Just some work pics

[td25c]

Don't worry I'm not Santa. That poor little tree is right at the shoreline of Lake Huron ( one of the Great Lakes ) I live between Lake Huron and Georgian Bay. That is frozen slush I walked on it right out to the water, I thought it made a cool picture. You can tell that its been slow on the crane just a few sets of trusses in the last three weeks. I'm down to taking pictures of sad little trees.

That was a cool picture Tradesman ! That's pick axe & tire chain country for sure .
If didn't no better I'd guess Yukon Cornelius himself hiked up there in the cold frozen tundra to take the photo & share it with us . http://christmas-specials.wikia.com/wiki/Yukon_Cornelius
Keep up the good work bro !

 

[crane operator]

Grove rt 58 on a auction friday- becket installers strike again

 

[td25c]

Yeah Crane Operator , I don't get to hung up over cable / wire clip on a rope .
That looks like a Crosby clip on the end of the becket .
My Grove manuals don't even show a clip on the end , just the becket & wedge socket .
Yet post a pic on HEF & people get all excited over it ?
That crane don't have the pull power to even come close to snapping the cable .

 

[crane operator]

Busy week so far. Got a call late sunday night, the precast boys from nashville had their 90 ton break down on them, 1/2 way between springfield and poplar bluff (which is basically in the middle of nowhere in southern missouri). Something with the def or something, I know the cat man spent both days I was setting precast working on it, and they didn't have a solution yet.

Fortunately for them- the 6v92 has no such newfangled gadgetry epa $%&^ on it, and it fired right up and went to work. Monday I was 7- 6:30 and got out of the cab three times to take a leak, other than that I was hammer down all day. The Detroit was thirsty the next morning and needed 80 gallons, but we got some work done. They kept me monday and tuesday. On tuesday I had one solid panel I couldn't get close enough to to set, I had the rt on the site for the truss guys, so we made a tandem pick with it.

And yes that is white stuff flying through the air in that one picture. It snowed all afternoon- and none of it was in the forcast.

 

[crane operator]

Little heat unit- just a long ways away, it was on the other side of the shake shingled roof (picture is of the ductwork, the heat unit went after). Down at a resort with the 70 ton, no room and even with caution tape up- people are stupid and just walk around it.

Next pictures are of a little treehouse thing I put up on some poles at amusement area. It slid down on the two 4x4's on the stand, and I had to sit on the other side of a little ticket building they have built already. I have one more treehouse that's bigger, to do for them next week.

 

[crane operator]

Amusement ride tear down. It's going to a different park. It was a water raft ride, so it has a continuous trough around the top side. They didn't want to tear it all apart in the air, so we took it down in some bigger pieces. This one was a little bit fun to rig, and you don't have a chance to set it down and re-rig if its not right- its all 70' in the air. Once it comes off the saddles, it's yours.

The trough made us put beams on the bottom as well as the top so we could pick it by the bottom pipe supports. I welded saddles on the bottom spreader beam to capture the pipes, then we used some come-a- longs to fix them for balance after we had them tensioned. I rubber padded them, and then chained the bottom beam to the pipes so the beams couldn't slide. No engineered pick points . One of my operators came over to me after the first one was on the ground "that picked better than I thought it would ".

The two main horseshoe pieces weighed around 20,000lbs.

 

[td25c]

Very nice work Crane OP !

The curved section of the water ride sure looked like a rigging challenge , you guys handled it with grace .

 

[crane operator]

Thanks td- I woke up this morning about 4:00 thinking about those two pieces, and after laying in bed for a while, that's the best I could come up with, with what I had for available rigging/ bars , and considering they wanted it down at about 10:00 this morning. I'm sure 10 different people could come up with 10 different ways to rig it, but this worked.

The customer actually wanted to lay the whole horseshoe down in one piece, and if I had two 150 ton cranes, I might have tried something like that. I decided with what I had for equipment, I didn't feel comfortable trying the whole thing, but I would do it in two pieces. It all has to come apart anyway, he would just rather unbolt it on the ground, instead of in the air.

 

[Tradesman]

Hay! You bent the ridge on that tree house.

 

[crane operator]

Hay! You bent the ridge on that tree house

Who knows? some carpenter built it - he might think that's straight.

If you think thats goofy, look at the treehouse to the left and behind that one- it's got boards running every which way in it. That one isn't even being built by regular carpenters, they're amish carpenters. I have a hard enough time building something straight, let alone make something deliberately to look crooked.

 

[crane operator]

Rest of the ride today- didn't quite get finished- I'll have to finish up in the morning with the big center pole. The arms that hold the trough that we took down the day before were also kind of fun to rig.

Also took down some big pieces of track.

 

[crane operator]

Also got to do some sewer boxes the other day. It wasn't so bad getting them in the ground, it's just the front one was a long ways up on the trailer ( I will admit to kind of skipping/sliding it along the trailer until I could get it picked up). 4 pieces total, 2 bottoms, 2 tops- 12-13,000lbs each piece. Tank company sends their bar and rigging that they use with their tail unload trucks.

 

[Tradesman]

Crane op. You live in a busy area, lots going on "good on ya!" Looks like you've built a good and diverse client base and I know that doesn't happen by accident. Things pretty well dry up here in February, March and part of April. Here is a picture that my son sent me of one of his jobs, he said the crane operator looked real hard at the slings just held on by tension before he lifted over the house.

 

[oarwhat]

Are those slings just draped over the sides?? That's crazy!!!! When we lifted catch basins and such we put a chain all the way around. Then lifted it by attaching to that chain.

 

[Tradesman]

I'll answer for crane op from the above post looks like he's working this morning. There's notches in the corner of the tank that the wire ropes bite into, it looks a little precarious but I've never seen one slip. Just the same I'm sure there's big pucker factor when you have to put them over a house.
I would want the slings in perfect condition and way over sized with those terrible sling angles but the lower the sling angle the better they would bite.

 

[oarwhat]

Ok Ours didn't have notches. I still don't think I'd lift it over a house that way.

 

[Natman]

We do it the same way here, notches for the cables to seat in, and like Trademan said, the funky angle at least keeps them seated better. I've never had to lift one over a house, but wouldn't have a problem with it. In for a dime, in for a dollar! When I have a choice, I usually swing a load over the least expensive thing, can't hurt, just yesterday i had a choice of swinging a pre fab steel staircase (1700 lbs.) over cars in a parking lot, nice cars, or swing the other (longer) direction and keep the load over the contractors older dump truck. My tag line guy objected as it made his walk a bit tougher, but I explained why and he went along. That's a joke I guess.

Dragging chain rigging out from under is the reason they don't bottom rig them. Some concrete have those cast in nubs that stick out to rig too, I like those the best.

 

[oarwhat]

We didn't run the chain around the bottom. We ran it around the catch basin. Then a chain hooked on that chain to pick it up. I liked using the special hooks they had but, couldn't justify $600 for two hooks. They said those where so expensive due to liability not cost to manufacture them.
I get the way you guys do it. When he said slings I thought they where nylon straps.

 

[crane operator]

Different precast outfits use different styles. Some are cable setups in the grooves like in the pictures. Road culverts are usually the teacups style, cables with swaged ends- dropped through a hole in the concrete, then steel "teacups" that insert over them on the inside. I've also used the circle c- hook style that are so expensive to buy, here the precast company sends those with the boxes to unload with. I think they prefer the cast in grooves- its cheaper than the imbeds, just a notch in their forms.

I have had a box have the concrete crack out where the notch was- the cable slid/popped up 3" and stopped, it just flaked off the outside surface of the box, but it wasn't fun.

Did get the big pipe down today- the bottom half was grouted in, we had to push on it with a telehandler to bust it loose. They're going to load the ride up in open top conexes, then its going to a boat to South America, to be reassembled. The ride guys said they hope to have it up and running by early June. I think customs may throw a monkey wrench in those plans- but that's not my problem.

If you look carefully in the first picture- you can see one of the two spud wrenches sticking down through the bolt holes. I had them put those in there, after the bolts were out, before we picked it. That way if the pipe is way too heavy, you can set it back down and regroup. If you just pull all the bolts out, and then try to pick it up, it can slide. You still might not be able to pick it up, just because you got it to slide, and then you're in a lot of trouble 40' off the ground, because you can't set it back down, and you can't pick it up. The spuds are tapered, so you can lift it, see if you can handle it, then fly it right off.

I try to do things like that when demoing stuff up in the air, when weights are unknown. It's really nice to have a way out if you need it.

 

[Impact]

You get some interesting crane jobs craneop.