Thursday 3 April 2014

getting technical

I'd forgotten that I'd left a partially assembled semi-industrial knapsack sprayer on the hearthrug, until I came in at half past six from weeding the vegetable patch and found it there.  I have bought it because the only way I am going to keep the nettles along the side of the wood under control, and ensure that the meadow is mown up to the rabbit wire, is to use glyphosate, for which I need a mechanical sprayer.  A little hand held one is fine for the odd dandelion in the paving, but hopelessly inadequate for the scale of the problem.

I don't especially like the idea of using weedkiller.  A couple of years ago I spent a long time digging out nettle roots by hand, but they have come back.  I spent an equally long time cutting back the brambles that had advanced over and through the rabbit fence into the meadow.  It is impossible to mow right up to a fence, and the brambles took full advantage of the un-mown margin to root when the tips of their questing branches touched down.  The Systems Administrator responded by only mowing to the edge of the bramble thicket, and so the brambles gained ground.  I simply don't have the time or energy to keep digging and chopping out either brambles or nettles, so a chemical solution it will have to be.  It will still leave about 99.99 per cent of the property gardened organically, or at least with no applications of herbicide or pesticide.

I used to have a pump-up sprayer, but it was aimed at the domestic market.  That is to say, it did not work properly.  The lid of the pressure chamber screwed in like the top of a thermos flask, and by the time you had got enough pressure to spray, foam bubbled out from around the top, getting on your hands and dripping at random on plants other than the intended target.  It was basically rubbish, not fit for purpose.  I have seen professional gardeners using proper sprayers, and they do not bubble and drip.  On the other hand, full blown professional knapsack sprayers retail in three figures, and I did not want to spend over a hundred quid on a piece of equipment that I was only going to use occasionally for short periods.

I ended up on the website of a company specialising in turf care equipment, and went for their entry level model, described as being for semi-professional use, and sounding as if it was aimed at people like me, those who want something that works, but aren't going to give it a real pounding using it all day, every day.  It set me back something under fifty pounds, including delivery.  Pricing my own labour at the minimum wage, this felt like a good trade-off between expenditure on equipment and time saved.  It arrived by next day delivery.

In bits.  I had not really imagined quite how many bits.  Systems Administrator and I agreed that it would better if I assembled the sprayer myself, so that I had full ownership of it and understood how it worked.  I got the bits out of the box, and looked at them, while the SA began to intone Henry Reed's Naming of Parts. This is the upper sling swivel, whose use you will see when you are given your slings.  And this is the piling swivel, which in your case you have not got.  Part one was the handle securing ring.  After half an hour I was still not sure I had identified the handle securing ring correctly, let alone worked out what it did, or how and which way up I was supposed to fit it to the top of the air chamber.

It took me about an hour and a half to complete assembly instructions one to five, at the end of which I had attached three components to the tank, and still had not inserted any of the split pins. However, I think I have managed to fit the pump handle correctly.  That only leaves the spray hose and lance to go, so I feel I'm on the home straight now.

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