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Good effort - love building things at scale!
Especially:
Essentially, you take an 8ft scaffolding pole and flatten one end into a blade then bang it into the ground at the end of the garden with a sledgehammer will there's about 18 inches showing.
You smashed 6.5ft of scaffold pole into the ground! Not sure you'd be able to do that in my garden given the bricks and slabs that lurk below...
christianSpaceman
Huh, I can see them. They're attachments.
Essentially, you take an 8ft scaffolding pole and flatten one end into a blade then bang it into the ground at the end of the garden with a sledgehammer will there's about 18 inches showing. That much I'd done afew weeks back.
Then you clamp a 20ft pole to this having already attached pulleys at the top and bottom plus a cleat or hook to tie off with. I went super fancy and also fashioned a "cork" out of an off-cut of wood and sealed in into the end to stop rain getting in.
Then you attach one pulley on the second floor of the house and the last one directly below it. I bought 40m of waxed rope which goes between them with fixed loops at either end going between the top and bottom pulleys so you can raise or lower the line at each end. Then all you need are a couple of loops or eyelets at the right point so you can tie it off.
Was quite pleased with the whole endeavor to be honest. Of the many pitfalls I could see being a pain (hitting rock when banging in the pole, installing wall-anchors into soft brick by hanging out of a third story window; drilling through the pole; avoiding plumbing etc) it all went better than expected. The only bit I found really tricky was the fettling of the rope, but luckily I had superneighbour Maurice on hand to help set it up.
The drilling bit was quite satisfying too. I bought an old vice off the antique tool stall at my local market for £15. It's the kind to can clamp to any table or bench with a wooden block as a shim, my crappy metal patio table became a very usable workbench. I had a set of nice sharp drill bits and once i'd twigged that slow and steady and keeping the bit lubed was the way to go, I was able to drill through it using my battery drill and gradually increasing size from 3 to 6 to 8mm no bother at all.
Once I'm happy it's all working properly i'll replace the knots with clamps and I need to revisit one of the wall fixings as it doesn't allow the pulley enough space. Oh and I may upgrade the two low level pulleys with the better quality ones I used at the top.
Who knew building a washing line could be such fun?