h a l f b a k e r y
Trying to contain nuts.
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Electricity pylons require to be repainted, with two coats, on a regular basis. When a pylon is being painted, the men who are assigned this task do not have the luxury of having the power switched off, so the wires keep on buzzing, dangerously, all the while. Obviously, this means that having lots
of climbing-gear style ropes and tackle a no no; you don't fly a kite near pylons. As a result, the poor buggers with the pots of paint have to free-climb up and down the gunmetal grey framework, carrying paint pots and brushes. Sometimes, the men fall, tumbling down, limbs and bodies smashing hard into unyielding steel struts, twisting, tumbling down blow by blow, until they lie, dead or dying, bones as paste, in the wet grass below. As their colleagues clamber down, crows draw close.
So, what is needed is some means of conveniently attaching painter to pylon, without ropes trailing, and in such a way as to allow the painter to quickly detach and re-attach. For this, I propose a hard rubber torso-and-arms exoskellington, running along the back and shoulders of the painter, being hinged and secured as is appropriate for such a contraption, with large caribiner clips (or maybe just hooks) jutting from the wrist section, over the hands of the painter. Thus, they can swing from strut to strut, safe and secure, like the boilersuit-clad omangutans they nearly are.
A pylon, yesterday
http://www.ecopraxi...ssets/Pylon%201.jpg
on the off chance that it's a terminological parochialism [calum, Jan 19 2006]
Kirkham Jackson: Silvering-up
http://www.mickjack...on/kirk-silver.html
[calum, Jan 19 2006]
[link]
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Whilst reading the first paragraph, I nearly fell to my desk so that the office crows could move in. |
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Good idea, do they really not have any form of protection outside of apeness? |
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[+] for omangutans. The idea is good also. Surprised there isn't somethig in existence already what with all the safety laws |
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Back from the Dominican Republic only 24 hours ago and posting already, [calum]? |
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Nice to see you're focused on clearing the mountain of paperwork on your desk! |
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IIRC, that's the way it was depicted in 1998's "Among Giants" with Pete Postlethwaite, but I hesitated to cite that film as a definitive source since it is my only exposure to the exciting world of pylon painting. |
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Wouldn't it be safer to do it from a distance, say with paintball guns?
Or crop-spraying helicopters, adapted for paint. |
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