TB –
Ladders, vertical siding, its application and removal, does lend itself to leapfrogging ladders. I would have a 16’, and a 20’ for the low stuff and the eave walls, but that’s about it.
Labor is the most expensive component of any job, minimizing it with mechanization just makes sense. Besides frame dismantling is hard, dirty, and dangerous work, and anything that removes some of the risk and some of the drudgery is worth the doing.
Snorkel / Man Lift -
http://www.ur.com/index.php/equipment/rental/browse/view/?category=Aerial+Lifts&id=203Telehandler / Shooting Boom Forklift – http://www.ur.com/index.php/equipment/rental/browse/view/?category=Forklifts+%26+Material+Handling&id=1846&page=3
I tend to rent for all my sitework, and my own lift stays home in the timberyard, an insurance and convenience driven decision.
But now when the cyclical economy is at low ebb, is the time to buy, the used market is glutted like it hasn’t been since the early 90’s. Look what the things are trading for nowabouts.
http://cgi.ebay.com/TEREX-SS636-TELEHANDLER-REACH-FORKLIFT-TELESCOPIC-LULL_W0QQitemZ140289762282QQcmdZViewItemQQptZUS_Lifts?hash=item140289762282&_trksid=p3286.c0.m14&_trkparms=72%3A1205|66%3A2|65%3A12|39%3A1|240%3A1308|301%3A1|293%3A1|294%3A50
And hewing while uncommon is not extinct, not even here in the first world (still common in the third) I felled and hewed a few 32 ‘s here in my woodlot for a restoration this past summer.
But I know what you mean, that sentiment is part of why I split my time between cutting new frames and restoring old ones, learning from them, and through them, from those that we follow. Completing the circle, literally seeing and feeling myself as part of a continuum, and all that ho-hum.
Watching a joint come apart that some nameless predecessor watched go together two centuries before, is a cheap thrill I’ll heartily recommend.
