A test of will, soul and skills, all in one job.
Friday we finished the small job by about 2 p.m. The plan was to go get some rest and start the 3,000-foot job at 9 p.m. Nice plan, but⌠rags started on fire in the back of the pickup truck, one big machine went down on the job and I fixed it, another unit went down and I could not fix it without parts, an edger went down, a cord got run over and the time it to took to get the floor flat was doubled.
It was a top five for the worst jobs we ever have done. The floor was cupped so badly we had to cut on a 90 degree to get it flat, then follow up for more cuts to get rid of the scratch. Edger work was the pits because the wall line fell off more than Âź inch. We did hand work for one wall that is 60 foot long in direct light-it had to be right. We did 36, 50 and 80 on the edger; 36, 50, 80, 100 on the big machine; and buffed with 100, then 120 to make sure the marks were gone.
We worked over 16 hours a day to get this job done; it took every fiber of "git-R-done" to make this job work. Twenty full bags of dust were sitting outside at the end of the job. The install job from five years ago was all wrong, and we had to replace four areas of bad boards. That alone took five hours on Friday night ... just more fun added to the mix. I had to stop and lie down at 3:30 a.m., and the sad part was, yes, I was the first man down. The young men outdid the old dog, but I was back up at 6 a.m. and did not shut the big machine down till 6:30 p.m. Saturday.
I am still trying to clear my head and will write more about this job when the fog is gone. It is done and the bottom line is: They love it!
