March 18, 20242 yr But boring in the extreme! The weekend was the first fine weekend of the year where I was not working. So I put a bit of time into getting the digger serviced and ready for the spring groundworks. During testing it made a bad noise and on removing the battery that was more or less hanging on by the cables found the battery tray was slowly disassembling itself like a 1970s vintage Jaguar! Heaven only knows how the -ve terminal connected to anything through that rust! I resolved to fix the digger that day because it will be good for a biscuit or two in "House not finished anonymous" and the weather looks good for getting some industrial weeding done later in the week. Cardboard will work, won't it? Maybe not the cardboard. It's even less conductive than rust. I found some steel from the stores (read scrap heap). Bends formed with a bit of angle iron and a hammer. And it even fits in the hole. Welding and painting will be done next time I am not at work.
March 19, 20242 yr 1 hour ago, Dave Jones said: Never buy one. A bit of a blanket statement, Depends on what you have to do, I bought mine, used it all the time, didn’t loose much money on it (and was great fun). Edited March 19, 20242 yr by joe90
March 19, 20242 yr 35 minutes ago, joe90 said: A bit of a blanket statement, Depends on what you have to do, I bought mine, used it all the time, didn’t loose much money on it (and was great fun). Ditto. Apart from the main big jobs it was bought for, it was a damned handy thing to have, often just used for a short period. You would not hire a machine just to have sitting there to be used every now and then, so without your own machine you would either do without, or wait until you have enough jobs to hire one.
March 19, 20242 yr Author I bought mine because I have a lot of work for it that I couldn't do all at once. I'm still "winning" over hiring because the flexibility is worth a lot to me especially when I've had experiences of weeks where there were zero available diggers for hire on the whole island. You can imagine how much they were costing to hire that month, and what the terms for "one more day" were... A bit of servicing and welding every so often isn't so bad if you have the equipment. It's worth highlighing that this sort of repair should be a consideration for running your own plant, especially if you buy an older machine. In hindsight a better cover for the worst of the winter months would have been a good idea.
March 31, 20242 yr Author Had a bit of fun playing find the good bits of metal with the MIG and the inevitable running out of wire on Easter Saturday. All together again and back to doing the landscaping. Going to need to do a few more repairs over the next winter I think but all OK for now.
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