Just some work pics

[skyking1]

Nice pictures!
That outfit that moved in down the road has a TMS500E, among other cranes. I met one of the delivery operators today at the fuel station, towing his pickup behind a National 800 series boom truck.

 

[crane operator]

We really like our 500e. It such a good combination of capacity and weight and size, for the typical work we do.

The link belt is really shaping up like a great crane also for our daily type work. Its got a little more capacity and boom than the 500e, but its also a little wider to turn with the longer wheelbase, and it isn't as fast in the boom when flying trusses. Nice to have options.

 

[skyking1]

^ if you can get it done with a 50 ton............
Less tires, no overwidth, in my state no overweight. They are handy the 50~60 tonners. Washington follows the more restrictive fed rules and bridge rules. It is a PITA for larger crane outfits.

 

[crane operator]

Rained early this week, and had to install a pond intake screen. I delivered the crane late monday and the ctw., I got in there just as it started raining- its at the bottom of the hill where we set the rocks earlier.

The last bit toward the pond gets really greasy when it rains, so the whole evening I'm sitting in the house listening to it pour rain, and saying bad words in my head, knowing what the jobsite was going to be like the next day. They were pumping the pond down, but the pump ran out of fuel during the night, so we had to wait a little while after we were set up to get the screen in.

One of the golf course boys had waders, the other one just stripped down to his shorts and climbed in. I would have been headed to the store for waders- because it was in the 40's that morning and the water looked cold. He said it wasn't very nice.

Needed all the lockers to get out, I always worry with them all locked in about tearing up a axle, but I climbed back out with all of them spinning away.

 

[crane operator]

I even dug out the mud boots- and I don't wear them very often. We're mostly rock around here, and if its usually that bad, we can't get a crane in anyways.

Lowboy has floor out and actually I think they finished putting the new floor down at the end of friday. Need it monday.

Also got called to move a chiller off the roof of the hospital- I showed up and "hey- can you load the MRI machine too?" They had just finished skating it out of the building, and didn't want to block it up and jack the rigging forklift forks out from under it.

The slime hill at the pond, was just down the hill from where we set rocks a couple weeks ago. We had a excavator there in case we couldn't climb back out.

 

[crane operator]

Lowboy floor is in, it went out today and I didn't hear about anything falling through it. I had a job first thing with the 100 ton, and we had to flip the old HVAC unit on its side for them to haul it off, he didn't want it on his fenders.

Sent one of the guys later this afternoon, to go set a new HVAC unit. 70' in and 2,000lbs according to the customer. He took the 40t grove, and called me- he's 8' short of reaching it. I'm at the shop after my first job, so I fire up the Link belt which has 10' more of stick, fortunately its right close in town.

Well turns out that he was not only 10' short, of stick, but its 90' away, and the unit is 2,700lbs, which means the link belt isn't getting it either. SO back to the shop I go, I had the 100 ton set up and doing some maintence after our job this morning, I start breaking it all down, we take it out and finally get the unit set. Three cranes for one job isn't very productive.

 

[skyking1]

If you weren't so far I would come and preview those picks for you
I wrote up a lot of picks that I could not get with the boom truck. It always started out " can you do this?" and ended up with me handing my notes and drawings to an operator with a real crane.

 

[Natman]

I always let the guys know, when a pick is lighter and/or closer than they guesstimated, how much I appreciate it, and how rare it is when it happens!

 

[crane operator]

Had one of the guys setting a new video board the other day in the rain, I didn't even stop to help- it looked pretty wet out.

One of the old fords needed a fuel tank, and its a little easier to access the fuel pump if the only thing holding items in the bed is the plastic liner. A little cut off wheel work and the opening was big enough for working.

Had three setups to do big units on a new cancer center. 10,500 at 70' or so on a three story. Of course its a crowded site and everyone is in everyone else's way. Job super came over and said -"they've all been told- everyone is getting out of your way today"

 

[crane operator]

Another HVAC unit across the road from the cancer center, this is on the main hospital.

also got some more conexes set at the bike riding park.

 

[skyking1]

Looks like you could open up that tank access with a stiff broom, LOL!
10,500@70' is a pretty good feat.

 

[colson04]

Do you still have your 70 ton, or was that sent down the road after the Leibherr showed her worth?

 

[crane operator]

Do you still have your 70 ton, or was that sent down the road after the Leibherr showed her worth

Yes- its sitting in front of the shop, after one of the guys overheated it. Its got a different 6v92 in it now, but we haven't had it running in almost a year. Can't sell it not running, and I haven't had time to mess with it. Too many irons in the fire.

We've got by without it for long enough, I'm only going to regret sending it down the road if I need to make a tandem pick, and I wouldn't have anything big enough to take the other end opposite the 100 ton.

 

[crane operator]

Loaded up a barge for the powerhouse.

This is some kind of a cleaner/ dredge for the new intake gates they installed. It came from austria and who knows what it cost. A tech from austria came to help unload it from the trucks and put it on the barge. The dredge part had pick lugs that were 8" different in height- I asked him what they did to pick it with at the factory- and "they just picked it". Well I know they didn't do that because it would pick all wonky, so I roll hitched some roundups and it picked fine- he showed back up 10 minutes later and "they used come a longs to level it out". Thanks bud, its already on the barge.

 

[crane operator]

Sent one of the guys to pick up some timber mats. I think they came from a wind farm job, but they are only 4'x8' x8" and usually they use longer ones (16-20') on the wind farms. Anyways, they were $65 apiece and only a couple hours away.

They looked pretty good for used ones.

 

[crane operator]

Units at a mall.

I posted up a picture of the liebherr screen a while back, and this is what the whole screen looks like.

 

[crane operator]

So on the screen. Top right and down- I've got the computer set for 3 parts of line, I can handle 6,300lbs. I have 2,300lbs on the hook at the time of the picture. I'm at 108' radius, 41.1 degrees boom angle.

The A! means my boom sections are locked in the automatic extension I've selected, I've got 147' of boom extended, with each section locked at 92 percent. I'm 98' off the ground with the boom tip, and I have the alarm silenced (horn with the x through it).

At top left:

The L106 1400 0015 is the configuration set up (92 percent all sections, on full outriggers, with 35,500 counterweight- its all selected in a different screen).

I'm at around 30-40% cap per the sliding bar, and the 748 is the RPM's of the engine- it will only turn 1350 or so max RPM's running the crane.

The #2 winch is the aux (rear) winch and its showing 26.5' of cable extended (its actually stowed in this picture but I haven't zeroed the counter in a while) #1 winch is showing 39.6' of cable out. I usually don't zero these, I just watch them if I want to see winch movement- there's little arrows up and down when the winch is moving.

And the liebherr black and grey screens are really poor in sunlight. There's so much glare you can't hardly read them. I actually use my penlight all the time to read it. They are great in cloudy or low light- night work. I'm sure it looked great in the indoor lab when they bought them. The new screens are color- white background with blue numbers and such and much easier to read in sunlight.

 

[skyking1]

It looks pretty familiar. They had a 120 ton at the union school, I spent an afternoon in it. I did not take my test in it though, I used the old 60 ton Grove truck.

 

[The Peej]

So on the screen. Top right and down- I've got the computer set for 3 parts of line, I can handle 6,300lbs. I have 2,300lbs on the hook at the time of the picture. I'm at 108' radius, 41.1 degrees boom angle.

The A! means my boom sections are locked in the automatic extension I've selected, I've got 147' of boom extended, with each section locked at 92 percent. I'm 98' off the ground with the boom tip, and I have the alarm silenced (horn with the x through it).

At top left:

The L106 1400 0015 is the configuration set up (92 percent all sections, on full outriggers, with 35,500 counterweight- its all selected in a different screen).

I'm at around 30-40% cap per the sliding bar, and the 748 is the RPM's of the engine- it will only turn 1350 or so max RPM's running the crane.

The #2 winch is the aux (rear) winch and its showing 26.5' of cable extended (its actually stowed in this picture but I haven't zeroed the counter in a while) #1 winch is showing 39.6' of cable out. I usually don't zero these, I just watch them if I want to see winch movement- there's little arrows up and down when the winch is moving.

And the liebherr black and grey screens are really poor in sunlight. There's so much glare you can't hardly read them. I actually use my penlight all the time to read it. They are great in cloudy or low light- night work. I'm sure it looked great in the indoor lab when they bought them. The new screens are color- white background with blue numbers and such and much easier to read in sunlight.

Thanks for the write up! I find it very interesting even though I have never been in a crane and probably never will.

 

[Natman]

I also struggle often to read my screen, to the extent I've thought of adding a small light or ditching it for a colored screen, if it wasn't a multi thousand dollar expense, which I assume it would be. Plus the hassle, if a changeover was a simple plug and play, and 1 or 2 K$, I'd do it, but probably more like 5 or 6 K and a trip to SLC to get it installed correctly. My main electronic screen in the plane is in color, and is always easy to read, that's want I want in the National.