Tool Maintenance and Replacement

The husband likes to buy new tools, but he does not like to replace tools without making every effort to repair them. He will work on equipment until parts are no longer available. Sometimes, though, he has no choice but to buy a replacement, and that is what happened with the backpack vibrator. This is the tool that the guys use when pouring walls to make sure there are no air bubbles. The motor is attached to a long hose and wand that they run between the wall forms. Here is a picture of of one of our employees wearing the backpack vibrator on a wall pour back in June:

Parts are no longer made for this model. He can’t fabricate the part on his own. The only option was to buy a new one. We have an account at the concrete tool supplier in town, so if he needs something, he’ll often call ahead and they will have it ready for me to pick up. I did that earlier this week. I told him we needed to take some unboxing photos. (Cut me some slack here—I am trying to make concrete interesting).

The box:

The inside of the box:

And the new backpack vibrator:

The hose, which is elsewhere in the shop, attaches to the right side.

He’s been out in the shop most of this week. In addition to equipment maintenance and repair, he is also working on building the railing on the loft and replacing the U-joints in one of the work trucks. I commented that he hadn’t asked me to take the U-joints in to the shop in town (which I used to do) to have them machined, and he said that’s because he can do them himself now. I was not aware.

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We got a bit of distressing news last night—the processor we use for our pigs is closing. And I just ordered six weaners last week for delivery around the first of June. My friend Cathy, who raises cows, uses the same processor. She was the one who told me what was going on. Apparently, their building was sold. They called her and asked if she could move up her butchering date.

It’s possible this processor will find a new location before next fall, but I need to start calling around to find another processor in case they can’t. We can thank the federal government for making the regulations so onerous that starting a processing business is next to impossible. The ones that have gone out of business here haven’t been replaced, and the remaining ones are booked solid. We liked this processor and thought they always did an excellent job with our pork, which is why we were willing to drive our pigs to them, two hours away.