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Hot take: the old timer who told me to stop leveling every pick was dead wrong
I work mobile cranes around Houston, mostly pick and carry on construction sites. This guy named Frank who's been running cranes since the 70s kept telling me I was wasting time leveling the ground before every lift. He said just crib it with blocking and send it, you're overthinking it. So I tried his way on a job out at the Tomball industrial park last month. Set a 12 ton HVAC unit on concrete pads without leveling the approach first. The crane leaned hard to the left side as I swung, nearly tipped a outrigger off the ground. Had to stop everything and re-crib mid lift. Took me an extra 45 minutes to fix it and the foreman was pissed. Meanwhile my usual routine of a quick level and crib takes maybe 10 minutes. I don't care how many years someone's been in the seat, that advice was garbage for my setup. Has anyone else had a veteran give you something that sounded smart but just didn't work for how you run?
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patriciareed3d ago
Frank saying "just crib it and send it" sounds like old school wisdom from back when lifts were smaller and tolerances were looser lol. Maybe the real problem was your blocking setup, not the advice itself.
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hollyc923d ago
Remember that job @patriciareed where the crane company blamed the cribbing but it was actually their outrigger pads sinking...
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thomas.parker3d ago
Nah, old school advice like that gets people crushed when rigging gets complex.
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