Belated Merry Christmas...
And a
Happy New Year!
Monday, January 3, 2011
Tippy Tap
After I finished this, they called it the expensive European model. I guess it does cost more than the original model, but I would like to think it will last longer and my feet will stay drier.
Tippy taps tend to need rebuilding every once in a while. I thought the last time was the best yet, but the termites and water had a different view…well, they might have thought yum yum, but whatever. So I had told Maama Gertrude I want to leave her with things that were both useful and I could be here to see her enjoy. I had spent some time thinking about improving the tippy tap. First of all, the jerry can could not be easily removed for refilling. Second, when the compound was sweep, whoever was doing it always seemed to move the foot pedal , making it a pain to then reposition and use. These were the main two criteria I used in my simple, yet more costly design. At the end of August, I put pen to paper and drew what I hoped would be a long last, more convenient to use, hand washing station. Here’s what I came up with.
So I quickly took it to the welder in order to wait two months to find out they really don’t understand…which I kind of figured. I had previously asked for angle bar of a length of 15 ½’ with hooks so I could use the exposed rafters to hang a couple window boxes. Surprise, surprise, I ended up with 15’ of angle bar and hooks in the wrong places. Well after a detailed visit the locations were correct as in distances from the ends, but how they were attached is another matter. Anyway, I’ll make it work. I still need to cut my box in half. That will be later.
So the tippy tap. Beginning of November. I make an appointment to go and work with the welders. They did a pretty good job and I even let them use several scrap pieces and by the end I had a brand new tippy tap support that look about 10 years old.
With the language barrier, physically showing what needed to be done was about the only way to get things moving. The main piece I have no idea of its origin, but it is a 2” metal pipe that before removing it had a small metal pipe welded inside and protruding out one end. Rusted and having just a few holes here and there, sure let’s use it.
For the bar across the top we used a nice piece of angle bar. The bracing is square pipe. There was a piece of sheet metal from a previous project (I’m sure) that they hammered flat and eventually was welded at an angle to support the cross bar. I think the part that took the longest was getting a piece of small square pipe between the two uprights to prevent tilting. But they figured it out. So that was one piece of the two piece tippy tap.
The second piece was meant to go into the ground. For some reason one of the guys was trying to get it to attach to the main piece and thank goodness the other guy had seen the location and even kind of helped me measure it. After some miming explanation and purchase of a good hinge, the second piece was complete.
Whew. It only took about 3 hours. Then they wanted to charge me 35,000/- more than what they had told me a few week prior. I was tired and ready to go home. I was happy and a little excited before that because we had just made my picture real. Then change in price made me not so happy and not really excited to get it home any time soon.. I left for the night.
The next day I was willing to give them 5000/- more than the original price and that is what they apparently had decided too. So I then took my freshly painted, newly made, ancient tippy tap home.
It took me another day to get the thing working properly. There are a few improvements to be made, but I used what I had. I guess I also surprised a few people with my drafting ability. Yep, did do some schooling in that area.
Until Next Time…
Tippy taps tend to need rebuilding every once in a while. I thought the last time was the best yet, but the termites and water had a different view…well, they might have thought yum yum, but whatever. So I had told Maama Gertrude I want to leave her with things that were both useful and I could be here to see her enjoy. I had spent some time thinking about improving the tippy tap. First of all, the jerry can could not be easily removed for refilling. Second, when the compound was sweep, whoever was doing it always seemed to move the foot pedal , making it a pain to then reposition and use. These were the main two criteria I used in my simple, yet more costly design. At the end of August, I put pen to paper and drew what I hoped would be a long last, more convenient to use, hand washing station. Here’s what I came up with.
So I quickly took it to the welder in order to wait two months to find out they really don’t understand…which I kind of figured. I had previously asked for angle bar of a length of 15 ½’ with hooks so I could use the exposed rafters to hang a couple window boxes. Surprise, surprise, I ended up with 15’ of angle bar and hooks in the wrong places. Well after a detailed visit the locations were correct as in distances from the ends, but how they were attached is another matter. Anyway, I’ll make it work. I still need to cut my box in half. That will be later.
So the tippy tap. Beginning of November. I make an appointment to go and work with the welders. They did a pretty good job and I even let them use several scrap pieces and by the end I had a brand new tippy tap support that look about 10 years old.
With the language barrier, physically showing what needed to be done was about the only way to get things moving. The main piece I have no idea of its origin, but it is a 2” metal pipe that before removing it had a small metal pipe welded inside and protruding out one end. Rusted and having just a few holes here and there, sure let’s use it.
For the bar across the top we used a nice piece of angle bar. The bracing is square pipe. There was a piece of sheet metal from a previous project (I’m sure) that they hammered flat and eventually was welded at an angle to support the cross bar. I think the part that took the longest was getting a piece of small square pipe between the two uprights to prevent tilting. But they figured it out. So that was one piece of the two piece tippy tap.
The second piece was meant to go into the ground. For some reason one of the guys was trying to get it to attach to the main piece and thank goodness the other guy had seen the location and even kind of helped me measure it. After some miming explanation and purchase of a good hinge, the second piece was complete.
Whew. It only took about 3 hours. Then they wanted to charge me 35,000/- more than what they had told me a few week prior. I was tired and ready to go home. I was happy and a little excited before that because we had just made my picture real. Then change in price made me not so happy and not really excited to get it home any time soon.. I left for the night.
The next day I was willing to give them 5000/- more than the original price and that is what they apparently had decided too. So I then took my freshly painted, newly made, ancient tippy tap home.
It took me another day to get the thing working properly. There are a few improvements to be made, but I used what I had. I guess I also surprised a few people with my drafting ability. Yep, did do some schooling in that area.
Until Next Time…
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