I am hoping to be able to devote at least a couple days a week to the project Yesterday I dug out my plate compactor and as usual or I should say normal for me when I used it last I didn't take the little extra effort to completely drain the fuel then pour in a little of the $25.00 a gallon chain saw fuel and run it for a few minutes on that stuff to preserve the carburetor I just fille it with fresh gas and tried to run it.
Note the redimix 2cyl fuel has stabilizers and does not have the additives that pump gas has it will last a lot longer in storage not 2, 3 or 4 years but much longer than gasoline.
Anyway the compactor did start and kind of ran as long as I kept it 3/4 choked but it would not rev to full RPM I ran it for a while packing the hole around the column. It settled the fill over a foot and a half. Then I finally managed to get the packer moved out of the way added more fill packed some more added fill and kept packing until the packer decided to quit running. About this time I decided to bite the bullet and drain the tank pull the carb and clean it then life gets in the way once more.
But right now the column is as solid as a 100 year old OAK tree I just need to add another foot of fill then set up a section of scaffolding next to it and fill the inside. I'm already thinking that I may have wished that I would have made it taller in case I want to add a mezzanine floor later on but I'm never satisfied I probably wouldn't be satisfied if I had a shop with 50 ft tall side walls LOL