Wingo! She-she-sshhaa...

As promised here's the info on the sweet deal from Craigslist.

Wingo! Scaffolding!!

Sorry Jan - it's not a manual man lift...

Okay, so you all might not be as excited as I am about this but believe me, it's a big deal. As you have heard me say we need something to make scraping and painting the very top of the dormers a bit more safer and easier. The only thing we could come up with was scaffolding.

Since we really didn't want to move the big scaffolding up onto the porch roof we had to come up with something. So for the past several days I've been looking at narrow scaffolding. Everything we have found started at $200 for one set that measured about 5' tall x 5' wide x 2-1/2' deep. One set was a bit taller but more expensive. In order to get to the top of the dormers we would need at least two sets and that would cost at least $400 without tax.

So, during a break yesterday afternoon I took a gamble and looked on Craigslist. You will NOT believe what I found!!!! Not only one set of narrow scaffolding but three!! Best part - the owner only wanted $100!!!!

She-she-sshhaa...

We lucked out and got three times the amount for half the price!!!

On top of this the scaffolding is a heavier quality than the stuff we were looking at.

With money in hand my father-n-law and I set out for a town named Kingman, about 67 miles west of us to get our treasure.

And here it is!!

Isn't it wonderful?!

It is old, and well used, but it's got many years of use still in it.

What you see here is a major bonus - the owner made a storage holder for all of it. That's the main thing in the picture. The cross-arms are behind it on the ground.

Now, on top of the scaffolding, cross-arms and a storage holder we also got wheels for it. These are not the smaller wheels you get with the typical narrow scaffolding but the big ones you use with the large scaffolding. We don't have any of these for the big set so they will be handy. Best part about these, they sell for about $50 a pop new and $30 used!

Okay, now for the down side.

The scaffolding had been stored outside for at least 3 years so it is rusty. It is also the older type that uses wing-nuts and bolts to secure the cross-arms. The wing-nuts were rusted and seized to the bolts.

Not a big deal though. I generously soaked the wing-nuts and bolts in PB Blaster and let them set while I had lunch.

About an hour later a got busy un-seizing the wing nuts. It took all afternoon, as well as a lot of elbow grease and brute force, but they are now separated. I think I might use regular bolts instead of the wing-nuts though; the wing-nuts are rather knackered.

Here it is in the storage holder waiting for use.

Hopefully we'll get to play with them this week-end.

When we are finished with the house, this stuff will come in handing for working on the ceilings in the house. The type of scaffolding was actually created for indoor use. It was made narrow in order to go through doors. We will also be able to use it in the stairwell.

When not in use with the house these things can also be used as rolling storage bins for shops. I plan to use mine for wood storage.

Some time you have a day when your wearing milk-bone underwear and the world is filled with hungry dogs. And then you have days when it's peaches and cream. Today we got our peaches and cream with a cherry on top!

Till next time...

Cheers!
Larry~