecois guys. I guess they'd always have muscle when they needed muscle, and access to tight spaces when that was needed...

View attachment 53731

That's a neat lift. I had 3 more days working out of one this past week. Pretty comfortable with them now. Never thought I would be, but the only time it really made me uneasy was when the wind picked up. Trying to weld up a broken torque arm mount on a screw conveyor 50' up with the basket blowing around was pretty fun lol. Monday I'm back up in the 180 and I think that's it for a while.