Working the National 1300A

[crane operator]

I'm still having an issue with my thumb thumper, it appears the problem is the sender in the winch. I pulled it, a pretty easy job, job two allen screws, and took a look at the dipstick thing that engages the center of the winch, and it didn't appear to be broken off: the end of it was square, not busted, near as I can tell. But then when I looked inside the winch, it LOOKED like maybe the slot in there that the sender engages in may have a part of the dipstick in there. Hard to see, I need a bore scope! If it is broke, it is too far in for needle nose pliers to work, even the extra long ones, though I will try that next time. The dipstick is part of the whole assembly, not replaceable by itself, or so it looked anyway. Keep in mind I already spent over $300.00 for that little solenoid that runs the thumper, and this part looks it would be even more expensive. If so, I doubt I'll replace it, I can live without it, but I'll have to see what happens.

Just for fun, have someone put a cordless drill on the end of the sender unit and spin it, and see if it makes the thumper go. I'm assuming it turns, if its a bump up and down movement have someone do that. At least then you would know if its actually a piece broken off not making it work, or if the sender is defective.

 

[Natman]

Excellent idea, how come I didn't think of that!? And yes, it turned by hand. As near as I can tell from the fuzzy illustration in the parts manual, it does not seem to be broken, at least it looks like about the same length as pictured.

I priced out a new one in the mean time, having guesstimated that it may be as high as $750.00. Not even close, $1819.00, plus shipping! I told the parts guy, I don't even have to agonize over that, no way, no how, the benefit of the thumper is just not that great for my usual work. Not the money, the principle of the thing....OK, it's the money also, I have it, but would feel like a dumb a** paying that much for it.

 

[crane operator]

You will have to have the power on upstairs to check it.

The old style greer rotation indicators used to be around $1,000 for a whole kit. Drum wheel, power box and the wheel for the lever. The old company that used to make them, got bought out, and now a new one is over $3,000.

 

[Natman]

Over at friends crop dusting strip today, I saw his "crane." He uses it to load (as I recall) 500 pound bags fertilizer high enough to dump in the plane's hopper. The hyd. cylinder is powered by the bus power steering pump. The entire outfit is OSHA approved and fully engineered, though he may be kidding about that. Crop dusters are the lunatic fringe of the flying community! Actually, they are held in high regard, as some of the most talented aviators out there.

 

[hosspuller]

Are cranes required to have certified modifications ? (like aircraft) Seems to me (Industrial type) An inductive proximity switch and power supply could send to your thumper a pulse as the winch turns. The prox switch could sense some part of the winch for a pulse. Guessing parts cost within $200 or less.

More info : http://www.is-com.ru/files/photoelectric_detectors_xs.pdf

 

[crane operator]

No need for certified modifications, the thumper is only a aid to the operator. I home built some manual ones on my 70 ton.

The trick with the prox switch would be putting a small tooth gear, on the outside or inner of the drum, to catch the signal. Something like the ring for anti lock brakes sender units on a car.

 

[Natman]

I had a dream scenario the other day, shortly after taking off to eyeball a truss setting job on a large custom home about 10 miles away from my strip, the phone rang. Thanks to my current headset and modern technology, I can talk while flying and people don't even know I'm in the air. Having taken a picture of the first job site, and then texting it to the crew below while still overhead, and telling them where I'd set up and what needed to be moved etc., I was headed for home.

Another contractor was calling , wanting me the next day, on a home being built an hour+ drive from my crane, as you have to drive around the 9,000' mountain range, you can't go thru it. BUT, from where I was, and with a bit of a tailwind, I squirted over a 6500' pass at 105 mph, and was there in about 8 minutes after he had called me. Seeing the big field there, I figured I may as well land and jaw with the carpenters a bit. Best of all, now I knew how find the place, as it's fairly remote. All this really helps when I pull up to work, I know whether to pull straight in or maybe back in, getting a preview of the job is always handy but almost never possible, unless I can fly to it.

 

[Tradesman]

I had a dream scenario the other day, shortly after taking off to eyeball a truss setting job on a large custom home about 10 miles away from my strip, the phone rang. Thanks to my current headset and modern technology, I can talk while flying and people don't even know I'm in the air. Having taken a picture of the first job site, and then texting it to the crew below while still overhead, and telling them where I'd set up and what needed to be moved etc., I was headed for home.

Another contractor was callingView attachment 215809 , wanting me the next day, on a home being built an hour+ drive from my crane, as you have to drive around the 9,000' mountain range, you can't go thru it. BUT, from where I was, and with a bit of a tailwind, I squirted over a 6500' pass at 105 mph, and was there in about 8 minutes after he had called me. Seeing the big field there, I figured I may as well land and jaw with the carpenters a bit. Best of all, now I knew how find the place, as it's fairly remote. All this really helps when I pull up to work, I know whether to pull straight in or maybe back in, getting a preview of the job is always handy but almost never possible, unless I can fly to it.View attachment 215812

I hope they have a tellahandler or your going to be playing leap frog a quite a bit.

 

[hosspuller]

I especially like the photo with your plane's shadow on the ground.

 

[Natman]

Yeah they had a lot of stuff in the way, but all I had to do was lasso a couple of the stacks and drag them a bit closer, I only set up one time, as usual for a house. By that I mean when a stack is out of my chart to reach, I'll reach out as far as I can, have them choke a long cable on whatever part of the truss is nearest me, could be bottom chord, as long as it's not mid span, and they are still bundled. Then I'll boom up while winching down until I get to where I can pick one end of the entire bundle and scoot them towards me. No side loading the boom of course, and its just a matter of keeping the stack, once it starts sliding towards me, under control. Smooth surface helps, and I've never broken a truss doing this, and I'm not overloading the crane, just fooling it a bit.

 

[Natman]

I did some HVAC work at the place where the bad girls end up, the state Women's Correctional Facility. A grim place, even if you are only briefly working there. I couldn't have smuggled any inmates out, or any contraband in, even if I had tried, pretty tight security. NO joking around while I was there, just here.

A few days later, at a grain mill, I had this silo to move about 200', and first was told it weighed "about 2,000 pounds." I immediately scoffed at that, and then when the boss man came out, he authoritatively stated it weighed 4500 AT MOST. After three setups, and going to a two part line, the truth was, it weighed 9800 pounds. This is a new record for me, for a most grossly understated pick. I was able to move it 70' at a time, 35' times two, at pretty much 100% of my chart. At one point, I realized that this thing came in via truck, and had to have been off loaded and stood up by a crane, so what was the mystery about the weight? Then I sat there for 3 hours, engine off, right by the mill's big air handling unit's exhaust, (like having your head inside a shop vac) because of poor planning by the same mill boss who misstated the weight, and by the end of the day I was not in a good mood, but I felt better after handing him my bill.

 

[Welder Dave]

Does the weight affect the cost of the job if you can still do it with the same crane?

 

[crane operator]

I don't charge any more if I don't have to go get a different crane. In this case, it just meant he had to set closer and move the crane more.

If the item weighs what the customer says it does, and I've mis measured and brought too small of a crane- on a job I looked at. I won't charge for bringing a different crane. I pay for my own mistakes.

A somewhat local friendly competitor of mine (our areas don't overlap much- and we throw work to each other), charges more if he has to put block in, and for putting in jib. He charges less if its just trusses on some farmers yard.

My hourly rate is based on which crane I bring. If it takes jib, they pay me that rate while I put it on and take it off. If I need block, they pay to put it in and take it out by my time, but its not at a different rate.

I have a different competitor that charges a mobilization fee- a flat amount to show up, set the crane up, and go home, then its just a hourly rate while he's on the job. He essentially just guesses at his travel and set up time, and that guess becomes the "mobilization" fee.

Another guy I know only charges his travel time one way, and then has a 9% usage/ mileage fee added onto the bill.

The customer pays usually about the same in the end, its just the bills get written differently.

 

[Natman]

With my little nickel and dime operation, with just the single 30 ton rig, I charge a flat rate. Travel time, at the full hourly operating rate, both ways, port to port I call it, based on a 60 MPH travel speed, which makes the math easy. I point out, if asked, that I am working the rig harder, pounding down the highway, wearing more things out, and am at more risk (highway hazards, etc.) when driving down the highway then I am when set up and working. BUT, I get a little harder to deal with....when faced with a more then challenging lift (because of the customers misinformation) like on this job. Still outwardly easy going, not a jerk at all while onsite, but whereas on other jobs I would have cut the guy some slack on all my standby time billing, I feel he "earned" getting charged full time for his disinformation on the weight involved. My gut feeling is, he is still getting off cheap, as compared to what a big crane would have charged for coming to his very rural area. I can, and did, charge him what I consider top dollar, and it's still chump change.

One thing I learned long ago as a building contractor, if from time to time you don't get told "you're expensive,", and/or if you get every single job you bid on, you are working too cheap! I don't get a lot of the smaller crane work in my area, but I get the best, where I'm not dealing with guys trying to nickle and dime me over 15 minutes of travel time! The flip side is, I have no wiggle room for less then the best rigging and other equipment, whereas my competitor gets by with Harbor Freight tow straps for slings, and non engineered spreader bars, etc.

 

[Natman]

A new, tricked out, sheep camp lift (to be used as a guest house) was yesterdays job (and two other more mundane ones). I had anticipated being able to rig to the axles, but once laying eyes on it it was obvious that a lifting frame would be required. Oddly enough, (they are not at all fabricators) the homeowners had some light gauge wide flange their contractors left after a remodel. Turns out that was all we needed, we loaded it into their trailer and went to my shop (they are 1/4 mile from where I live, so it was handy) and about 30 minutes of torch and MIG work make a workable frame. The slope I was set up on was fairly steep, 10 degrees, and we gave some thought as to how to initially pick it (with the uphill rigging getting taut well before the bottom, or maybe it was the other way around, unequal anyway) it complicated things. B

But it picked perfect, and then I did what I always do on unusual picks like this: once off the ground a few inches, I stop, get out of the cab, and just kill a couple minutes, while all involved, (kind of spreading the responsibility around.... "look good to you?") and verify that it is stable and not balanced on a pin head. Then I boomed it out into the trees about 50' away, 2900 pounds on the hook. Asked how much extra I would be charging them (they are neighbors, but no one gets me to drive up the mountain, going thru the Port of Entry on the way, I live on for free, I gave them a deal but still it wasn't a freebie) for the extra time spent fabbing with the lift frame, and I got generous and said just give me it and I can throw it in the boneyard and no doubt recycle it into some other project.

 

[Natman]

I developed a leak, all at once. OF COURSE, it was hard to see where the leak was coming from, once hyd. fluid was everywhere. But I had the tagline guy eyeball thing for me while I operated, and he seemed to thing it was coming from a round black thing. Something called a pressure transducer? I have a large chunk of iron with several hyd hoses going into and out of it, and with these things that look like solenoids (round, black, 2-3" long, 1.5" dia) attached to it, they have wires coming out of them. I called my Nat dealer in SLC, just to get a feel for what was involved with them, and he said it sounded like a bad O ring, and to remove them just remove the bolt, visible on the end, that secures them to the block.

This was great news, even greater was when I went to loosen the bolt, I found it was nearly already finger loose! So, I just snugged it up, and unless I am whistling past the graveyard, that has stopped the leak and I am back in business. Almost seems too good to be true, I didn't even get my hands dirty.

 

[Natman]

Further inspection showed that an unused port in the same block that the transducers fit into, had a threaded plug, that showed O ring material sticking out the side..... removing the plug showed a butchered ring. Seventy nine cents later (Ace Hardware, right down the street, the nearest auto parts store where I could have got one free was across town), the plug is back in place. No work today due to wind, but tomorrow should tell the story, I'm pretty confident it was the source of the leak, possibly combined with the others being looser then a goose.

A few days earlier: another job I was able to fly into. Right along side the biggest and baddest mountain range in Idaho, the Lemhi Range. 2 hr drive one way, charged travel full rate both ways, so 4 hours travel for 3 hours work.

This job struck me as squirrely, the way the developer/contractor (new to me) said he'd stop by later and give me his billing info, and then never did (even 3 days later), and this big pile of trusses, that either blew down or maybe were wrong in some way and no one noticed until they were up! So, 4 days later I flew over (this is an area I often fly in and around anyway, and I for sure had some fun this day also, landing a 8700' ridge top at one point, but this WAS a work trip....) and after I landed I left an invoice inside, then texted the contractor it's location and included this aerial pic of the site. It will be interesting to see how long it takes to get paid on this one, I used to be much more trusting when I started this hoisting biz about 20 years ago, but the last few years I have my BS radar set a bit higher (partially because I can now afford to be pickier as to who I work for) and am generally more suspicious. He has 9 more houses going in there, maybe I'll be back, or not.

 

[Natman]

Yesterday, after a 3 hour drive to an area I had flown to just the day before, (not knowing I'd be up there the next day working) doing some mountain landings along the way, I got to the gravel yard job that was being setup as a batch plant for, oddly enough, resurfacing the town's airport. I found that somewhere in that 3 hour drive, the right rear outrigger shoe had fallen off, the 2" x 1/2" flat bar attach bracket where it's stowed had crystallized at a weld (not mine, original) and snapped off.

We made do, and I got the work done, and on the entire drive back (all 2 lane road, except the last 20 miles on I-15) and on the drive back I of course kept my eyeballs peeled the entire way. Just a few minutes ago, I looked at the pic and saw that my shoe was still there, and this was only 25 miles from the site so greatly reducing the search area. I texted the contractor and this morning as he makes the drive, asked him to keep an eye out for it. It was just a coincidence that I took this pic of this area, because I had landed higher up the day before, but it may save the day for me if I find the shoe.

I remember hearing somewhere, that they cost about 1K if bought new. NOTHING would surprise when it comes to parts cost..... anyone have a handle on where I could conceivably find a used one? National 1300 series, but similar would work, today I will measure the ball diameter as whatever I use has to have the socket fit it. Anything like a crane and boom truck wrecking yard anywhere?

 

[crane operator]

I think I have a aluminum terex one somewhere in the shop, I'll look. New are only $3-400 from sauber, but that's been a while ago that I priced them.

They make them for everyone.

I would guess your old one is already at a scrap yard. I would call the local scrap yard, explain what it is, and ask them to keep a eye out for it. Just offer to buy it back from them if it shows up- they will be much more likely to call you.

https://saubermfg.com/crane-pads-pontoons/

 

[crane operator]

Do you drive with them hanging? I thought they had stow locations, but I see in your look over you have them hanging?