new ride

[Tradesman]

I had an interesting job today, a fairly large crane company from a couple hours away called me to put building materials on the roof of a school 10 minutes from me.
I was less than two hours till I was back at my shop with a 4 hour minimum fuel surcharge and 28$ more an hour than I normally charge. ( I gave them 10% before tax) I lifted wheel barrels, 2x4's, hand tools and the last thing was a water jug. Couple jobs like that a day I could quit bending nails!

 

[Natman]

4 hr. min.? Good for you, here, I am gradually working up from 2.5 to a full 3 min. charge, while not losing any customers. Still, doing 3 or 4 of those in one day, taking an hour or so for each one, can make for a very good day. My record is 3, all HVAC, I was done by 3:00, started at 10, after billing for 7.5 hrs., with about 40 minutes of actually doing picks.

 

[Tradesman]

I did a set of trusses on a shop roof for the Mennonites yesterday, this is just a short list of what I deal with on every one of there jobs. I think if I am becoming a better operator it is these jobs that are doing it.
- 20 foot block side wall working in the blind with only very vague intermittent direction
- truss pile is rarely anywhere that makes sense usually in the blind as well
- within 50 ft. of me I had a tellahandler putting strapping up on the trusses already in place, another one with two men in it putting steel girts on the block wall, a man lift and two guys spray foaming, a fork lift running around I have no idea what he was doing , a skid steer moving material , a guy cutting steel girts with a quick cut 8 ft. from me, four guys framing the office using a saw and air gun , a small gas compressor for the air guns, a large generator at full throttle, two scissor lifts running at full throttle most of the time, oh and the man lift was working out of level so the warning beeper was continuous the whole job, there was two guys on each plate bolting down the plates just ahead of the trusses so I had to come in high and lower the trusses just before I set them down and even the guys setting the trusses rarely pay attention as I'm swinging the trusses into them so I have to be very very carful as I'm swinging in to them.
I guess you call that distractions. Having said all that I do genuinely do enjoy working for them its awesome to see what a group of good men, not snivelling whiners can accomplish.

 

[crane operator]

See all you need is a two stroke detroit--- 6-71 or 6v92 in your crane- then no one wants to work by one of those noisy, loud SOB, and everyone ends up working on the other side of the jobsite.......

 

[Tradesman]

See all you need is a two stroke detroit--- 6-71 or 6v92 in your crane- then no one wants to work by one of those noisy, loud SOB, and everyone ends up working on the other side of the jobsite.......

Your like a genius.

 

[crane operator]

Your like a genius.

HA HA- more like a legend in my own mind. If you had a screaming demon detroit, that beeper going on a manlift wouldn't bother you at all, it would be like lullaby music.

 

[Tradesman]

Heres a decent pick 3,400. all in, this was for one of my regulars, at top carpenter it just set down and in ten minutes we went on to the next set. On the other hand I did one half the size for an " expert " Wednesday and it fell apart, before I picked it up I suggested a couple more braces and promptly got told to just run the crane. OK! But before I lifted it I told them nobody under it and sure enough it fell apart, nobody said a word they just put it back together, with more braces this time.

 

[Tradesman]

Full picture

 

[Natman]

Yeah those are fun for us to set, but I see some crews who get all caught up in doing that pre fab thing, speaking as an old carpenter, and I question how cost effective it is for them. Plus they are usually a chore to rig so still some crane time there, at the end of the day most of the time I do those they crew didn't save any money, at least if they count all their time previous getting the pick ready. And if things are a bit out of square......that pic there is one of the more impressive ones I've seen, I like the out of balance factor, just to make it interesting!

 

[classictruckman]

The way I understand it is that it's not about saving money so much as being safer since they are being built on the ground rather than in the air on a wall.

 

[Tradesman]

The way I understand it is that it's not about saving money so much as being safer since they are being built on the ground rather than in the air on a wall.

Particularly for gable and hip sections much faster this is one of my own jobs. This piece is 3/4 sheathed, facia's on and gable sheathed. Two guys got this ready in half the time that four would have 16 ft. up, no ladders no man lift just easy peasy and yes much safer. BUT! Your skill level has to be much higher or that roof sheating is coming off and that won't save time.

 

[Tradesman]

Yeah those are fun for us to set, but I see some crews who get all caught up in doing that pre fab thing, speaking as an old carpenter, and I question how cost effective it is for them. Plus they are usually a chore to rig so still some crane time there, at the end of the day most of the time I do those they crew didn't save any money, at least if they count all their time previous getting the pick ready. And if things are a bit out of square......that pic there is one of the more impressive ones I've seen, I like the out of balance factor, just to make it interesting!

It picked really well I bet it wasn't 6" out of level, that gentleman is one of the best framers I've ever met, every time I set for him I watch and learn.

 

[Bumpsteer]

It picked really well I bet it wasn't 6" out of level, that gentleman is one of the best framers I've ever met, every time I set for him I watch and learn.

Sadly a framer gets no respect or disrespect until their gone from the job.

Neighboor had a 30x40 garage built...framed & sheeted in 3 days. Helped drywall it.....figured it would be a nightmare, being done so fast. Wrong, wrong, wrong.....only 1 sheet in the entire garage had to be cut on a slight angle.

Damn glad I own it now, lol. Just wish the cement guys were as good.

Ed

 

[Tradesman]

The first picture is a generator I set for the Mennonites it was tagged at 18,000 lbs. but was full of fuel, lmi read 21,800. The second picture is of a little concrete we poured this morning, 90 cubic meters before 10:30 it was a bunker silo floor so no grade had to be set, just poured it and kept the correct depth and screeded it off. The last picture is what I was set up beside this afternoon,"crane opp"I could have used your Detroit.
Some pictures from the last week

 

[crane operator]

Shoot, that's a bucyrus erie, that's old school drilling, all frictions and cable. Thats what will still be running, when the sun solar flares shut down the electrical system, and fries every electrical circuit board on the planet.

Good to see you busy, bet you had your hands full on the genset. I have a 6' wide spreader bar that I use just for those cabinet gensets so I'm not squeezing on the top of the cabinet.

The other bad thing on some gensets, is that some have a really sharp flange/bent edge just above the shackle lug pick point. It's where they have the bent edge coming down on the top of the fuel tank, between the fuel tank and the cabinet. The edge where they sheared the steel is sharp, especially on the new ones. It's real easy for it to pinch your nylon's on that flange, between the shackle and the cabinet - cutting them. I'll often use two shackles on each lug- to get the nylon's above that flange, or use a softener between the nylon and the cabinet. It looks like yours was the older style where the lug and the shackle gets the nylon above that joint, and the sharp edge.


I just remembered this article when I saw your pictures, and I had just done some generators before this incident happened in new jersey. So the sharp edges were fresh in my mind- when this accident happened, and I knew what happened from the pictures.

http://www.vertikal.net/en/news/story/24893/

These guys were using pretty new looking rigging, (they mention rigging failure in the article), and I know that the sharp flange cut the nylon's. You can see all the rest of the straps that got cut tangled up on the ball, so the straps got cut right at the bottom. Its not too heavy of a generator for the rigging (overload), because the crane doesn't even have block in- so its under 10,000lbs, and those look like at least 3" wide straps.

It's just poor lug placement by the engineer on his computer designing the pick points. He's never rigged anything, and could save the company $1.87 per generator by making the lugs 1" shorter. Never mind that they then put them in exactly the right spot to cut the nylons, between the shackle and the cabinet.

 

[Tradesman]

There was a diagram on the cabinet that showed acceptable rigging and my 20 ft. Roundies where longer than the minimum recommended. And yes I had all I wanted I had to set it down two feet farther than I measured out and the bells and whistles started going off, I was able to cable straight down, but I had to hold on to it for a few minutes. I got to talk to the old guy running the drill rig. I have never been around one before it's quite a process.

 

[Tradesman]

That green tarp likely means something real bad. A lot of the guys that I work around call me an old woman I'm so carful, but I never stop thinking of what can go wrong.

 

[Tradesman]

Do any of you guys just have a bad day, maybe too much on the mind and make many small mistakes, not anything that the guys you're working for notice but just small stuff that on a normal day doesn't happen. Not so smooth transitions from one function to another, coming closer to to the wall with a truss as your hoisting up and slewing over than you intended to. Most days when I'm done a job I feel very satisfied and feel myself developing as an operator, then I have a day like last Friday and wonder if I'll ever get there.

 

[crane operator]

One guy didn't get to come home, and another one went to the hospital when they lost that genset. Some of the gensets have sharp edges, some don't, I'm not trying to step on toes, I just wouldn't feel right without mentioning it.

Bad days happen, and bad picks happen. My worst is when everyone is trying to call or text me about something next week, when I'm trying to set trusses. Leave me alone- I'm trying to work.

It's hard when you've got all the stick out, cruising along with a truss- because you know where you're going with it, and then someone starts waving their arms trying to signal you, into the place you were already headed for.

Or playing tug of war with a tag line. I had one the other day and I just took the tag line off, I was tired of the truss see sawing around with him yanking on it.

As far as it getting easier- yes it does. Probably one of the biggest things for me, is which crane I'm in.

I've got two cranes that I can about run in my sleep- my tms 300, and one of the tms250's. I don't like my other tms250 near as well, and my 70 ton keeps you on your toes because the boom is so fast. The rt is okay, but its also got boom control issues, its not as smooth coming in and out of the boom, you have to work/concentrate at it. When someone comments on a smooth job, I give the praise to the old Grove's, because being dialed in with them is what makes it easy.

Don't always assume the problem is you, sometimes its with the crane, I've modified a lot of things to make the cranes run better and be more user friendly.

 

[Natman]

I pack some old fire hose, 12" lengths, plus some conveyor belting, to use as softeners for my slings. But I would also use, in a case like that gen set that got dropped, some scrap lumber to keep away from that flange. Better yet, a spreader bar, but then you better have the CG figured.

I was picking a 12 K CAT gen set for the city a few years back, and the CG on the thing was unknown and NOT where we thought (no rigging info). We (the city boys and I, mostly them, and I made it clear it was their call) figured best we could and I picked it 6" above the ground, and stopped. They all looked at me and I said "let's give it a moment or so...", I only had to go over a 6' wall with it. I used the wait time to ask them exactly where they wanted it, just killing time really. About 45 seconds later, without anything moving, the generator shifted out of the rigging, not hurting it or anything. If memory serves me. I think the thing had the fuel tank on top, with fuel in it, or something weird like that, I've picked them before and after and never came across one like it since. Since then, I've used that "wait a minute" thing a few times whenever things are getting a little strange.

The worst thing about getting totally dialed into any activity, is complacency. I fight that all the time flying, and now craning. The better and more experienced you get, the bigger danger complacency is, and it never goes away! I constantly tell myself "you're getting paid by the hour" that seems to help me in doing it safe as possible.