It's been 40 years since a ran a jackhammer

wwillson

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Aug 20, 2003
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Colorado
And I hope to never run one again!

The previous owner of our property poured this concrete pad for reasons even he doesn't understand. It is in the way when we back our 5th wheel into the storage area. The trailer has to be backed in very close to the fence, which is a bit tricky. The previous owner told me that he wished he had never put the pad there, to which I replied, "I also wish you would not have put it there!".

I rented a 70 pound Makita breaker from Home Depot. It's been 40 years since I ran a jackhammer and I hope to never run on again :) The breaker is 120V and frankly works extremely well. I thought it couldn't be nearly as good as pneumatic hammer. It's as good if not better. No heavy hose, no air compressor, simply better.

The concrete pad was 12' x 8' x 4". It took about an hour to break it up. It's a good reminder of what hard work is like, after an hour I was glad to be done.

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Funny, As a kid I was looking for some summer work, cutting grass etc. My uncle dropped me off behind a K-Mart with a compressed air powered jack hammer that was almost as tall as I was at 10 or 12 years old with a huge 30' x 30' pad I had to break up. I somehow finished the job but I only did Jack Hammer work ONE day...Same with roofing, I lasted one day as a kid as I was not big enough to carry the bundles of shingles up the ladder... However, I did well with the grass cutting thing and made enough for a new bike, a few black light posters and the Kiss alive 8-track!
 
My uncle dropped me off behind a K-Mart with a compressed air powered jack hammer that was almost as tall as I was at 10 or 12 years old with a huge 30' x 30' pad I had to break up. I somehow finished the job but I only did Jack Hammer work ONE day
Great life lesson, huh?
 
We had a similar pad in a new house we moved into in high school. I have no clue what the use was but it was 6” thick and had wire mesh in it. A friend and I rented a compressor and jackhammer and a trailer to haul it off. It sucked and we were young and in shape! That hammer wore us out.
 
I once worked for a contractor who had a contract with a bank chain to replace the Night Drop vaults with larger ones. We would start at closing on Friday and hopefully be done by Monday morning. Took a lot of jackhammering which we took turns with. Often, we would be holding the hammer sideways. Since then, I've often said - Working with a 90 pd jackhammer will make a man out of you.
 
Rented one some time back, the rental place was very adamant about only using their (10 gauge) extension cord plugged directly into an outlet. Was pleased to find out it had some sort of balance shaft that went up when the hammer went down so it didn't shake me to bits. Not something I'd want to do everyday, though.
 
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