Two Cranes Lifts ... Your thoughts

[Tiny]

Company I work for (small rental outfit) seems to do this often . Customer's will use their machine on one end and ours on the other .

What do you do when the other operator is an unknown ?

What I mean to ask is , Your trusting someone you don't know or perhaps haven't even seen before with your rig and in a lot of cases YOUR life .

What do you do to protect your crane and your life ?

I have heard plenty of near miss situations from our guys .

 

[Bumpus]

It's part of the job when your working for companys who rent out equipment.
Also remember they do not know about how you operate either.
You both take a chance on each other.

 

[willie59]

Are you talking about a tandem lift with two cranes? If so, I don't know what you could do to protect your rig and life. Once you're attached to a load with another rig, if it all goes south, you're going with it unless you can throw the load away. Would be impracticable to just drive up on a site and within 5 minutes be able to ascertain the other (customers) operator is a competent operator. Just some of the difficulties and decisions that any crane operator has to deal with on any given day.

 

[Revxracer]

When ever i tail anything or have someone tailing a load for me, i try to make darn sure that the tailing end stays as close to the ground as it can.....(within a foot usually).... just in case something did happen, there's less room to fall...BUT every situation is different so that cant be the case every time but good rule'a thumb i guess.....no sense in having it 4-5ft off the ground if it doesn't have to be.......

i work for a smaller rental company as well........work with a lotta dandys haha....

 

[grandkobelco]

My dad was a crane opperator back in the 60's 70's and 80's and set a lot of steel in the air over that time, even biult the local airport. He tells this story. " me and another crane opperator were on a jobsite me on one end of a beam and him on the other end, now this was a big beam as it was the main beam in a railroad bridge. The other opperator was sitting in the cab looking at porno mags while the grunts set the cribbing for the outriggers, " He didn't like that to much, he thought the other guy should pay more attention while the cranes are being set up. So he lifted his end of the beam up a little off the ground throing most of the weight the other way. When it came time to do the pick the other crane just lifted the rear of his tracks of the ground. With that opperator cursing at the grunts for putting the cibbing in the wrong place. The job forman came up to my dad and said " I seen what you did there len, whyd you do that?" " Because any man that acts like that is not safe and I'm not going to work with him". The next day they got a diffrent opperator and they set the beam.

 

[John C.]

Haven't been in the crane industry for a long time but with all the fancy communications gear now, do they have head sets where the rigger and crane operators all talk and listen?

 

[mitch504]

I learned about trusting unknown operators long ago, with forklifts, not cranes. I went to pick up a screener we had loaned to a fertilizer plant (a customer). They had 2 large forklifts, but only one operator, so I put my guy on one lift, and their "operator" was on the other. I gave long, detailed instructions about what we were going to do, then, I guided them to put forks under from each side, and lift it straight up. My man flagged me to back under it, then I got on the end of the trailer and signaled them to lower gently.

The plant's "operator", for some reason I still don't understand, threw his machine in reverse and gunned the engine. It drug the screener out to tips of the other forklift before dropping it. the screener was on it's side hanging from the tips of my guy's forks, so that forklift rose up on it's front wheels rapidly, until it leaned on my trailer. When I ran out of breath, I stopped running and walked back, to find out what happened.

The plant's "operator" would only say that he "knew it wouldn't work my way".

 

[grandkobelco]

Wow, we unload trailers the same way in our yard, it takes calm heads. I,m in the excavator repair world now so I don,t know about cummunication between opperators and riggers. That story took place 40 years ago with lattice boom cable cranes and the opperator ran by the seat of his pants. I geuss to answer Tiny's question " don't do what don't feal safe".

 

[Hoister]

You can usually feel another operator out just by watching them set up and swing the hook around a little. Are they level? Smooth at the controls? Etc. But that being said, if you don't know the other guy its a little bit of a gamble. If they do something stupid, just stop everything.

I will leave a little piece of advice on this subject for those who don't know. Whenever you do have to make a tandem lift, the last crane holding the piece always takes more weight. So if your already maxed out, as soon as the other crane touches down you may be in real trouble. So always touch the smaller crane down first.

 

[BLASZER]

Ask to see their crane license is a start....

 

[Tiny]

Ask to see their crane license is a start....

In this area there are no crane licenses , CCO only . CCO is not required most of the time due to a contractor having to pay more an hr if they require it .

The Reason for this thread ,The company had one of their hydro's tag teaming with a customers lattice rig . They had a meeting and discussed who did what and when . Due to the way they were booming down one machine needed to release the swing brake so no side loading took place .

The decision was made and agreed on that the customers machine would turn the brake loose and the hydro would do the swinging . All agreed .... We thought .

In the middle of booming down to set the bridge girders the Iron worker boss saw that the customers machine did indeed have his swing brake set .

For some reason when that operator was told to release the brake he was upset and turned it loose all at once . That caused his machine to swing away hard . his whip line in turn swung to the side just enough to contact a set of real hot power lines .

Company rig had used nylon slings so they were ok . But the job was shut down to do a full blown inspection on their machine .

 

[BLASZER]

I ran a 518 Link Belt Crawler in a ta tandem pic with a Grove 250 ton hyd....We were setting bridge beams and I was in the creek at the center pier..The large hyd crane was up on the abutment...(road elevation)... I carried the beam 70 feet in the air at a 75 degree boom angle..(30 foot radius)....AS I walked with it, I left the swing brake off so the hyd rig could swing and boom down without making a pretzel of my boom..The operator in the hyd rig used to run my 518., so I had nothing but confidence in him,,,I guess I was lucky for my situation..

 

[handtpipeline]

I can't speak from a crane experience point of view, but I can tell you that lowering in a long section of 24" x .375" wall pipe (I think it was close to 400 feet long, with a very heavy valve in the section), 3 sidebooms, a LS-78 Linkbelt and a Case 170C trackhoe on it... When the new "boom hand with over 20 years experience running a boom for Williams Brothers" hit the wrong lever and let go, it got REALLY INTERESTING, REALLY QUICK... Claimed to be a dozer hand too, so took him and the TD20c to the next location to right of way. Lunch the next day I went by to check on progress... He was the first person I ever fired... Figured I better fire him before dad saw the mess he made and had a coronary.

Dad was on the '78, and I was on one of the booms when the pipe dropping took place. We were able to "drop" the section in a controlled manner, kind of a wild ride, but we didn't end up with any injuries or damaged equipment. If you've never seen 2 D-7 booms instantly go from level to about a 50 degree sideways angle, and a 75,000 pound hoe and a LS-78 stand on their tippy toes with about 10' of air under the back of them, I was told it was quite a sight...

 

[craneserviceinc]

Here is a link to a two crane pick we did this year. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mJza2m6IvJQ

 

[steve66oh]

My dad and I bought a 48' steel pushboat, 27 tons, at an auction in Pittsburgh. Boat was sitting on a leaky barge on the river, down a 60'cliff (40' out) from the yard. The auction company had one operator, but many cranes that had been sold contingent on their use for load-out of the auction. The crane operator said he had nothing in the yard that could lift the boat by itself. My dad owns a B-E 22-B, and said "Let's use two cranes - I can run the second one". The operator set Dad up in a Lorain (I think), that drives from the left side (Dad's used to the view from the right side of his B-E). Dad took maybe 15 minutes to familiarize himself with the controls, then we rigged one crane on each end of the boat. Yard operator said "Mister, I'll be watching you more than the load. If I even think you might lose it, I'll dump it - so be ready to dump it too, or that crane'll be on top of you on the river bottom."

The two cranes picked that boat up as smooth as if they had been doing it every day for 10 years. Yard Op swung in first, Dad followed, the boat walked right between the two cranes, and we set it down parallel to the river, about 60' from the cliff. It looked like oetry... but Dad says he was sweating bullets the whole time!

 

[Dualie]

On a two crane pic i like the yard operators point of view. If it comes down to kill or be killed i can tell you what side of that fence im going to be on.

 

[monster truck]

About a month ago we reconfigured the crushing plant at our yard using two cranes from the same company, one of the lifts required the cranes to do a tandem pick. There was quite the argument between the two operators over where to set up the second crane. Knowing very little about cranes, I kept my distance but from what I gathered the second crane operator (younger guy) didnt want to set up where the main crane operator (old timer) wanted him to because he would have to use more cribbing than if he just set up on the nice flat ground where he wanted to. To make things more complicated, once the cone crusher and screen deck unit was lifted free of its stands, we had to move them to the new location for it to be set back on. The younger guy finally threw a big enough fit that the old timer just gave up and let him set up where he wanted.
The cranes were set, the unit was rigged and we were in place with the 988's to relocate the stands and supports. The cranes lifted the unit clear and we pulled all the supports out and relocated them while the cranes held the load for about 30 minutes, once it was all set in place they started to swing the unit over to its new home. All was going well until the younger operator called a stop and announced that he was at 95% capacity... with the unit still about 15 feet from where it needed to be. He then announced that he should be able to make the distance by hitting the overide, the older op came unglued, he was out of his crane and over to the other crane in a heartbeat. I again kept my distance but from what I heard, he told the younger op that if he ever hit the overide while tied to another crane he would gently remove the younger guys head and kindly place it where the sun dont shine. We ended up having to re-relocate all the stands back to origional position so the load could be set back down. Once a good a$$ chewing was finished and the second crane was reset where the old timer wanted it in the first place (with lots of cribbing) it was lifted again and we were able to re-re-relocate the stands to thier new location. This time the swing went fine and the unit was set perfectly in its new position where we bolted it down.
There was quite the heated discussion between my boss (a former crane op) and the younger crane operator over why his lazyness cost us a near two hour delay in the whole project and another a$$ chewing was givin by the older crane operator. After all that dust was settled it was decided by my boss that we would finish out the project with only one crane, the younger operator was told to pack up his crane and head back to the yard.

 

[CRANE TRAINING]

this is like trusting the pilot of the plane you are flying in....lol

Okay...several issues at hand
1. The operator needs to be certified...but even the certification process is not fail proof
2. ANY TIME YOU DO A TANDEM LIFT....THE MOST IMPORTANT THING TO DO IS KEEP BOTH HOIST LINES AT ALL TIMES!!! AS WELL AS HAVE A LIFT SUPERVISOR WHO IS EXPERIENCED AND KEEPS THE LOAD LEVEL AT ALL TIMES {UNLESS WHEN YOU TAIL SOMETHING...THIS IS THE ONLY EXCEPTION**
3. A comment was made about keeping the load from someone else that replied...this is so true. If the load is low to the ground, and something fails, it only drops a few inches to a foot...the worst that could happen is maybe a shock load...crane bouncing...etc....but it won't tip over. VERSUS several feet high, this could result in a turn over.
4. The other most important thing to remember to is to have a TAILGATE SAFETY MEETING before each tandem lift. A tandem lift is considered a CRITICAL LIFT. In the tailgate...everyone gets to put their two cents in...including the lift supervisor, operators, riggers and signal persons.

 

[Tiny]

I have to posted on another thread buts fits here better than there http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ovYIFQyxMcU

 

[darren98]

I have done alot of tandem picks with large cranes usually 180 ton or a 150 ton. the problem is not only know the other operator but also knowing how he is going to react in an emergency situation. if he does have a larger crane than you and you are close to your capacity his natural reaction in an emergency is probably going to be to boom up which is correct if your not connected to another crane. this usually results in the smaller crane going off his load chart and toppling. go make small talk with other operator before making the pick and feel him out before commiting to simething so dangerous. we have every tandem pick enginerred months before we move eguiptmnent ti site.