A Day With A Lineman #37 ~ Adapt & Overcome

While doing my monthly inspections at the Substation I noticed something wasn’t quite doing it’s proper job. You see this cover is suppose to keep birds OUT Hence the name Bird Guard. The idea is these, cages, as we Lineman call them, keep the birds safe from electrocution by not allowing them to touch the energized parts and the grounded parts at the same time. Well it seems this little birdie had another idea. The term Bird Guard must mean to guard the bird’s nest in this little birdies mind. So this little birdie figured why not build a nest up inside this bird cage for maximum protection. Now that nest is in a really a safe and secure spot, good thinkin’ little birdie. I’m going to give you 2-thumbs up for that one. Plus where the nest is located there isn’t a possibility of contacting an energized part and a grounded part at the same time. That is when things go BOOM

I can’t just de-energize the line and clean the nest out of there. This is at the Substation and that is the circuit mainline underground cable. Ya, you don’t just shut that off to get a birds nest cleaned out. So it’s time to see what attachments I can get on the end of my extendo hot stick to be able to reach in from the bottom and clean the nest out. This bird cage is packed really tight with the nesting material and I can’t just knock it out of there. There are about a bazillion attachments that go on the end of our Hotsticks but I only keep a few on my truck. Maybe I should keep a few more...

Typical Disconnect/Hook tool

Opening fuses and a variety of other uses it is probably not supposed to be used for :wink:wink

De-Viner

For cleaning vines and vegetation off of poles and other structures

New and Improved Disconnect Tool made by a Lineman

I just got this attachment and I used it a few times so far. Real quick I will show you how it works. It securely holds the fuse door so you don’t drop it by locking it in place. It cradles the tube and has a fork shaped piece that sticks up between two pieces of metal

Before I would have to balance it on the disconnect tool as I extended my Extendo Hotstick Up 40-45 feet to reach the cut-out (that is what holds the fuse) That tool just has a small straight bar sticking out the side. It takes some serious practice and yes I have dropped a few fuses in my day. I love seeing people create and patent new tools to make jobs easier. Take a look at some of these other attachments that go on the end of our 8 foot fiberglass Hotsticks.

• Wedding Ring ~ Installing and removing preformed conductor ties and armor rod
• Alligator ~ Multipurpose tool that can be used to install rubber protective devices, hold up dead-end insulators, hold something out of the way...
• Pigtail ~ Used as a hold down when untying conductor from the insulators and supporting and moving conductor
• Hand ~ Tying in conductor to insulators using solid aluminum or copper wire - a hand tie as opposed to a preformed tie

• Nose Picker ~ Installing and removing cotter pins, Used in conjunction with the Pin Tool.
• Blade ~ like the Hand, it is used to tie conductor to the insulators using solid aluminum or copper wire. A hand tie - as opposed to a preformed tie
• Pin Tool ~ Installing and removing the Pins that hold deadend insulators together. The cotter pin is what holds these in place

I know that is probably some serious nonsense talk to most but keep coming back to these, A Day With A Lineman posts, and I hope to clear some of that confusion up in the future

Now back to this nest, I need to get it out of there. None of the attachments I have are small enough to get inside that bird cage. Also with the nest soo packed in there and only a small hole at the bottom to access the nest, I gotta make something to get inside and stir up that nest. It has to be small enough, also it needs some sort of hooks to be able to grab pieces of the nest and pull it out the bottom of the cage. Time to get a little creative I guess.

My first go at this attachment was a piece of #6 copper solid that I bent in a kind of S shape. Then I pinched it behind the washer of the universal attachment head. That should hold it just fine... I think?!?

The idea was that one hook could break up the nest and the other downward hook could pull it out. Well that is the idea anyway. After the first stir and pull I came out with a little bit but not much.

After some digging And stirring around a few more times with my first version of the de-nester, I decided to make a couple changes to the design. This first prototype isn’t quite doing that job. Time to re-engineer this bad boy. After careful consideration and a few seconds of research and development, I converted the first prototype to this...

The Double Downward Nest dismantler Tool... Ummmm ya??...??...

So basically I turned both hooks the same way, then bent them 90 degrees around the stick to narrow it up a just a little bit more. I figured since I stirred the nest up already so I should just be able to pull the pieces of the nest out... Right???

Well even though I don’t have proof, due to the fact that I had to hustle out of there to an outage, this homemade attachment did the job just fine. After ripping the majority of the nest out the bottom, I beat on the sides of the bird cage to knock the loose stuff out. Worked like a charm, if I do say so myself. Though it could use a bit of re-engineering to make it a Nest disturber and Dismantler all-in-one, but it did handle the job.

So many times in the trade we have to come up with something to be able to get a specific task completed. As we call it in my neck of the woods, RedNeck Engineering. This is when you use what you have laying around to create something to be able to accomplish a specific task or for a specific purpose.

Adapt & Overcome

Until Next time...

Steem On
and

Sometimes you just
Gotta make your
Own Tool

Don’t forget to mention @splatz when you encounter a post that deserves a good Splattin’ by the @splatz trail