Reject's really cool rental jobs!

A few guys were talking about Tiny's thread saying they wanted to make one as well. Well since there isn't a ton of traffic in here, i figured i would as well.

A little back story, I live in in the bush in northwest Oregon and work for Axis crane out of porkland. They're a crane rental outfit with a pile driving division. I have worked on and off for them for the past 6 1/2 years (more off as of late).

I started out on a 250T link belt lattice truck crane as an oiler and about a year and a half later i took over the crane. Then left. Came back and ran a 218 crawler, then spent some time in rt's.

They needed some one to run an rt again in December so i went back. Things were real slow until this Wednesday when one of the owners came over to my car and asked if i would be interested in running the 130 AT (link belt 3130ii). I said yes before i even realized what he had asked. I hate juice Riggs, what the hell had i done? I'm a friction hand! He told me i would start training next week some time. Well i ran the crane all day in the yard the next day, (hell of a short week on my Calender) moved it around set it up, tore it down.

Friday i started doing jobs with the oiler and a trainer. Yesterday the oiler and i took off on our own and stuck out 223'of main and jib and work with the 275 grove setting cell antenna's. Heck of a first day solo.

Here's the machine



First job was chillers at PSU





Set a concrete vault after we left the college. Didn't get any pics, but we had to hop it twice before we could reach the hole.

Yesterday





So far I'm really liking it. I thought it was going to be like running an over sized rt but it much smoother than i expected. Still no lattice crane, but the faster pace (couple jobs a day) is kinda nice, not to mention the amount of work this thing gets. It's nickname is the ATM.

That's it so far. If you guys are interested i can keep it going.

Thanks for checking it out.

I'm interested for sure , And you can do something I cant . Pics from the seat .

Tiny I've seen a pic of you, if you wanted in the seat that bad you could just pick up the op by the neck and set him on the ground next to the Cab on your way in.



Pics from the seat are kinda boring.

I think threads like Tiny's and yours are great reads and very informative. It's a side of the industry that I feel less informed about but I have really enjoyed following Tiny's thread and look forward to more from yours! Thanks for taking the time to post for us.

Hey guys no pics today, had a pretty ruff morning. Took a 3/8 chain hook to the nose, then got lost in the tractor w/#1 load on the way to the job and wound up in a residential neighborhood.

set a 140' lattice tower wind generator. It was in a farmers field. The whole thing was only 14k. It was fully built on the ground when we showed up. Just rig it, stand it and set it on the base. Then went back to the yard and swung a bunch of a/c units to clean up the lay down yard.

Tomorrow we are going to swing and luff the jib so it should make for some good pics.

Well of course as soon as i showed up everything changed. No jib, jest tear down and off load a luffer mast for the 500.

Then we set up one if the 275s to load out a section of dock. It was a piece of the first dock that washed up in Newport, OR after the tsunami in Japan. My company cut it up and it's been sitting in our yard ever since.

The city of Newport asked if the could have a section to put outside of a Museum.

On the truck, 90k.

Today we traveled 13 miles in just under an hour. Put on 63k in counter weight, stuck out 170 foot of main so we could set..........12, 1000 pound trees. They paid us six hours to set some dinky little trees in a park. They were to barely too heavy to move by hand. I say they were 1k each only because that's what the dispatch said, i doubt they were that much.



In the pic the look allot taller than they really are.

I'm still trying to get my camera to take small enough photos to host on site. sorry about that, i have allot more, they are just to big and by the time i crop them I've cut out half the picture. I will get it dialed in soon.

you wouldn't by any chance be the 250 tn operator i had a the BP terminal project would you?

That crane to me seems massivly over sized to move a few trees around but hey then again iam not in the business.

Looking at the charts for that crane, with 63 k, all the boom out and minimum angle is 4400 lbs of lift.

JGS Parts said:

That crane to me seems massivly over sized to move a few trees around but hey then again iam not in the business.

Click to expand...

The farther you have to boom out, the less weight you can pick. And wood is heavy.

I was the oiler back then, but yes i was on that crane and did run it for a few days on that job when the op was sick. Funny thing is, we look allot alike. Big guys, beards, love fiction cranes. They called us zz top. That December i took that machine over until i left Axis the first time.

What a good crane, a real nice running machine, it was an hc 268 truck mount. I use to put my motorcycle on the carrier or the number two load so i had something to get around on when i got to a job. Bigge has it now i believe.

heavylift said:

Looking at the charts for that crane, with 63 k, all the boom out and minimum angle is 4400 lbs of lift.

Click to expand...

Yes and then you have the jib hanging off the side off the boom, rooster, block, two extra parts of line,(i didn't need the capacity, i needed more boom) travel lights on the tip for when we are in the dolly, and rigging. I'm sure I'm forgetting something. All that comes off that 4400 gross capacity.

Plus the guy that measured the job(not from our company) only went to the curb. That adds a bunch to the radius. I couldn't get one of them. I set it as far as i could, then had them put about six turns around the trunk and slowly lined up and rolled the tree uphill into the hole.

To understand why cranes loose so much capacity as they load gets further away from the machine. Think about leverage, you put a big bar on a bolt to get more power when you can't get it to move. Your body isn't making any more force, you are multiplying it with the bar. It's the same concept with a crane. Yes up close I'm good for 260k, but as i boom down, the weight gains leverage on the crane. It doesn't weigh more, but it's affect is multiplied by the distance in between the load and crane.

Also, the weight of the boom is out there as well. it's acting as a load just as much as what's on the hook. Try holding a 12 foot 2x4 out flat by one end.

I heard in a safety meeting years ago, that as far as your back is concerned, holding a can of coke out at arms length is equal to holding 35 pounds against your chest. I don't know how true it is, but its an interesting example.

great pics

Yeah you probably forgot something , I'm sure you have to config the crane for all those items.
I did look at the 98' jib it was 2200lbs, if I remember correctly but 10 feet less radius.

Funny how people think a crane will lift it's capacity at any radius, been on a few jobs like that.

You can only carry 53'of jib on the crane. I can't remember the lengths of each piece, but you swing it, then pull out the "dink" as everyone calls it. To get 53'. Then it has two lattice extensions that pin on to get the full jib length.

From what i have been told, they've only been on once or twice. The extensions are more work then they are really worth. Not that it's hard to put them on. It's more about time and other cranes we have in the fleet. you have to take the time to load, ship and install them, with them the crane isn't worth anything.

used a 100 ft jib once. A whole lot of bending or fishing pole action

it had two sections also that you added to the jib

2 years ago i was in a GMK 5135....all the main out (167ft), 3 inserts + swing away....(301ft total)...setting a 300ft cell tower....now that was a fly rod! haha

The pic of the machine in the fog with the jib out. that was 170+53, if you stop the headache ball to fast the boom would deflect so bad it would swing the ball about six feet.

It's very different then running lattice machines.