I think I would like to have and operate one of those little Dingo style
loaders, a walk-behind machine. One would need to take very good care not to
have it tip into the digging works or otherwise drop a track or wheel over the
edge of something too high to retain it's balance but under the right
circumstances it could work rather well.
----- Original Message -----
From: Paul Franklin
To: blindhandyman@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Wednesday, August 12, 2009 11:10 AM
Subject: Re: [BlindHandyMan] wilst we are talkking about building a house
I was born with R P, so for most of my early life I was partially sighted
during the day and essentially blind at night or in low light situations. While
growing up in the hills of rural Connecticut, I learned to operate all types of
excavating equipment, and for about 10 years I ran my own part time excavating
business. I had several backhoes and front end loaders, a couple of good sized
dozers and a truck and trailer to haul it all around. For the most part I
depended on equipment operators to do most of the jobs and drive the truck.
Occasionally if we were busy, and we had a simple job like digging a ditch or
clearing a building lot, I might tackle it myself. I really enjoyed using the
equipment especially the dozers, but I actually spent most of my time
estimating jobs or trying to keep the equipment running. Eventually my sight
deteriorated to the point that the excavating business no longer work for me,
and I guess that maybe my intellectual age finally began to catch up with my
chronological age so I decided that it was time to get a real job.
As a totally blind person the only type of equipment that I think that I
might still be able to operate with any degree of success would be a backhoe.
If someone located the unit where the whole needed to be dug, using the sound
of the engine, the sound of the bucket scraping through the soil, feeling the
changes of balance of the machine and relying on many hours of experience
working the controls of a backhoe, I think I could still dig a pretty good
ditch.
Paul Franklin
----- Original Message -----
From: Dan Rossi
To: blindhandyman@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Tuesday, August 11, 2009 3:07 PM
Subject: Re: [BlindHandyMan] wilst we are talkking about building a house
On Tue, 11 Aug 2009, carl wrote:
> has anyone had a go of an earth mover or a back ho?
>
Not yet. My father-in-law has a couple of pieces of equipment like that,
but I've not yet convinced him to let me take one out for a spin.
--
Blue skies.
Dan Rossi
Carnegie Mellon University.
E-Mail: d...@andrew.cmu.edu
Tel: (412) 268-9081
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