Chat with a welder on site last week changed my mind about boom angles

I was running a 90 ton crawler on a highway bridge job outside Nashville. This old welder, probably 60 plus, walked up and said "you're fighting gravity, not steel" when I was adjusting the boom to get closer to a pick. He explained that my angles were too steep for the load radius, and it hit me how much I had been guessing instead of reading the load chart proper. He even showed me a quick hand signal for the operator to adjust that saved us 2 hours of setup time. Has anyone else had a random conversation like that with a ground guy that totally changed how you run a lift?

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2 Comments

andrew8543mo ago

That old timer probably could have run the crane with his eyes closed.

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the_phoenix3mo ago

Ever actually watched someone try to move a crane with a joystick?

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