| How To Paint A Flag Pole! |
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How do you paint a 200 foot flag pole in the middle of Darling Harbour? This project was a lot of fun.. The Sydney Foreshore Engineer gave us a call, as a painting tender was being compiled to repaint the magnificent flag pole that sits right out in the middle of Darling Harbour; Australia's Flag flying proud. After some strategic planning and accurate pricing we were successful in picking up this tender. One awesome rope access job. I was put in touch with the flag rigging company and we went over their system that is used for raising and lowering the flag. Lucky for us what we found in place was a 10mm static rope adequately rated and a steel cable system rated to 3000kg. With a sigh of relief I then organised to meet with Foreshore Maintenance to inspect and go over the use of the system to establish our anchor points at the top of the pole structure. As you can see from this shot a lovely 10mm static rope with a mechanical winch system; solar powered to be precise. All safe, we set out to strategically plan how to paint this beast of a pole.
Our next obstacle was to ensure the environmental protection of the harbour waters below us. Our goal is to prepare and paint this pole without any possibility of one drop of paint landing in the water. Our method accepted on the tender; now it's time to put our money where our mouth is. They even lowered Centre Point Tower in honour of the pole for a day. The Sydney Rope Access Tower.
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With such a potential high wind area and summer having sea breezes on a regular basis the only option was to build an enclosed platform that we could work within; tailor made to the taper of the pole. Tully cracked out the welder in the workshop and set to work on constructing an adjustable platform that would nicely balance on the ropes as well as having good side protection. This was quite a task and as it would itself be suspended by a rope access system we had to keep the weight down. Here you can see the first launch of the system, with our fingers crossed that we had covered all angles of the computation. The rope access system works great and with the job well on the way, you can see that we are moving down with the first coat of Dav Prep on top of the completely primed pole.
With the works at a good inspection point we called in the engineer to ensure that our application of the coating was correct. Don't go thinking you can get away with anything just because it is out of reach from the boss. This engineer will go through hell and high water to ensure that all contracting companies are delivering what is promised for the Foreshore works.
All thumbs up with the application, we then continued to push on in order to complete the task before Christmas. With fine weather and nothing but a few distractions to slow down the works, the team soldiered on and completed the target on the final working day before Christmas. Standing back now and looking at the completed project you really can see a difference. At the start we had a faded, chalky white pole. Now once again this glistening bright white pole stands proud; with the Aussie Flag flowing in the breeze.
A big thanks to all that helped on the project. From the Chief Engineer, Greg Beard; Robin Shore at Everest Contracting for whom we carried out the project; to all the technicians that worked on this project - Tully, Dan, Matt from 5th Pt.; Brad and Dennis our bulldog groundies who all contributed to pulling off this great rope access job. "Finished!" Think again! Part B of this project will give you a mind boggling view at the hazards and liabilities of being a big flag owner.
What a great working lifestyle though! A big cheers until next time. Mike King.
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