Hardwood Floors April/May 2019

LENNY HALL As much as you try to prevent tool and equipment breakdowns, you have to be ready for it by a variety of means. Especially if you are a one-person shop. Having an apprentice or other crews so ens the blow a li le, but it still is inconvenient. We keep a stock of odds and ends on our trucks for the more straightforward repairs and look for options to repair things on site. Whether it be duct taping a stapled air hose, using electrical tape on an exposed wire, or making an 80-foot big machine cable and new pigtail from the former 90-footer that just got run over. e fun and ingenuity never end! Besides having a small assortment of electrical and pneumatic parts, it’s a good idea to establish a redundancy in small- to medium-sized equipment on the trucks. Carrying a spare oor nailer, extra hoses and cables, an extra trowel, and even blades (that is my biggest pet peeve – not using sharp blades). Our trucks carry three blades for each cu ing tool: one on the machine, spare #1 and spare #2. As the blade is changed, the spare #1 goes on and there is still a backup should damage occur. Larger equipment like chop saws, band saws, big machines, edgers, compressors, etc., are handled by swapping with a eet of redundant (older) pieces at the shop until the newer one can be repaired and put back on the road. It just happened recently when two bu ers broke on two di erent jobsites. One the handle lock snapped and the other was the capacitor. Both jobsites were down for no more than an hour. One crew called another to grab a bu er they weren’t using, while the other instance the apprentice drove back to the shop to return the down unit and grab another. It may seem like it costs more money to have the extra tools and equipment laying around not being used, but it can cost lots more in money, morale, and client experience to be down and unproductive on their jobsite for an extended time. g

s

BigStockPhoto ©

the magazine of the national wood flooring association

91