the Walnut Diary

After painting the steel roof beneath the bucket, I had to repaint some areas splintered by the roofers’ nails, and get rid of two old wasp nests at the very highest point of the cornice.

A mysterious, splintered hole appeared in the coping above where I am applying a tidy patch secured by many small brass screws to bend the plywood to the contour of the moulding.

I had a host of little jobs to do around the 1896 brick house which would have been at the upper end of my 40′ ladder.  But it is too heavy for me to put up by myself any more, and I can rent a really cool tool, an electrically-powered cage with which I can climb in comfort while taking along my power tools, paint, and mortar, all in the same trip.  Cash in some ways can be a substitute for youthful vigour.  Bet appreciated having our friend Les around to operate the hoist and easing the pressure on the spousal unit.

This is a shot from the May, 2016 session where over three days we scraped and painted whatever was white, wherever we could reach it from the bucket.

The only catch is the rig’s weight.  At 4200 pounds it’s a bit too much for my 4 cylinder Tacoma with its elderly and much-maligned frame.  Even the rated 3500 pounds towing capacity seems heavy for the venerable old truck.

Of course Ruby, my 04 Cayenne S, is rated for 7400 pounds, even if it has been sitting in disgrace since I concluded that her replacement, a 2014 Lexus es300h hybrid, costs 2.7 times less per mile to drive.  But I needed a relatively heavy duty vehicle to pick up the hoist an hour away in Kingston, and prices are down again on premium gas, so Ruby got the nod and a chance to redeem herself.

Ruby’s build sheet lists a factory trailer hitch for $2000 and change, yet it has given me fits to get trailer lights to work on the thing.  I finally used an adaptor for digital bulbs into which I drilled an additional 12V lead, the other end plugged in like a cigarette lighter to the rear-hatch 12V feed.  I connected the constant 12v feed to the running lights for the trailer.  Then the signal lights would work.  Brake lights?  Gee, Officer, they don’t work?  Are you sure?  I just have to remember to shut off the lights.

My son’s Cayenne has an after-market hitch and his lights work brilliantly.  My inability to solve this signal light mystery was not for a lack of trying, though it has removed Ruby from contention as a tug for my son’s 20X8.5 enclosed car trailer.

Anyhow, at the rental place Ruby of course refused to fire the Bil-Jax’s signal lights.  A bit of contact spray the rental agent had got them going.  Once under way, Ruby handled the long, unwieldy device quite well on the road, and we soon arrived at the farm.

It was when I had to take the Bil-Jax up and down a steep slope and along a terraced driveway that I gave Ruby’s low range and centre differential lock a chance to work. Both functioned flawlessly on an off-camber path which unweighted one wheel after another. The diff lock and low range shifted out as easily as they had engaged.  An ’04 Cayenne is a serious tow vehicle at 1 km/hr.  I wonder how many Cayenne owners have really tested the low-speed pulling abilities of their pigs?

Les operated the Bil-Jax for all sessions, leaving me to juggle masonry, woodworking, and painting equipment in the bucket.

The Bil-Jax has a series of three hydraulic cylinders controlling booms.  The topmost boom had a fault whereby it started off with a vicious outward whack, regardless of whether it was asked to raise or lower the cage.  The instrument panel in the cage was ideally situated to injure a vertebrae on an unwarned passenger who was standing with his back to it, holding a pitcher of paint, for example.  Paint falls down through the expanded mesh of the cage without a problem, though it wreaks the usual havoc on brick and stone 40′ below.

Apart from the spilled-paint debacle, the rig allowed us to get a lot of brick repair, painting, tin roof painting, bee’s nest removal and the repair of a hole chewed by a squirrel into a chestnut fascia board 40′ above the ground.  Go figure.

Here I am at the height of an extended 40′ ladder, repairing the hole a squirrel carved in the fascia board of the house. A family of greys climbed the brick wall all winter to use their penthouse den.

The 110v feed in the Bil-Jax cage proved quite handy to run a reciprocating saw while I fitted a plug for this hole.   There’s also an air hose installed on each machine, though on the last one it was easier just to run a 100′ hose straight from the compressor to my nail gun.

At just under $300 CDN per day for rental or for a two-day weekend, I find the World of Rentals product a good value.

It turns out that Ruby still has considerable fun potential at the farm, even if Cayenne ownership seems rather fraught in comparison to the mindless ease of a Lexus hybrid’s.