This little gem was what put me to the test today.
I worked at the bench most of the morning then headed out to do some running around and then back to meet the plumber for 15:00 at the house. I gave this guy a lot of lead time to schedule this job into his summer and he didn't get to it so now I'm playing the nagging wife and hounding his butt to get this job moving. I hate playing that role.
I need to have all the plumbing moved away from the exterior basement walls so I can insulate them. We aren't allowed to put flax bales around the house anymore. The insurance company freaks out about the fire risk. Actuaries are not realists, just good betters. I prefer to play the odds and remain awake. *@^*& happens and I'll go with the flow. It's not like managing the bales was much fun anyway and I won't miss them.
I offered to help speed the plumbing job up by drilling the necessary two holes through the 15cm-20cm central foundation wall. Once I had the commitment from the plumber to meet me this afternoon, I thought I'd get good currency out of having the tool to do the job in hand while he was there and I was right. We start on Monday, but the jury remains in deliberation. Save me from optimism.
I got my six mile run in at lunch and made sure I went only as fast as I could remain aerobic and managed to remain on task there which was good. After the ever long winded plumber departed I got a call to say PU would be buying groceries on the way home and would be late so not to make dinner. I took the opportunity to dig into the brand new thousand dollar hammer drill I had just rented for twenty bucks. I've used weenie type hammer drills before and I won't ever take on heavy work like that again without as big a tool as I can lift and for the little money it cost to rent, why would I?
The rub is that the concrete is some of the best I've ever seen. It was likely poured and mixed by hand in 1950 or 51 and remains rock solid. One of the cheats they used to limit the amount of concrete required was to fill the walls with field stones. None of them show from the outside, but once you begin drilling there is often not more than a few inches between boulders. I knew this from the last time I had to drill through the central wall when the plumbing went in initially so I was mentally prepared for a fight. Whatever this rock pictured above is was a whole new ball game to me though and a fight it was.
The first and largest hole got drilled out first and the inevitable pink granite bolder showed up for half of where I wanted the hole through the wall to be. I drilled four holes through the granite and then swapped out the drill for the chisel and it was done in about forty five minutes. I love using the right tool for the job, but what miserable work this was. Noise, dust and plain old fashioned elbow grease were present in large quantities.
I was covered in sweat and wanted to quit to eat and let the evening come on a little more gently, but I was so dirty I couldn't imagine mustering the will to head back into that mess in the morning so I began the second and much smaller hole. The second hole was about a third the size of the first one and the perimeter could be drilled in about eight 2cm holes that could be then chiseled out. My arms were heavy and my shoulders were aching before I began, but I was certainly warmed up so I wasn't too concerned about straining anything.
The first hole was deeper than the drill was long and I didn't break through to the other side, but I knew I was close. The second hole went well for the first couple of centimeters or so and then nothing but jarring racket and black dust if I leaned into the machine hard. I started another hole and found the same thing only a little deeper. I drilled around the the rest of the perimeter with relative ease, but whatever this black/green stuff is was bonded up to some granite below it and the darker stuff was brutally tough stuff.
This darker rock was as hard again as the granite was when compared to the concrete when drilling. I'd love to know what this stuff is because it made mince meat out of that thousand dollar hammer drill. The masonry bit I was using is in nasty shape now. The chisel was brand new and is as blunt as a baseball bat after tangling with this stuff. The hammer point is also rounded to a ridiculous degree. When I was using the pointed bit, the tip sparked and became red hot. It took me almost twice as long to make the small hole as it had to make the larger one that had far more holes required to drill it out.
Maybe it's got some carborundum in it or something. It was remarkably difficult to remove and all I had to do was open up about 5cm of this material. I'm so glad I don't do this type of thing for a living. It's fun to be distracted by different physical challenges once in a while, but this one was at the limit for me today. I've got a demanding race on Saturday which might have made this little extra workout today a mistake. Sleep works right?
Terminal adolescent.
No comments:
Post a Comment