mick h wrote:neilc wrote:mick h wrote:Hi all
Neil, I remember working with you in Milton Keynes around 1992ish, I'd been in the game a good 10 years then, starting as a rakehand and moving onto driving a Blaw Knox, and then obviously onto the screws, but I remember you cleaning the road up with I think it was a BK191 with a fixed screed like a tractor bucket. I know that the screwman I first drove for would have clouted me round the tab if I'd have used a screed for that, but I was amazed at your skill on the BK's. Happy days, when I get talking to the young lads in my gang all good drivers and screwman get bought up into conversation as I reminisce and I always bring up your name as I thought you were a cracking BK driver.
Cheers.
Hello all ,Mick thank you for your kind compliments ,I all ways tried to save the men on the ground as much work as possible I was taught that was part of a paver operators job .Certainly I have to give credit to the men who taught me , they don't make them like that any more !In a much earlier post I mentioned how I took over from my uncle on the M25 on a late PF90. One day whilst laying I came slightly of the driveline ,(bad news when operating with a fixed screed )a man by the name of Ritchie Diggin who I have spoken of in previous posts was screwing n/s I was driving n/s ,he shouted at me "Campbell your coming of the !!!!!!!!!!!! drive line " I told him to "go away" ,in an instant he was on the screed side arm and smacked me straight in the jaw! He meant no malice by it ,and I never held it against him .This was just their way of schooling ,instant and brutal, but it focussed my mind and enthusiasm, I didn't come of the driveline again .That scenario would be frowned upon now but I have no regrets only respect .As you know well Mick the long service men already in the job when we joined were a very different breed to today. Regards Neil
Hi Neil,
Too true, I remember I was a driver on a PF90, we were laying hot rolled asphalt on a long carriageway once, can you remember the big lugged shoes that used lug onto the side plate that you used to dig a grass sod off the side of the road and put it on top of the shoe to stop asphalt leaking behind, well the screwman I drove for was a very vocal and big chap, the first mat was I remember a doddle just following kerb, no probs , but second mat with lugged shoe in matching hot roll was a art. If you wandered a inch it was a couple of yards before you corrected it, poor old raker and screwman giving me some F's and B's, I soon learnt to keep that bloody machine on the joint with a slight touch on my slewing brake. Happy days though.
Regards.
Hello Mick, yes I remember the BK cut off shoe we used to wrap hot roll in rags and pack it in to the shoe as it assumed the profile of the screed as you worked , but I would say grass clods would do the job just as well !As you say Mick a few gang members getting volatile focusses the mind like no college course can and it works !As you say mate HAPPY DAYS ! Regards Neil