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TBA Meeting 2 (Tool Buyers Anonymous)

368K views 5K replies 141 participants last post by  Justin Rhoades 
Bought a wire pulling kit end of 2018. I liked it enough to buy another one today for one of our other crews.

For years we've been hooking our rope onto the wire with half hitches and tape, or using a basic grip.

Grips are great, but limited to certain wire sizes and I've torn a few up thru the years.

These things seem real heavy duty and work well for us when we pull in services 200' long +.

https://currenttools.com/products/pulling-accessories/183-2500-pulling-harness-kit.html
 
I dunno I've got metal and plastic grips but I don't find they save much time over 4x half hitches and a wrap of tape. Do you drive the set screws right into the wire?

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Strip a couple inches of insulation, slip wire in, tighen screws on opposing sides.

We pull a lot of 4/0 and 250 copper services over 200' long underground.

I wouldnt say its a major time saver but it does allow me to pull with a larger rope (5/8 double braid nylon) since im not doing hitches. It seems to slip thru the pipe better than hitches. It eliminates the need for tape which doesnt seem to stick in sub-freezing temps to wire on spools out in the snow.


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A supply house had a flyer I picked up and was paging through...

Milwaukee M18 mixer, Trade in a corded mixer and get $100 off a kit that has the mixer, 2 - 5 amp batteries, charger and a carry bag.



I traded an old 1/2" drill motor that I have used to mix concrete and repair mortar. That thing was probably 35 years old, the guys were using it one day mixing something too stiff for the drill and it started smoking.



I told them to leave it alone and we'd figure out another way to mix the stuff up. I come back a few minutes later and the one guys says "Drill no work." When I got into the shop that night I took it apart, the brush holders had melted, so I heated them back up and straitened things out, it's worked ever since, you just can't get it too hot.



Well today I traded that old dog in, I was kinda surprised they would accept it as a mixer, but I carried it in with the paddle chucked up.



Pretty good deal, out the door with tax for about $265.
My local supplier has trade in deals all the time. Ive never actually given them a trade in. They just honor the price.

Do you think milwaukee wants your old stuff?

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Hilt was having a sale on a few things.

Ending up buying a TE60AVR and getting (3) TE3-C drills for free.
I was wanting to buy a new SDS Max drill for one of the crew trucks anyways. Ended up getting all 4 drills for less then the normal price of the TE60 alone.
 

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Waited all darn summer to find these marked down. Now 3 days of rain so I can’t even play with them.
I have the version without interchangeable heads.

If you run it for awhile, the motor gets hots and it automatically shuts itself down to prevent damage.

Pisses me off to no end. 8ts a common complaint. Hopefully the fixed that in the new version.
 
I've had the Milwaukee chainsaw a couple years now. Works pretty good. In no way does it take the place of a good gas saw for all day use. However, its great for smaller jobs..

I've got the string trimmer and leaf blower too. The trimmer pisses me off. The motor gets hot and shuts itself down during heavy use. If you've got 20 minutes or less of light trimming, fine. If you've got some thick stuff to tackle. No good.

The leaf blower doesn't have the power of gas. I wouldn't use it to clean up a yard full of leaves. I do use it regularly to clean up after cutting grass to blow clippings, cleaning off the porches, and my favorite is the roof and blowing out the gutters. Lots of trees round here means gutters get cleaned often. The roof is a 5:12 so I can run across with the blower and get it all in a few mins.

Basically all the outdoor equipment works great for light to medium duty use but definitely not on par with gas engine tools for all day work.
 
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