HATCHEQUIP
Senior Member
I was just reading some of the saftey threads here and thought Ide tell this one. Back a few years ago we sold a steelmill a M250 manitowoc 300 ton. Part of the deal was they wanted the cab raised 30' for seeing into barges. Contacted manitowoc about it and got the kit which consisted mounting lugs and 30' of what looked like 3900 manitowoc boom and all the harneses and lines. Finished assembling machine and checking it out when project manager showed up and asked if there was anything else needed. We had gotten to talking and I told him the operator needed swiming trunks and to raise the front window before walking the machine up on the nice 2' tall platform they had built out of double stacked new wood mats that had 15' long compacted stone approach ramp. He laughed and asked why that was and I told him that just walking it around where we assembled it that was flat was very noticable in the cab for any rough spots on the ground and that when the operator broke over onto the mats it might catapult him into the river. He quit laughing and looked at what I was talking about, got on the radio and called the engineer down to the river and had me explain it to him they ended up making 100' long ramp that gradually curved up to the mats. Talked to the operator a several months later and he said he was glad someone thought of it because it was still a ride over any slight bump or broomstick getting it up there.
