When you use a tamper, you use it, ramming it like a pile driver into the ground to compact loose earth. I used the heck out of my tamper on the MyFixitUpLife play-set compacting rock and other substrate material so the structure would remain where we put it for years to come.
However, this is a tool that, while necessary, is rarely used on our projects.
That is, until I saw how Restaurant Impossible General Contractor Tom Bury used them. No joke, he had about 30 of them. It mandated that I ask how much landscaping he is doing inside these restaurants. Turns out he uses them as “posts,” stringing caution tape between them as a sort of crowd control measure for when the show is filming or to secure the crew’s workspace in an empty parking lot.
Brilliant.
I must admit that for us here at MyFixitUpLife, well, crowds aren’t a problem (yet!) but the fence gate I built with a spring-hinge on it is. The #$%^&* door always closes behind me.
So I stole Tom’s idea and now I hold it open using the un-sung tamper as a post. It’s awesome.
Thinking it through a little, tampers would be great for some caution tape at, say, a block party (invite me, please) to close off the street. Or to tape off a jobsite or landscaping project where the might be danger to an unsuspecting visitor.
Or just use them as your own person crowd control.
Thanks Tom!
