You could easily be forgiven for not knowing what this contraption is. For years, it has been banished to the fenced-in-and-hidden back yard of the Machine Shop. It's had a special reserved parking lot between the chemicals shed and a voluptuous willow tree for a long time. Recently, however, the Machinist resurrected it.Oh, the delight on the Machinist's face as he navigated it around the empty bowels of the Shop.
"Look, Babe - it works - after all this time..."
The contraption is a hand operated 'Pallet Jack' and is primarily used for lifting pallets - encumbered with heavy loads. That's not what we've used it for, though. Oh no. This is our Manual Muscle, used in places where the trusty Forklift cannot nor will not dare to tread.
Case at hand: we had to remove a wooden post, which stood in the middle of the Shop. A lone, unwanted sentry. And yet - a sentry called for duty to hold up part of the ceiling. For days, Number One Son had been working on a 200mm thick piece of channel - at least 6m long to replace the need of the sentry and to house a spaghetti mix of electrical cable, and it was Mr Manual Muscle that saved the day by lifting the channel to the height of the ceiling while the Machinist and Son welded both ends of the beam in place. Naturally, I had the labour intensive job of moving the lever you see in the photo, heightening and lowering the tines, which never even blinked at the weight it had to bear.
Yes, there's much stamina and grunt in sixty plus year olds. Don't ever be fooled about that!
2 comments:
I haven't come across one of these machines before but if I ever do I must remember not to ride on it (sign on front)!
...There's always one nincompoop isn't there?!....
:D
You know mechanical things most of us will never experience.
I would have blogged all about Riding Prohibited.
The mere NOTION would have tortured me and I might have...
Never mind that. That would be a bad idea.
I am that noncompoop to whom Jayne referred.
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