+01paddywack Too funny about the Scottish accent. Thank you for the comment. I'm glad that they help. I honestly care about having a safer industry. On that note, since you are an instructor. I found a trick out of frustration on my last job. I had 20 different guys signalling me on a 21 story job. Few of them knew what they were doing. It was driving me nuts. So I had the superintendent put up a white board for me to draw on each day. I would come in 15 minutes early and draw out concepts. Crane concepts. Little tricks I have. Safety issues. Put up pictures showing guys why they shouldn't try to hand signal on the far side of a load. I can't tell you how much that helped guys. You know, they are just tradesmen trying to be a good carpenter or ironworker and now we as crane people want them to be good crane people. It becomes too much for many guys. drawing it out and seeing how the drawings made the concept simple changed my relationship with the guys on that job. From frustration to mentoring. If more operators adopted that practice, we might be able to get better help on the far side of the hook.

This crane game is all about team work and trust, anything we can do to help each other will have great benefits.As you said showing guys what to do and take the time to explain how things should be done is the way to go . Good knowledge is for sharing and the sooner the pigheaded ops and slingers start sharing the better. Your attitude is great,the lifting world appreciates guys like yourself, keep up the good work👍

Hey.Can i ask a question?It is hard for a new tower crane operator to find jobs in London or UK?How agencies usually respond to someone new in this business.I have 15 years experience working as roofer,carpenter,years in which i was slinger signaller for most of the jobs.I did not hold a card for that.So i intend to become a tower operator.Do you have any advice?Thanks a lot.

01paddywack !

I am moving further and further from operating these days. I enjoy it, but opportunities have pulled me out of the seat over the last two years. The timing of a slowdown with a heavier load that has some distance between the block and the load changes the timing a bit. You want to be more accurate with the slowdowns so you don't create the scenario where the block and load fight one another with momentum. So on an older crane like this, I would drop into 3rd, let the load drift in the direction of travel and as I get near being directly over it (watching for the timing and the leveling of the block), I might drop to second, or ever first step ( as I center over the load) if I am getting close to my destination. In some cases I might stop if I got too far ahead and act as if I am just starting out the motion. Meaning that when it begins to move in the direction I want to go, do the first to second step timing based on the swing of the load. Keeping that block from fighting the load is very important to load control. It's one of those places where slower is faster because you can get it into the rigger's hands rather than stopping because you are going to bang into columns or other vertical members. On modern stepless cranes efficient stopping and starting of the trolley under control is so critical to speed. When you have 100 meters per minute speeds available, you have to know what pace you need to use to roll out of it. It's stunning how quickly you can do it under control. In less than 6 meters I can take a full speed trolley and roll out of it to 100% control exactly where I want it. My greatest difficulty is getting the older signal people used to how the new cranes run because they want to stop and start to catch the loads the same. Instead the new cranes are more like hydraulic mobile cranes in that respect. I see people horsing cranes around for speed, and that's great. The next level is when you can do that smoothly without someone having to grab the load. I good signalperson and operator should not have to break a sweat or ever be in danger with a swinging load. It takes time to get that dialed in, but that's the goal from where I sit.

lol

I have all of those except the concrete bucket. It's a shame too. I have some decent tricks and have put on some shows with them. Everything on my current job is with a placing boom and I'm gonna be stepping out of the seat soon. I'll get the ones I do have up soon.

:)

+Paul Hagood The cranes actually lean backwards when they are not loaded. The degree to which they do varies by manufacturer. When loaded with their maximum moment weight (maximum the cranes are allowed to be pulled forward) most of them are leaning forward and being pulled down. On large Liebherr tower cranes I might tell you it's 2 feet of being pulled forward. On a Linden/Comansa it might be 4 feet as my best guess. The loading of the cranes is very much live. As an operator I need to compensate for that in how hard I land loads and adjusting the trolley or boom as the load is released and the crane leans back. The only time a tower crane is truly balanced is for a crane climb. When we jack them up or down, we add weight and adjust it in or out to balance the crane. We also do it for some bolt torquing operations, but other than that, a balanced crane is simply incidental. Here's the good part for your comfort now that you know that tower cranes lean backwards. The benefit is that they lean backwards into the wind. So on those stormy nights, if a crane is properly weathervaned it will spin with the wind direction and lean backwards into the wind. The crane collapse in Mecca was a crawler crane that does not weathervane. Since the boom was left up (cause of the accident) the wind was able to blow it over. This principle is why tower cranes should always be safe in the wind (below 200 kph or 120 mph anyway). The winds would have to overcome the weight of the crane leaning back before it would come into any danger.

+TheMrFinneth Guys use bottles. Gals have camping toilets. If you have IBS or are an alcoholic... this isn't the job for you. Very common and normal thought by the way.

That's what I figured. Thanks for the quick response

That was a 550HC with 80 meters of jib. Might have been 79 on this model. We didn't get the 256's in the US. I've seen two of them that were imported by a single company. Morrow Equipment has the rights to Liebherr in North America. They just never brought in that model. We went from 132's to the 200's, which was a 180 in Europe. Then to the 316's (280 or 290's for you depending on the age) and then up to 390's to the 630's. But Morrow and Liebherr had different numbering systems for the US. I believe it was based on Imperial vs Metric ton ratings.

rotyag That's awesome man thanks for letting me know. We still have 2 256hc liebherr cranes in our fleet.. 4 - 280 EcH, 4 - 357 luffing cranes, 2 - 224 luffing cranes which can convert to hammer head configuration too. About 5 years ago we just retired 2 - 130c and a 90c crane.. haha they were great but definitely gear was getting hard come by.

It's just a little travel bag got hygiene products. It allows security people to see through it. I use it for the same thing but there isn't any security.

Yes. Started out as a Ironworker. Started erecting cranes after a five years or so. Did that for four and then moved on to operations and crane inspecting. Thanks for the compliment.

:)

It's mostly judgement based. What I would do in the older cranes is get into the neighborhood of where I need to be and start hoisting down while slowly trolleying out. If I have shadows, I'll line up the shadow of the hook and rigging with the nearest wall or column. But if it's overcast skies, I try to match the trolley and hoist speed so they will keep the hooks just visually over the place I want to get to. If the signal person is terrible, you can usually see their head look away from the cabin which indicates that you are past them. If they are a good signal person, they should ask you to stop the trolley. Outside of that, I find that it's just a visual guess on an older crane. If I have been on a crane for a month or so, my brain processes the distances really well. If I'm new to a crane, I will be off for a day or so. We were in Sweden (Stockholm and Kiruna) just before Covid hit for New Years. We really enjoyed it. I just felt terrible because I learned nearly no Swedish words. It's like visiting the Netherlands. The language is a challenge and everyone speaks English perfectly, so you learn none of it.

@@rotyag thanks for fast reply ! We usually dont have Good signal person. They mostly only give directions if the height is Good and sometimes if i need to adjust the center when starting to lift. Shadows i use om sunny days :) Another thing i started with is, if i have for example 6m chains on i can get down to 6-8m above ground. Then i know the distance to ground is almost same length as the size of the chain No mather what distance on trolley. So i visualize the Ghost chain under the real One :) My Friend were in kiruna last year building a hotel there.. so Cold there and far away from sthlm so i Said No :)

@@mikaelsiivikko3083 My wife is Czech. She loves the cold. We really like the northern cultures of Europe, but I will retire in the next 7-8 years in the south of Europe. I want Barcelona. She's shifting to the north in her opinion, but I'm not going to freeze as I age. At 47 years old, if it's below 5 degrees, I'm ready to for some heat. Cheers.

+collin white Nice. It's a thought that does go through operators minds. Would you believe that operators survive collapses every year? Toronto had one a few years back. In Seattle in 85 a guy survived falling 329 feet (100m). Croyden England a guy went over backwards and just had back problems. Same for a guy in Bellevue WA in 2006. Crazy stuff.

In a place where they aren't tracking job site dirt onto the glass. Heh! If you sit in boots all day with the heater blowing on your feet, you'll just end up with stinky boots.

@@rotyag its funny cuz i seen a lot of ur videos and u never waer shoes hehehe

ye