I've Been Working on the Railroad...

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Well actually I have been working at the construction site for the new Wellington Hospital (it is going to be massive). Last week I just lazed about the flat (that's what Kiwis call an apartment) while Abby went dancing. This week and next week I will be breaking my back from 7am until 5pm as an assistant to the Richardson Drilling Company. Richardson is the third largest drilling company in NZ specialising in pilings. We are drilling huge holes and then filling them with rebar cages and concrete these are the "fingers" that stick deep down into the ground and keep the building from being sucked off the face of the earth by tornados or aliens (you never know). It is really fascinating the way it is done. Do you want me to explain?

Oh well you have no choice because I am going to tell you mostly so that I will remember. First you find your spike in the ground that the Engineers and surveyors have located for you. Then you set up a 2m by 2m wooden frame around your peg making sure the surveyors mark is dead center. So far it has been real easy and all hand work. The surveyor comes around again and makes sure the mark is in the right place and then the fun begins. You take a bulldozer or crane (whichever is handy, I don't actually do this part as I do not know how to handle heavy construction machinery though I assure you it looks like even more fun than playing with Tonka toys as there are gazillions of lever and two josysticks that look like htey belong in a video arcade) and you pick up a steel frame that has part of a barrel welded into the center. This frame is placed in the wooden frma and will guide the drill bit. The diameter of the drum and size of the frame are determined by the diameter of the hole you are drillign so far I have only seen holes with a 900mm diameter (that is close to 3 ft.) Once the guide is in place the drilling rig picks up the drill bit (more like a can with teeth on the bottom that fills up with dirt as it digs into the ground then returns to the surface so that some poor fool like me can release the trap door on the bottom an let the dirt and mud fall out the bottom, actually I wish I could be so lucky I will tell you what i have been doing in a few more sentences) the drilling rig is basically a modifed crane and it forces the drill bit down into the ground and removes it to dump its load over and over again. Once a certain depth has been reached the guide is removed by a crane and a huge cylinder of steel (length depends on final depth of hole though the ones I have seen have been about 12m long) is lifted with a crane and placed into the hole. This huge tub e is dropped down as far as it goes and then the vibrator comes out. The vibrator is a giant lobster like claw made of steel that can be hoisted from the back of the truck that it live son along with its diesel V8 or V12 engine. The vibrator is hoisted so that it can grab onto the top edge of the tube and then the operator turns it on (also not me though whenever this happens I make sure my ear muffs are over my ears). Then the vibration helps to force the tube deep into the ground. The vibrator is put away and the drill bit placed into the ube and drilling continues. When the hole is as dep as specified the drill bit is swapped with a bit the has two claws that retract and can be set to different diameters (this bit is only used if a "bell is specified at the bottom of the whole). This bit is lowered into the hoel and when it hits the bottom the two blades are forced outward and when the bit spins they cut out a cone shaped profile at the bottm of the hole (imagine you dropped a giameter ice cream cone into the hole ice cream side down and when it hit the bottom the cone expanded leaving a big cone shaped void, don't cry its not real ice cream and if it were you would get real fat eating it because it would be a lot of ice cream). Now that the bell has been created you switch to the clean up bit which is a much shallower smoother bottomed bucket which is lowered to the bottom of the hole and skims the debris from the bottom of the hole. Great now your hole is done but it usually has a lot of water in the bottom. So you string a bunch of hoses together (big fat hoses like firemen use) and you connect them to a large pump that you lowere down into the hole to pump the water out. Once the whole is dry you have to hoist the rebar cage up and into the hole and lower it most of the way down at which you secure it in place and pick up the upper section of rebar cage and hoist it on top of the lower section (You see these are very deep holes and your crane is not tall enough to hoist a rebar cage that would be the full length of the hole's depth). You tie these two sections of rebar cage together with wire ties then you place these grey plastic wheelie things around the top edge of the cage and then you drop the sucker into the hole. This is prettty cool because it is a big metal object freefalling into a deep hole and the little grey wheelies roll along the edge of your metal tube and keep the rebar structure centered, sort of. Okay now all you have to do is guide the concrete truck into place and let her rip with concrete. There you go you just drilled and poured a piling. So what do I do?

Well these pilings are created while the site is at ground grade. Eventually another construction crew comes along and digs trenches between the pilings so that the ground bars can be poured to connect the tops of all the pilings together. When the earth movers dig the trenches they can't clear all the dirt around the pilings. I have to scrape the dirt off the top of the pilings and then dig a trench around the top of the piling so that the guys with the jackhammers have a nice comfy place to stand. There may be another reason for this trench though t has not been explained to me yet. LET ME TELL YOU DIGGING SUCKS. It is back breaking and boring. Fortunately this only lasts half of the day and the rest of the day I help in dribs and drabs with teh tasks I described for you and the various of support tasks you may imagine are required. Did I mention that I show up at 7am and work until 5pm? I am making $11 an hour an dthe government only takes 18% of my wages for taxes so I will make a decent amount of money. WE have two half hour breaks one at 10am and one at 2pm. And thus I have spent the last two days and will spend the rest of this week and next week except for next Monday as it is a national holdiay,

Whew that was almost as tiring as working. That is about all I can muster right now. Abby is still doing great and we are enjoying ourselves tremendously.

That is all for me now, but remember, if you find yourself in NEw Zealand in say 2008 or later and for some horrible reason you end up in the Hospital in Wellington you can rest easily knowing that I helped build it. And you certainly should rest as obviously something horrible has happened that has casued you to go to the hospital.

Peace out from N Zed.

Benji

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Comments

[Papa]

Poor Baby
Some honest work will not hurt you.It will build up your muscles and make you strong. Love to you and Abby