"Martin Angove" wrote in message
...
In message ,
(Andrew Gabriel) wrote:

Just to say, cherry pickers can be great fun, but also very scary. I
used to drive a large (70ft boom) machine at a previous place of
employment. It was great because it had a huge stable base and needed no
stabilisers, you could drive it to site (private roads etc.) and get up
to the workplace without having to get down and set it up.

The scary thing was that the tyres made it rather "soft" and it bounced
around quite a bit as you moved the boom - particularly at full stretch
- as I found out while taking my "IPAF" licence test.

Not very good on uneven or sloping ground though...

...if you ever get the chance to have a go in a cherry picker, do so :-)
...but scaffolding may well be cheaper.

Hwyl!

Martin.

Gotta agree with you - cherry pickers are WELL exciting, especially moving
at full boom extension! Was up one at 2am (night shift) in a plant working
on the high bay sodium lighting. Looked down and could see a perfectly
circular rainbow about 30 ft below. Several admiring minutes were passed
before I realised the rainbow was being caused by a fine spray of hydraulic
oil - the 30 or so seconds back to terra-firma were possibly the longest of
my life. Turns out the spray was coming from a split hose. Still, I suppose
it counts as DIY as I didn't need to buy a ready made laxative ;-)

Richard.