Another long day

But worth it. The first job was to fit the excavator’s canopy and rear bumper bar and the second was to clear away all of the waste wood from the crate it came in so it can be taken to the ‘déchèterie’. It doesn’t sound like much but I knew that it would take quite a bit of time and effort.

The weather stayed fine and dry all day but there was a brisk chilly north-easterly wind to start with that continued into the afternoon but was less noticeable as the day became warmer. The first shot is of the excavator when I started.

Next is a shot of the canopy after I’d fitted it. It considerably increases the height of the machine but was not too difficult to fit as I first supported it on an angle on its roof, slid in the back two bolts on either side and then swung it vertical to allow the two front bolts to be inserted.

And here’s the rear bump bar after I’d also fitted that.

It was then time to move onto breaking up what was left of the packing case and chucking the bits into my trailer. It was made from quite a strong plywood and it took quite a while to do because after removing the strengthening and joining strips that had been attached in China, several fairly large sheets remained which were worth saving as they were quite usable even though they contained hundreds of nail holes.

Here’s what I finally ended up with to be thrown away.

And here are the usable sheets that I retained.

I originally bought two large sheets of ‘aggloméré’ (a type of chipboard) from which to make the excavator garage’s roof. They’re visible leaning up against the front of my house under black waterproof covers behind the trailer. I’ve now, decided to save those to be eventually used for the roof of my planned garden tool store/workshop and to use some of the plywood instead.

There’s plenty of it and plywood is quite expensive here in France whereas what I have available is almost free and I don’t currently see any other use for it. So tomorrow’s jobs are to dispose of the scrap wood and then to get cracking fitting the excavator garage’s roof. I’ll be pleased to get that done and it looks as though it’ll be another fine day for it.