Heres a few pictures a couple of mine and some of contractors i operate for. Any one else have any old timers at work today?
Here's a couple of the cranes I run. 1969 p&h 670 1970 p&h 790 and 1981 p&h 430 I also run a 45 ton bay city truck crane The last picture was just the other day running the 430 in a tight spot setting whalers on a sheet wall
Those are some great pictures, I've never been around anything but hydraulic cranes. Keep them coming
I've only ran one hydraulic crane and I hate it
Here's the hydro crane I run every once in a while and I hate it. It is nothing but problems and is hard to run smoothly
P&Hs are nice cranes to run to ,very smooth. Heres a 140 ton i run for a mining co. when they are short on operators
And the oldest in my Fleet on a barge doing log recovery in a pulp mill
I don't like how p&h cranes don't have windshield wipers
Yes hard , with those helicopter windows. The magnatorque swing is nice and the drum dogs are handy to stall the torque against for fine lowering. Nice old cranes you have there to ryanmueller. I run Americans mostly tough cranes but rough on the swing unless they are the hydrostatic ones
Tugger that 22B Old Style was from Princeton, Merv used to have 3 of them here in town. Always wondered where they ended up. He had one that he rebuild just like new . His son still lives here
Yes it is. I had the pleasure of meeting Merv and buying both the 22B and the 15B from him. And yes the the 22B is like a new old crane. I had to leave his old style sign on the side as a sign of apreciation to the work that was put into that crane.
The magnetorqe on the 790 is really jerky. I've tried adjusting it and cleaning everything up but no luck. The 670 however is really smooth
Heres some P&H pictures . My old 325tc on a timber wharf job.
Looks like your having a great day out there no wind no rain. Good to see the P&H long time since I seen one.
That looks a lot like the 430tc I run at work
Mine had the wakeshua gas in it , nice and quiet to work with. The juice frictions used to make us crazy until we put a tiny air pump on the resevoir tank after that it was good.Finally wore the old crane out and scrapped it, It was a good crane for timber dock work, not too heavy but a good lifter.
This one has a v6 Cummings in the upper and a 6v71 in the lower. It's an ex core of engineers machine and only has 700 original hours. It's practically a brand new machine. We have power down for both drums sitting on a pallet in the shop. Hopefully sometime this year the boss will let us put it on
My link belt ls58 has a Waukesha gas and even with a muffler, ear plugs are mandatory and for some reason it was painted white so I repainted it fairly quickly
Having worked as a pile driver (still have my card) early in my construction career, I still carry a ton of respect for the operators I worked with. They could really handle the old three drum, friction pile drivers and my hat is tipped to anyone that is still running them. You as operators are few and far between. I think I still got Delmag burnt grease under my fingernails and in the creases on my hands. We had a old 3 drum, 30 ton P & H, a 599 American with two drums, and the crown jewel, a brand new 3 drum 5299 with power down on one line.
We drive pile at work quite often using all three drums and a diesel hammer
Just a silly question as a kid growing up in the 50's and 60's, I used to see a lot of Americian cranes truck and crawler mounted are they not around any more? The two mines I worked at both had big P & H truck cranes.
I think all the old manufacturers are gone except for link belt and manitwoc. I believe cat bought out bucyrus Erie and sell there large mining machines under the cat name. There is American Ohio locomotive cranes and I don't know if that's the same American but I know Ohio railroad cranes have been around a while. There is a 1925 Ohio rail mounted steam crane at a local museum that I run on air.
American, P & H, lorain, koering, and unit cranes are now terex (they own the names). P &H mining shovels are komatsu. Link belt is owned by sumitomo. Manitiwoc is publicly traded.
Add Northwest to the list owned by Terex.
Does terex actually manufacture anything or do they just put there name on everything?
Terex's old plant in waverly, IA closed, they moved all their RT and truck crane production from there to oklahoma city, some bean counter decided it would make more sense to load up the whole factory and move it, for "synergy". Of course that runs down their inventory and they can write the moving costs as a "loss". Manitwoc also moved all their crane manufacturing from wisconsin to the grove plant in shady grove, Pn. Of course in both moves the older workers with a lot of years (read expensive) probably didn't go with them, and they hire new where they moved to (read cheaper), and some bean counter got some stock option bonus, and we get poorer made equipment. But that's not why they moved according to the "news" releases. Whatever. Terex really jumped into the crane game by just buying the old business. They purchased Demag in germany for their All terrain line. They are a big global player. I've never been really impressed with their Rt or truck cranes, I've never run one of their lattice cranes. The Demag looks good on paper, but I also have no personal experience with them. All my experiences with getting parts from terex have been poor. Just as a note. The old crane plant in waverly, that terex closed, was bought by CMI investments for a little over 2 million before the end of the year. Its a 49 acre industrial site with huge buildings. CMI is a old paving company that terex bought years and years ago. Funny money games.
Very interesting history
I remember Terex from the loaders they built, a company i worked for years ago had one. It was about 966 size,nicknamed the Green Hornet for the screaming Jimmy that it ran on. Heres one of my Americans on some Marine work with the the big guys
Me playing around in the back yard
Looks like a good sandbox !
Plenty of room to dig holes
Few pictures of the 790 I've been running
Looks like your doing tiebacks ? What did you use for false work to drive the sheets ?
Few more pictures of the wall. To drive the sheets we layed a template beam on the ground and drove short pins behind to hold in place. We held the pairs with the crane then started driving them with a movax head on a cat 330 hoe. After all the sheets were started we came back through and drove them with an ape 200-6 then we had to prove them to 15 blows per inch with a diesel hammer. That wrecked our perfectly straight wall so now we are fighting the whalers not fitting. I had a nice 2006 kobelco 100 crawler for the first half of the job then the took it to put on a barge and gave me a 35 ton p&h then last week the bearings on the boom drum went out so the gave me a 90 ton p&h. I love this crane but the swing is really jerky
It's not old but here's the other crane I was running
Your wall looks pretty good, all the sheets flat at the ball n socket. We have always got away with the vibro to finish the sheets ,or in the past a drop hammer. Heres a driving frame we use, mostly for water jobs cause it floats but it works ok on the land jobs to. Heres one ive been on with another contractor.Went fire up the vibro one day and hydraulic oil was frozen almost solid.
Not a very good picture but here's the excavator driving the sheets while I hang on to them with the crane
Interesting technique. Ive always used the excavator to bring the sheets to us and maybe wrangle them a bit while we are driving them if the grounds tough. I use a spreader bar and ground release shackles , vibro hanging from the crane.
I'm not sure how the ratings work but we have a movax 100 and a 50 and supposedly the numbers are the energy like an ape 150. Here's another picture of driving sheets at this tide gate we built last summer
1969 p&h 670 with 150' boom. Using to fly building materials over the trees and down the hill. And doing a little clamshell work digging out a footing for a boat house
Looks like the side grip drives singles.Do you drive them all the way down for threading?
It depends what we are doing. It can also drive them from the top
A few pictures from last summer that started out as a rescue mission putting a ls 118 back on its tracks. After that we took over the job of putting a new asphalt plant together
Did they fix the linkbelt?
They were planning on it. I don't know if the got around to it yet. They pulled the engine and rebuilt it then drove it on the lowboy
Sounds like it never got shut off soon enough?
Nope the engine ran till it died. I think it bent a rod
What was the story regarding how it ended up upside-down..? If it ran in that position until it died they are lucky if all it did was bent a rod IMHO .........
I have the video of it tipping over but I can't get it to download. They were lowering the slat coveyor off the silo. We told them we couldn't do it with a 90ton p&h and an 80ton grove so they had this other outfit do it with a 118 (60ton) and a 108 (45ton?). They we extremely overloaded and it tipped with the load 50 feet in the air luckily the crane holding the other end didn't go with it
Here's some screen shots of the video
After a nights dredging.
Looking like fun
Heres this weeks project. We placed about 150 tons of large riprap at the ferry dock in between the ramps , one rock at a time.
Looks like a easy job until all the action at the Ferry earlier this week.
Yes ,that happened on our first day,bullets flying right behind us.
????
It stinks that somebody got wrecked in all this but there has to be a lesson in all this somewhere....
The cops had chased a carjacker from the interior of BC,how he got this far is hard to figure but they shot him on the road out of the terminal.
The unlucky dude carjack the car east of me. Tugger should of dropped a rock on him,
I like that rock picker. I've thought about making something like that for some of the big decorative rocks I've set around here like that. We usually just run chains around them, they set most of them with a excavator, and just bring me in for ones they can't reach/ or don't want to tear up a parking lot with a excavator on tracks. That one would be fast if you had a bunch to set. Most of the ones I've seen have just 3 arms.
It works very well,if i were you id keep a look out for one,most people think they are yard art or scrap. A friend of mine picked this one up for 200.00 bucks at a Ritchie sale. I did have to do a little work to it though. Some before and after pictures.
Building this fancy shed that's supposed to look like a grand piano. Running the p&h 670 flying in all the forms. We previously had a 2 yard clamshell on it for excavating out the foundation. Later this week I'll be swinging a concrete bucket. Everything is blind picks and reaching over trees
That's a nice job, those boys have spent a bunch of time building forms. Do you always reeve both lines, and just tie one back? Or only when you think you will need two? I always look at those old conventional's, and would love to have their chart, (compared to a hydro), I just have so few job sites where I think I'd have the room to put boom in. Do you guys usually bring in a small crane/boom truck to set boom in? or use a telehandler or something? Or self erect?. I used to do some work with a outfit and they would deliver theirs with butt section in, and then off load all the boom and build it in a parking lot (just running along the boom on rubber), then drive to the end and pin it in and pick it up.
I usually carry 10 'on the heel section on my 40 ton and another 60' on the stepdeck.We usually just back into it and hook up.I can also carry 60' on my goose neck behind the pickup,that works well on tight sites or if im paying by the foot travelling on the ferry. A support crane is always nice but it goes pretty quick without. I almost always rig both lines ,its nice to have the block and the whip,or we are clamming or using the grapple.I avoid tying the lines back if i can it too easy to 2 block especially with the whip I have a third line for pile driving as well.You should join the conventional club Crane Operator ill bet theres those unique jobs in your area to.
The second line is out because we were using a clamshell. We can self erect but usually have a telahandler or excavator to help. The company I work for only has one hydro and everyone hates it. It a grove at880 80ton. We have 5 conventionals
With a boom 4' wide and 4' tall the conventionals don't get any of that nice boom deflection, and the booms are so much lighter. I've twice been involved in driving around a big lattice with 200'+ of boom in it on a crooked jobsite, and I wasn't a big fan either time. As far as your 880, those aren't a great crane. I think the lower is a Coles, english built. Does your 880 still have the deutz air cooled? The only 2 I've been around of those had both been repowered, to cummins big cam if I remember right. You wouldn't be the only one not fond of a 880, they weren't very popular and didn't build very many. Its just a bunch of stuff thrown together from when grove bought out coles (a english crane manufacturer). I don't think any coles cranes were ever brought over here after that. All the oversize loads in Missouri must be a irreducible load, meaning no driving around with heel section in. I suppose you could build a trailer that you could "launch" the heel into the pins with. There are times where a 80-100 ton conventional with a short boom 70-80' would be really nice for some of the short /heavy work I do at the quarries. So much of my work is 3-4hours long, that it may just not be worth the time to put a big lattice together for.
Yes it still has the air cooled deutz. All of the conventionals has Cummings upper and lower. I work for a contractor so cranes are usually set up for months on a job
Running the 670 today and starting hearing what I thought was a friction squeal but after a little investigation its a bearing spinning on the boom drum. At least we are pretty much done with this job
Sounds like a major fix on the bearing.Its a nice looking machine im sure well worth the repair. Do you drive it or lowbed to site?
Less than 15 miles we'll road it otherwise we haul it. It's a 1969 model and it sure is a nice smooth crane. One of my favorites
You would have to have a awfully big well in the lowboy to haul that, wouldn't you? 4 axle trailer and 4 axle truck? Probably helps if you can put the front bumper up over the trailer axles (drive it on the trailer), but its probably knocking on 80-90,000 for just the crane?
I don't remember the length of the well but we drive those cranes on there forward and without the outrigger box and counterweight and no boom they are a little over 100k. We usually have 10 axles but sometimes 9. 3 or four axle truck, 2 axle jeep, 2 axle trailer, and 2 axle booster. We are hauling the 670 Tuesday so I'll try to remember to take a picture
Heres my 40 ton on the lowbed. The front wheels sit nicely on the two bolsters between the trailer axles.I always keep the 10' section with the tag winder on the crane as the tag winder dosent fit well when stacking boom on the step deck. I had to add a link in the top boom pins to drop the 10' under the height limit.
Tugger, how much harder is it to drive a lowboy using a semi trailer jeep?
I know they're a real pain to back up
Around here a lot of the time they slide the 5th wheel up to the front and drop the jeep air so just a straight trailer. Happens lots in winter gets tons more weight on the drivers.
A friend of mine does the heavy hauling for me,but backing up with the jeep down is a problem. As Hank says theres lots of tricks to know to make all those axles work right. I just stick with my stepdeck or my single drop bed for counterweights when i need to haul them. Im not really a truck driver, just a guy that owns a truck.
Here's the 790 being hauled
Looks like your man is stretched out nice and long by the off track. Slows the Harley riders down..
I th i think bumper to back of booster is 120 feet
Well I wasn't around the lowboy today but her she is ready to haul back home
I've been busy this week paying after work with my ls58. First doing a little draglining then digging out stumps and clearing brush with the clamshell
No need to worry about slowing the Harley riders down. I have owned Harleys my whole life and other makes of (fast) bikes at the same time. Any one that thinks Harleys are fast never rode a fast bike. But we look good.
Waiting on another job for the old girls
Do you have a load cell in that machine, if so what does it take to break a stump loose, or did a dozer break them loose and your just moving them. Either way an impressive task for a crane.
I did it all with the crane. I does not have a load cell
Nice looking row of machines Things slow? It's fun to play around with a cable crane. Note I said play I work for the local county highway department. We used to replace short span bridges (10-20 feet) with culverts and some culvert replacements with a small crawler Linkbelt years ago. Used the clam-bucket and a headache ball for removal. The operator kept the boom short so it didn't need to be disassembled to move it (bolted boom). I can remember the day (1990) we stepped way out of the box and rented a CAT hydraulic excavator. lol The operator thought he died and went to heaven. The Linkbelt is long gone and we now have 2 hydraulic excavators, 3 mini's, and 4 skids. Things have sure changed during my career - I start year 47 30 days from to day
We got two 100 ton kobelco crawlers on jobs right now
Holy Moly, Raildudes dad, I thought 44 years and 7 months working on a real job was plenty as in my case. 47 years and still working? I read a statistic that the average construction worker only draws 16 months of pension before croaking. Are you trying to bring that number down all by yourself?
3 years ago with 43 years in I was 18th on the overall seniority list, today I'm #3, a driver and operator were hired 3 months before me. I sure hope to have more than 16 months . The record at our place is 55 years. I would be 75 just like the record holder - I don't think so, part time maybe.
I was given two pictures taken in 1953 of the 1947 Lima 34. The guy that operated it back then is who gave them to me. I'm hoping to get the shovel put back on it but I don't have the sprocket lagging that goes on the drum for crowd
Few more pictures of digging up the back yard
I guess I'm a slacker in this group. Started work in June of 1968 and retired from the same piece of land in April of 2015. So that sounds like just short of 47 years, but the catch is the first two seasons I was listed as "Summer Help" which did not count towards my pension so I actuall was only "Officially" working there for two months short of 45 years.
Are you needing pictures of the lagging to build the parts? or are you looking for one to buy? There's a little crawler with digger on display here in town that I moved a few years ago, I could go take some pictures of how its set up if you needed me too. Its a bay city, but I'm sure the principles are the same. These pictures are from when I moved it.
I would like to buy originals but I'm sure I'll be making. Yes pictures would help me get an idea of what it looks like
I'll try to get by there sometime this week and get some pictures. I think everything was pretty well there inside when we moved it. It's my apocalypse excavator. After the emp or solar flares destroy everything electronic, I'm going to go fire that thing up and move dirt. When we moved it- I really thought that in a couple days you could have it running and digging dirt, its a pretty simple old rig.
Looks like the portion on the drum is a split clamp on gear. Two half pieces with the gear welded to them, so you can clamp and unclamp as needed. Pay no attention to the cable flopped over and wound around in the chain, some guy (I have no idea who) shoved it in there when they moved it, just to get it out of the way.
Cool thanks that looks like what I need to make
No problem, if you want more pictures of anything in particular or dimensions, just let me know. Its right close in town- so its easy for me to get to.
If I was building one, I think I would cut a square notch in the drum and a key way in the chain sprocket that goes on the drum, and put a key in that clamped on sprocket. That way it couldn't spin on the drum. If you cut a shallow squared off groove for the key in the drum, I don't think it would hurt the drum or effect how the cable spools.
I don't know that you would need a key. The clamping force will create quite a bit of friction. That can be easily fabricated as sprocket blanks of all sizes are readily available
I think mine needs a 30 tooth sprocket 160 pitch. On mine there are holes in the sides of the drum to both clamp and bolt to the flange(by the brake band) so it shouldn't need a key
Working at Laguna Beach/ aka. sewerage lagoons. We drove some piles for a small bridge. 16" pipe that was supposed to stop at 80' but barely stopped at 80'
Using the old drop hammer
Its hard to beat for little jobs like this.
I haven't gotten to run one yet. Only diesel and vibro hammers
You need to find a set of leads and hammer for your home cranes,im sure you could drive some pilings for something in your sand box .Heres some i drove at home with my 15B ,10" pipe leftovers ,H pile cap with exposed ag pre cast slabs for the deck. It seemed easier than poured coloms , but it was still a pile of work.
That's definitely quite the deck. If one the size I need shows up one day I'll definitely pick it up
Working on the p&h 430. All 4 bearings on the boom drum were shot. Chunks of bearing went though the planetary gear and chewed everything up. After I get the boom all put back together I'm installing power down on both drums
amazing photos!
Be sure the boom hoist shaft isnt bent, I had a 325 tc with similar problems . We found a slight bend in the shaft ,most likely from the drum dog being thrown on at the wrong time.
Heres some lifting we just completed with a friends cranes, i was running the P&H.
I checked and the shaft is straight
Had the 40 ton out doing some bridge removal this month. Concrete panels and girders to load out.
Hows the 325 coming Ryan ?
Got the 430 all put back together last month. I've been practicing for my nccco that I'm taking next week. I'm taking my test on this crane and a grove at880 and the friction crane is way easier to run than the hydro. The grove is just really jerky and the p&h is probably the smoothest crane ive ever been around
Im sure youll ace it, Good luck!
We are all backing you on this I am sure you will ace it. Good luck.
Thanks everyone
After taking the practical NCCCO with another guy: Him: "Did you knock any tennis balls off?" Me: "No- but I was close on time." Him: "You're lucky- it looked like Wimbledon out there when I got done- there was tennis balls everywhere. " And he still passed. Good luck.
Do they require a minimum boom length for doing the test? We are required a minimum of 100' on any crane, no matter what size here in BC.
Boom length is determined by crane size and type, bigger the crane, the more boom you have out. NCCCO gives out the specs based on the crane.
Under 50 ton 80' +- 10'. Over 50 ton 120' +- 10'. Hydro cranes is I think 75% max length . We only have 70' for the 430 so that's what she's got in her. I've gotten my times down to under 40 seconds without hitting anything. 31 seconds and hit one ball but I have 4 minutes each way so I need to slow down
I had no problem with time when I did my large hydro- we had a large grove rt, and it was fine. I struggled for time with the small hydro. We had a ancient neck breaker that refused to do more than one function at a time, without severe protest. Besides that, you need a extra arm. The instructor started his countdown when I was about 1/2 way back through the course, I dumped the old detroit throttle to the stops and just nailed boom down and hoped the winch would keep up. I didn't knock anything over, but it was close on time.
You have an extra minute with the friction crane but I can go through the course twice as fast with the friction crane vs the grove at880
That's a pretty good hill the truck is setting on getting loaded out. Are you replacing the bridge, or just removing it?
Yes ,its your typical logging road out here.Id sure like a jake on the 671 in the truck for some of these places. They are deactivating this mainline ,so both bridges and the culverts must be removed. Ive been loading out panels and stripping the bracing on this bridge. The girders are a bit big for the 40 ton , 100 ' long by 7 ' deep . They have a 250 ton hydro coming in for that lift.
Your standards for boom length seem much much more practical than ours . Ours is 100' for any size crane. Its a bit of a handycap for us small crane guys. We only test on friction lattice ,but we can run hydraulic or friction of any size after that . Makes you wonder as i dont consider myself qualified to run any hydro except pickers and small RT s .
I don't have a jake on my 671, I asked my local expert about adding one on. He said it wouldn't really be worth the effort, he said they just don't help that much. But I was thinking anything is better than nothing. I'm going to end up repowering mine, and then I'll have jakes. I have a jake on my 6v92, and it does help, but if you really get to going, it kind of loses its effect. If your geared all down slow like you don't have a jake, then it really saves on the brakes. I don't think you would want to get onto them too hard on those gravel logging roads, just slide the tandems? The 6v92 is nothing like the jake in my 60 series. Those really grab on.
I got the cad drawing for the grove at880 and I run 65' of boom for the test. It has 96' of boom
Im pretty sure with the weight of that crane ,just under 90,000 lbs. if i start sliding im in deep trouble . they have good traction and low gearing with the 5+ 4 . Its got good solid lugs for towing to .
Makes good sense to set the boom length like that. I know what your saying about the swing on the P&H .they are all very smooth. I wish my American was as smooth.
Out 670 tc was going down some logging roads and the driver was going too fast and came to a steep hill and went to downshift and got stuck in neutral. The brakes overheated and he lost control. Drove it into a bank and took both front axles out of it
Brake fade is a scary feeling, ive been there . Did this happen recently?
No it was like 10 years ago. Way before I worked here
Finishing the bridge removal with the load out of Girders and ballast walls. Then back to the log yard to recover sinkers .
that girder is worth good money as "structural steel"!
Well I passed my nccco. The grove was nearly perfect but I barely moved one of the barrels. The p&h I got a perfect score not touching anything and I went through the zigzag in 45 seconds
Way to go I knew you would ace it. I crack a cool one for you tonight.
Hey thanks man!!
OK, how difficult is it to prep for this test? Is it much harder than, say, getting a CDL? I have a crane and use it but never passed the nccco...
I did a 4 day class to learn everything then you take a 90 question core exam then 26 question specialty exams. So I took 4 tests. Hydro swing cab, lattice boom truck and lattice boom crawler. They you have to take a practical test where you go through a course with different tasks
Congratulations! Must be a good feeling to get that behind you. Both bridges we took out will be reused. I hope we are putting them back in.
Congrats, that little piece of paper is more and more important. My insurance company wants all my operators to be certified. Even though it isn't required yet. We had preparation booklets, then had a one day class with a bunch of practice tests, before taking the actual exam. Its kind of like a CDL test, its going to depend on how much you know about cranes. You'll have to know how to calculate out a net and gross load and capacity with a given load chart. You better study up on the manbasket, and power line rules, and know the related ASME and OSHA numbers for them. If you spend a couple days studying the ASME and OSHA regs, you should do fine on a written test. The practical isn't too hard if you've been running crane for a while.
Whats the cost for you guys to do the test. Up here it was 800.00 and another 800.00 for retesting if you didnt pass the written or the practical.
The written portion of the test is like $300-400 if I remember right, and then it depends on how many specialties you need. There's your core test, then big and small hydro, lattice truck, crawler, tower, and overhead/gantry. The practical all depends on who is giving the test, and who's crane is being used. A buddy was taking his down in texas and I think it was like $400 per specialty through them. If you take a multi day course, I wouldn't be surprised if it was $2-3,000.
Playing around with my new toy
Looks good. A nice collection of implements to. A power tag line would really be nice for grapple work ,i find the spring tag very limiting on mine .
Nice old beast. The face shovel will make a nice dent in any hillside.
I used the dipper trip as a tagline and it worked for one cast until I realized the cable was too short and pulled out of the drum
Doing some burning with the Lima and I got the link belt ls58 put do bed for the winter
Just found these , from a job i did in 2010.3000 timber piles and a couple of hundred steel piles later we were done.
I hope you did not damage the paint on the Lima being so close to the fire.
Running the 670 on one of our cofferdam jobs
It farther away than it looks. I was sitting in the machine when the fire was its hottest and it was no big deal. Not that it would hurt anything if it did get hot
How much luck would you have finding a front glass for that 670? They are curved and run in the track up and down don't they?
Yes they are. We have replaced them before but aren't cheap
What's up with the chain section, at least that's what it looks like. Is that for pulling piles, or dealing with a hammer? Or is it to help keep cable from twisting up. I've been around a vibratory hammer, but never driven piles or pulled them, and was just curious. I'm always up for learning something.
The chain looks like your typical pile drivers headache ball on the pile line,easier to work with than a regular ball around hammers and leads .
We had it rigged up for clamshelling and never took it off
Do you guys get much clam work on an excavation like that? Here they do it all with excavators.
In the three years I've worked here this is the third time we've used a clamshell and that was because a longreach wouldn't work
Its not hard to beat a long reach with a clam , even in close. Most of them have to run a teaspoon for a bucket or they self destruct.
Yeah I know. In that last picture I posted is a p&h 790 with 1 1/2 yard bucket. I was driving pile and I heard that they were bringing in a long reach to dig out the settling pond. I told them I could do it faster with a clamshell. We gave them a quote and they told me they had the budget for 6 hours. In 3 hours I had it dug out deeper than it ever was and I pulled out some big logs and stumps that a long reach wouldn't have touched. And I got around the back of the building which the long reach couldn't have gotten so I totally agree that cranes can out dig a long reach
Keep up the good work. These old cranes can be a hard sell, but the customers are always happy with the end result.
Yeah like the 1969 670 at the cofferdam downtown of a big city. There's tower cranes all around and lots of hydros
What really shines against a long reach is a drag line on crawlers if you have the room and the operator who can run it.
i haven't run a big one but I can really produce with my ls58 and 1/2 yard bucket. 45' boom and I can get the bucket teeth 70' away from the crawlers. Being only a 30k lbs machine a long reach would have a hard time beating that
The shovel in my avatar got a 60 foot boom and clam later in life. It was sold after my dad passed away in 1971. Years later the mine I found that the mine I went to work at had bought it and installed a 3/4 yard drag line and I got to work it cleaning a fines pond. I could bale out about thirty dump truck loads of fines in less than four hours. No juicer with a tee spoon bucket could have kept up.
Yes theres no doubt about production of draglines . None of my jobs have the room to dragline unfortunately . I have bought a couple of my machines from dragline operators, they were fascinating to watch at work.
For the western Washington guys: what ever happened with those big 'ol draglines that were pulling the black sand out of the White River flume years ago?
I could watch a dragline with a good operator work all day. Those things can move some dirt, and still they look like they are working slow. The materials company I worked for in the 80's, had 7 Manitowoc 4600's in our sand operations. I had 2 at the plant I ran. We also had a bunch of smaller old Northwests, for bailing out settling ponds and so forth. I could run a 4600 some, but was not on one enough to be a good operator. I guess I was more of a lever puller on those things. Great memories.
That's a good question Crummy. I know the first machine that was in there was owned by Parker Pacific. Don't know about the later machines.
I bought a T350 Bantam off Parker Pacific In Buckley Wash. Must have been a generation after their dragline days , because they had no one interested in running it. Its a very smooth little crane .
Its been a while but the 40 ton finally has a job again. Most of the day was a complete white out. This was my audience waiting for me to dredge up some lunch for them, sucks to be a seagull in the winter.
Had a tire blow out on the p&h 430 the other day. Luckily there was a wide spot on the road to pull off and it was a common size so we were back on the road within an hour
Sure wakes a guy dosent it. Did you have her up to 40 MPH when it happened?
About 35
Looking good fellas, allways like seeing operators that can walk and chew gum at the same time "read operate with hands and feet at the same time" . Were getting fewer and fewer seems like.
Thanks. Ive never been so bold as to chew gum while im clamming, but i know i can nod off and still keep a churn bit going with a crane.Hahaha .
Looks like your outrigger control box got lucky.
Do you guys drive your cranes a lot? I always lowbed, seems every where i go we have nasty hills.
That's what its got them low gears for, and hazards. I will admit that if its a hour+ away from home, I'm much more happy to drive my 40ton RT on the double drop, than I am to hop in my old tms300. I burn more fuel through the lowboy, and the permit costs more. Its probably only 10-15 minutes faster on a hour trip (depends on the hills) But my right leg is much less worn out from pushing on the throttle pedal. We don't have really long grades by me. Most are under a 1/2 mile, just short and steep. I'd think the really long grades would be a real killer. I've got short enough ups and downs, sometimes I can carry a little coasting through- but that wouldn't help if its 4 miles to the top. I've never lowbeded one of my truck cranes. Any lowbed that long wouldn't clear corners and would always be hung up (bellied out) in my area.
Just added a 75 ton Lima to the fleet . Heres a few shots from the yard loading out a 5299 parts crane and a dredging job in a booming ground. Night shifting and loading 1 barge per shift ,800 to 1000 yards each.
I finally got around to tightening the tracks on my Lima. I had to pull a pad cause there wasn't any more adjustment. One had a hole punched through it that made it easy to carry
This is the proper way to spool wire on a drum right. The crane was broke down for transport so hopefully they respooled it before lifting
Looks like someone was in a hurry.
Here's the same machine a couple years ago
Starting driving foundation piles for a new school today. Only 127 more to go
Good work with the loader keeping them plumb . Are they open ended or closed? Diesel hammer next?
Yes open ended and we have to wait till the weekend to prove them with a diesel hammer cause of the school next door
Are the extra casings on some of the piles to reduce downdrag from your surface fill?
Those are holsters. I use the whip to loft the piles and set them in the holster then grab the hammer and clamp on and swing to the pile location. The first picture is all piles sitting in holsters
Sorry about the extra pictures. A couple of bridges the 40 ton was helping out on. Had a 270 ton crane set the girders on the big bridge ,while the 40 ton did all the the other handling. Then moved up the hill to a small pre cast bridge some 25000 lb abutments and 18000 lb deck panels ,just right for the 40 ton.
Can you road that crane all put together like that
Yes but the 40 ton is a bit limited for roading . Out there its all off highway. Actually going on the lowbed back to the shop fully rigged .
Sweeet
Hauled my ls58 and bantam abm-53 to my house last weekend and been draglining
Nice dirt in your sandbox .Are you digging a pond?
Nope just playing around burning fuel
Dragline definitely isn't the best machine for pulling sumps
Maybe dream up a hydraulic thumb for that drag bucket (haha) or take some time out and hook up your clam. It looks like your having fun out there.
Seem to be having a run on bridges this year. Heres a test run on the big one. Stock piling 5 more in the Forestry Yard for future projects.
There was only one stump to take out and it's a long steep narrow walk back to the buckets
Don't lie, there's always just a little anxiety in that first trip over a new bridge, isn't it? I once made the last trip over an old bridge, ended up with my steer axle just on the ground and the truck pointing up like it was ready for a moon shot. I've never looked at any small private bridge the same way since.
The Engineers said it was good to go. What could go wrong Haha.
The Lima headed out the gate to do some work with the grapple. A narrow spot on the way for 13'- 6" wide , pilot truck driver was very good at blocking the oncoming lemmings. Sorry for the blur. Rigged and ready.
Lima looks good, a lot different than the last time I seen it.
Lemmings never heard them called that, other things that we shall not say on this site yes, but not lemmings, so I looked up the official description and yes both description's seem to fit. a small, short-tailed, thickset rodent related to the voles, found in the Arctic tundra. a person who unthinkingly joins a mass movement, especially a headlong rush to destruction. Back in the late 60s or early 70s letting the air down out of 12 axles worth of tires to get that extra needed inch to get under a RR bridge on hwy 41 in GA. with a police escort. Traffic backed up and an old man and woman in a Cadillac from Florida on their way back north were rite behind lowboy, 4 men letting air out as fast as they can and he starts blowing and blowing the horn. Dad goes back and pops the hood on the caddi reaches in and unplugs the horn. The old woman rolls her window down and thanks him an tells him the old fool has no place to be and all the time in the world to get there. After we got under the bridge dad goes back and plugs the horn back up.
Wow! What a sight, Those old American's are a weakness of mine! What's the powerplant Boss!?
What model Lima?
Its a 75C
P&h 430 ready for crane service jobs
They won't let anyone travel like that here. Any oversize/overweight is a "irreducable" load. If it can come off, it has to come off. You'd have to be on your toes cornering in town with that boom hanging back there. Do you pull both outrigger boxes, or just the rear one? Can you leave counterweight on, or do you haul it separate also?
Outriggers don't come off and counterweight stays on. Have 50' of boom in it but can go 70'. Weighs 81k lbs all put together
These guys got a little carried away with a big old american. It put a pretty good scar in the tower when the boom came down. It looks like in the pictures that the house was pinned, outriggers up, with the blade on the hook. Why you would be doing it like that, is beyond me, I kind of like my outriggers down. Check out the homemade front counterweight.
I can see moving it around with the boom in it, they do that a lot in the wind farms, but I don't get doing it with a load on.
We drive ours around with boom in and outriggers up and with pile drivers hanging
Probably not with +200' of stick in? I'm betting that in driving, they tilted a little on the crooked road, the extra weight of the blade side loaded it, and the boom crumpled over to the side. 5 deg of side load can be up to a 50% reduction in capacity.
I'm thinking ….. "Why the hell are they building these subsidized wind farms that will never pay off ? " One more reason to steer clear of those jobs . Now if a feller want's to put up a wind mill on his own dime to pump some water to the livestock I'm cool with that .
That outfit is from my hometown (I believe they are now owned by a big corp.). I'm surprised the owner/customer let them rig all that extra counterweight. That's clearly working "off the charts." Lift plans and equipment certification are a big deal around here. Older cranes can't even get close to work at some jobs, like those at the local national lab.
Keep in mind they are at a wind farm ….. Money is tight and the wind mills aint producing anything close to what is invested in them . Safer & more cost effective work environment would be at a Nuclear , Coal , or Natural gas Power plant as they already know what it take's to power up a community .
I bet they might make a profit if you set um up in congress ….. have to make sure the governors were limited enough... Plenty of wind and plenty of lube.
The boom on the ground seems to have very little damage! How could it happen that it came down so gently? I do realize that it was, clearly, some sort of a fail, but I cannot imagine what actually transpired. Wire rope broke? Or the brake failed, while still somewhat functioning?
Am I looking at the same photos you are in post #226 above..? Because that boom is bent like the proverbial S-hook....
check out the side lacings their bowed out just a touch but I know what your saying that it not squished flat from the impact. but it was an older machine therefore it was built heavier . they built in a lot more safety factor back then
My 2 cents worth, is it possible the load was still rigged when they pulled forward. That or The boom was still loaded and a rope holding boom inclination broke and pushed truck forward as it slid down windmill stand.
Is it possible for this to happen if they crowned the ball? Hope the term "crowned the ball" makes sense.
Crane speak for that is "two blocking", basically running the block into the boom tip. Typically if that happens, you either pull the ball through the sheeve keeper pins, and it ends up laying 30' behind you on the ground with 100' of cable around it. Or it folds the jib or boom over backwards, which is easier to do if you have block hitting the boom tip, it won't pull through keepers like a ball will. In this situation where the boom falls away from the crane, there's a couple scenarios. 1- the weight of the boom with load on, driving away or toward the tower, tips the boom sideways, side loads the jib, and it crumples over, that "load" of jib and blade shock loads the side loaded main boom, busts its pendant lines or welds, and it all comes a falling down. The folded up jib on the end of main kind of leads me to this, as well as the busted off house lock pin tells me he was leaning to the side pretty good. 2 pulling ahead or back, front end got light, and the operator decided better to let the boom hit the ground than to stand the crane on its back bumper and he pulled the dogs and let her free fall. House lock could have broke from the bind the tower put on the boom to the side, when the boom hit the tower. 3 kind of similar to #2, may have not had the boom winch dogs in , and smoked the boom winch brake and then couldn't get it stopped. Boom hits tower, wedges it to the side and breaks off the house lock pin. #4 Pendant line cable or swedge break, or jib pendant, or boom winch line cable failure , or a pin not secured properly, welds popped loose from a broken chord and the extra side load was too much for it, or any one of another million things that made someone have a no good horrible very bad day. Just hope everyone got to go home.
Driving piles with an ape d-80 then drilling them out 70' deep
The delivery truck got stuck in the mud so I used the bantam to pick and carry them the rest of the way
I dont see a spotter on your crane. Are you just setting the leads down on the h pile frame to resist torque from the auger?Are you cleaning right to the bottom and socketing? Looks like a good job.
Yeah setting the leads down then chaining it to the guardrail on the bridge. The cans are about 80' in the ground so drilling about ten feet from the bottom the setting rebar cages and filling with concrete
So are you setting on the old deck and then demo after you have the new pilings in, or was the deck already off?
Yep We cut holes in the old deck and drove piles then demo after piles are in
Goodness, that last pics a bridge correct??? But it looks like enough crete an rbar to build a dam . There again down here a lot of the heavy loads are put over on old roads and off the IS because the newer bridges want take it and have been derated. Old boys looked at it an said if a little was good a lots better, just like that old heavy P&H its harder an heavier to move but its still kickin as long as the operator can be found to run it. Keep the pics comin. Also whats that wrote on the hillside
Clamshelling and skip box today
Like your chain on the holding line . Sure keeps things spooling right .
The bucket was prereaved so I got chain on the closing line as well. I was switching back and forth between clamshell, skip box and lifting the mini excavator and setting rebar cages so chain on both lines made it fast to switch things around. I use two lines on the skip box as well. One on the front and one on the back so I can dump it right into a truck without having to unhook anything
I do the same with my box ,2 lines and the tag on it. Mine has a lifting frame on it that folds down clearing the rigging for easy loading when you set it down .
The bridge was built in the 1920's and all the rebar is square. The hillside says adin. Adin California
With 100 years to cure, I bet that is some hard to break concrete. In iowa where I grew up, a lot of the old concrete was poured with the small round river rock, and that stuff is super hard to break up, compared with some of the quarried limestone. You would run into it in a lot of old farm barn lots and foundations, and old piers and creek crossings.
Actually the old stuff crumbles like nothing. Part of the bridge was widened and that concrete is super hard to break
Giving the 3 ton bantam a workout lifting 7500 lbs
Imagine what it would pick if it had outriggers. Is that a Lorain shovel front?
It's for my Lima 34. The first picture is the same machine in 1956
Interesting. A shovel front is one thing i have never run.Guys i worked for in the 70 s were still building logging road with them. I have a Lorain shovel front that i was given, but dont have the crane to go with it.
Heres what my Lima has been up to these days. Demolishing a rotton old timber wharf . Loading on the sectional barge for the ship demo. Back on land.
Ready to drive some h pile. 5 batter and 4 straight
Nice photos. I remember those days of pile driving. I think that is why my hearing is so bad today. No real hearing protection "back in the day".
The 40 ton out doing logs today , hard work for a small crane. 75Ton taking the ship apart cranes working at once,im getting far too busy.
Gotta love those batters, diesel hammer is great nothing like doing them with the drop hammer leads bucking all over till you get tuned in
Got the Lima converted to cable crowd
Getting the shovel front put on and my "off road" truck crane
My previous Employer when I started had a P&H Magnetorque 100Tonner. Used quite often Corn Queen gas engine got weak so slipped a 4BT into it for chassis power, had a 210 Cummins in the House. Dependable old horse.
Nice work on that crowd drum Ryan!
That wouldn't be a fancy hard ground steering brake settin up there on the side would it?
The 22B was back at work this week after a couple of years rest. We had a maintenance dredging job in a marina . A narrow barge was the only access without pulling piles and removing floats. Tides allowed us about a 5 hour window of time to load and unload. The target was to do 100 yd.s per shift which we met . Offloading was done by excavator into trucks for land disposal. You can see the narrow gap the barge had to pass thru to reach the unloading bulkhead.
The last picture is so beautiful!
New tech Old tech in that pic.
New crane at work
Looks nice and the price was right. Have you got more boom for it? I never liked those scissors type outriggers. They are hard to walk up on blocks, because they move in as they go up. Not a problem if you're in a level spot.
We got 140' of boom for it
Old Cummins in the House? Most were underpowered on the chassis.
Good find !! The positive on those out riggers is the screws ,keep them lubed up and make some quick handles out of 3/4" round bar and they work great. Sometimes better than the straight up n down on my Americans.
I wonder who will still be digging in 10 years ,the John Deere or the Bucyrus Erie? I think the 22B already has at least 55 years on the 180. Take that to the carbon neutral bunch.
Do you mean an Avery engine? Those are double ancient. Or do you mean another manufacturer?
No Had a VS478 gas International Harvester IE Cornqueen Just for motive power, for work had a Cummins NH 210 inline six
Yep Cummings up and down. Lower is turboed
Okay, because there was an old time tractor, impliment and truck company named Avery who had a line of equipment named Corn Queen. They went bust during the depression, but made some sort of come-back during WWII
I JUST COULDNT HELP MYSELF
Here is a little pier drilling and pile driving action from Texas, in 1978 or so.
OOPs, I think there are some duplicates in these photos, but I am not sure how to correct that. Anyway, yes, it does rain in Texas, and get muddy. Jeff
An under-reaming wing fell off the drill bucket at about 60' deep. The driller helper went down the shaft to recover it. Can you imagine that happening today with OSHA hanging around? Jeff
The good old days!!
1995 was called to jobsite, bring gas axe. Had a Texoma Rig found a buried rr track rail digging hole for 60' tall wooden pole hole, sent me down on a rope with a thirty foot torch hose set to cut the rail as the auger drove past it. Was about ten feet down IIRC. Cut rail and back out standing on auger. THAT would not even fly today.
The 35 ton P&h got a nice shiny paint job. Should have a little more capacity with all that extra paint
New toy. Bay city model 37 I picked up for the price of 2 4d batteries and a full tank of fresh fuel
Lots of very cool stuff on here lately. Thanks guys for sharing.
Got the jib put on the freshly painted 430 just because it’s never been on there since we’ve had it and getting the 790btc rigged up with 140’ of boom for load testing i boomed down with 20k lbs over the rear to 110’ radius and the boom brake started having a hard time holding but it wasn’t tipping with the 16k lbs front bumper weight on. The chart says i can lift around 10k without the bumper at 110’
Still amazes me how many antiques as these still work for a good living, solid, dependable and although a handful to operate efficiently are still simple machines
No No computer saying sensors don’t agree. It either works or something is broken
looks like a nice find Ryan. Pretty clean looking I like the jib on your P&H to
And if the trend is still going those old machines command higher prices on many of the auction sites. I can really understand that too! If you were out in the middle of some jungle trying to make a living with a small dozer and front end loader would you want to have to depend on some machine with a wiring diagram that would cover the side of a rail car or one that you could sketch out on a 3X5 index card? Now if you are talking about a major operation with a couple dozen or more 200 ton haul trucks and the assorted machines to load and move the earth for them the story that would be different story altogether!
20k at 110' is a heck of a pick. Those lattice really shine on things like that- no boom weight and yet really rigid.
Benefit's of a lattice boom nothin but a stiff leg.
My 40 ton back driving some piles with the Ice Vibro. Seems theres a surprise in every pile , that one was to do 4 quick H piles to support the sewer lines in a roadbed being excavated for a new culvert. Bony 12" pit run led to a days vaccum excavating and bring down the good old drop hammer to finish them. 2 day job=5days
Quite surprised at the level of structure on that. Here the use of 'Guard Pipe' or a heavy wall steel pipe surrounding the PVC under similar circumstances is the rule.
They were just getting ready to belt the pipe to the beam with ratchet belts ,one every 4 feet. Next step is to excavate the gully to the failed culvert,about 20 feet down leaving the pipes suspended overhead on the beams. The blue pipe has clamps and ties at every joint,the other pipe is HDPE about 5/8 wall continuous lenght ,pretty bullet proof.
Now I see, supporting the pipes while culvert changed, was confused, thought were being reinforced permanently!!
The bay city earning is keep. I sure is a pain not having independent boom hoist. But it makes you learn not to use it unless you really need to
Does your American have three drums? Not that you did it here but how could you hold the leads, hammer and loft a pile with two drums? Is that a hat welded to the cushion to keep the pile lined up?
Yes i do have 3 drums . The third is hydraulic ,i run a pump off the cam drive on the detroit to a pullmaster 12000lb winch. I set up the valve with air over hyd control so the cab controls are all stock ,no messy hoses and valves in the cab. I put the hat on the cushion to keep it on the pile and its good for loading or lining up on piles.
Our P&h 790 has a hydraulic third drum that we added
Are you running a Cummins in the 790? If so how did you drive the hyd pump ?
Belt drive off the crank
Thanks Ryan .
Heres my third drum
Update on the sewer suport
I work for our county highway department. We replaced a decent sized culvert (72" IIRC) under a 12" DI watermain. Not as deep as this picture but a challenge for sure. Mega lugs plus the cross beams under the main IIRC. I have photos someplace................
I had The Lima out doing residential work last week. A friend had an old scale platform he bought for a bridge .It weighted 38000 lbs,they delivered it to him ,looked at his bridge site a hundred yards in the bush on a soft narrow road thru a swamp and said no way . We rigged the Lima up and packed it in no prob.
Didn't even need mats. Those tracks are nice.
Old Slick Tracks had and have their place, just scary to load/unload.
I hate the slickness, but those are about twice as wide as what is on my brother-in-law's B-Es. His have to go on mats if you let your coffee cup run over.
There is still a place for old conventionals and flat pads. Didn't need rubber belts or old tires to keep from tearing up the roads. Plenty of floatation. No outriggers and need to carry all the associated blocking. Counterweight is already loaded. Fuel use is almost nothing for that job. It looks like you didn't even need to load another section into the boom. Nice work!
They dont give me much trouble on todays lowbeds . I always throw belting down on the bare steel spots. Coming off i toggle the friction in and leave it then stall the torque with the hoist drums so you just creep as you tip down,if the drive chains are too slack you get a little run . Biggest thing is to lock the sliding door open ,sucks to have a hand on the doorpost as it slams shut .
They flat pads are good, my 22B has ice lugs on it and just kills pavement or is really rough walking in the log yard.
Watch the funny faces you get when your showing some of these later generation operators about stalling a torque or using the throttle to lower aload or better yet backing a load down thru the draw works
I am sure his cranes haven't seen pavement in the 43 years since he married my sister.
Keeps him hid does she
He likes to go to town less than I do!
Lowering on the draw works worked well most times ,usually you would be boomed up tight because the load is heavy. You had to watch the American cranes with a sprag clutch on the boom hoist it will wind the boom up tight to the stops as the cutout is bypassed . I found out the hard way years ago. Took a while to understand why the boom just bent before our eyes. Maybe a computer would have warned me??
That would make your eyes water...
A couple of examples why, when a person comes to live on this beautiful island, there is a simultaneous step backwards in time............
WOW, Beautiful Antiques there!!
Are they looking for operators??
Unless it's a one-man, owner-operator shop, I guarantee they are. But they will probably pay you in fish....
Fish or beer ,it looks like a nice place.
What is that funky little clam digger, anyway?
No manufacturer name on the counterweight that’s sitting on the barge with it. Based on where we are I would imagine it’s something UK-built like a Priestman or a Ransomes & Rapier. If I get time I’ll see if I can get a bit closer to it and find a maker’s plate. EDIT: Didn’t have to. A quick Google search shows it to be a Priestman Cub. https://www.theconstructionindex.co.uk/the-digger-blog/view/priestman-cub-restored-to-former-glory https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laxey_Towing_Company
The Preistman looks like a nice little machine even has a tubular boom. It has an interesting looking turntable,i see no hook rollers .
Probably the forerunner of the latest generation of swing bearings used in hydraulic excavators..?
Pretty advanced for 1965.
Oh, you're at home, I heard island, but I was thinking central America, or the carribean.
Fooled ya......... !!
The 40 ton did some clamming ,digging out a fish habitat pond .Had to single lane the traffic so we had a work platform on one lane of the road. Some people were happy to sit there and watch the machine work,others were p##ssed right off being delayed for 15 mins. We ran 90'out almost flat at times with the 3/4 yd bucket . Beat any long reach excavator they could dream up.
The Lima got out to work to driving 2 H piles for a bridge on a tourist bike path.Went down 115' before the blow counter stopped us at financial refusal. Those bikes out there are heavy!
There was also an 18" water main running between the piles ,down about 12'and 3' over from one pile . Held us up for a week for a locate .
Now there is a scary thought, Cutting a water main with a pile!! What production date on the Lima? Original Power in it or updated?
The Lima is 1975 .Cummins power ,remaned 300 in 1984. And yes we are very good at finding pipes and things underground with pilings. Filled the basement of a Mcdonalds with sewerage after we drove thru the sewerline in the parking lot. I did ask if they were sure there was no pipes where the asphalt showed trench cuts ,super said no just drive the pile.
Grand old machines. Never understood the variances for Cab of house one side or other. Americans, Northwests most often to Right, most others to Left.
I know a guy who worked for a large construction outfit that had 2 rubber tire cranes that I think were Lima's. 70 and 90 ton if I remember. When the company went into receivership a large structural steel fab shop purchased the cranes.
Look at it this way.My compliment of equipment ranges from60 years old to the 1980s.It does the job well. All of it could work for the next 100 years with diligent maintenance.I can make a lot of the parts in my shop. Do you know of any iron today that will be working almost trouble free in 50 years? I think im greener than any of those tree hugging nuts by keeping this iron alive.
Yeah, and people look down on our older iron, until there is a bad connection between their computer and one of it's sensors
Got the bay city all painted up and ready to move some dirt
Looks good,put her to work now.
Looks pretty sweet. I could really use an old crane with a clamshell or dragline set up to dredge my pound out with. I've got about a 12 acre pond I would like to clean up and make a bit deeper. Plus, I'd just like to own my own crane someday.
The red battery charger looking thing is an air pump for the sprayer?
Tried my hand at a American Dragline seems a hunnerd years ago, I was Useless!!(was also only 23) Old bugger that owned it told me to stick with wrenching where he could cast almost like a Bass Pro!! Is a art to it where I imagine I could learn given a decade or more. Have long been able to birds-nest a open reel and no desire to re-spool a friction drum!!
I dunno about a barge, I don't even own a heavy truck to move any type of crane, yet. What is a realistic distance that could be dredged with a dragline or clamshell from the shoreline? My pond is more long and narrow, but probably still too far across to reach the midpoint at the widest part. I've got a lot more learning to do.
Have seen draglines cast almost house to mast end distance doubled by a pro at it otherwise stuck at end of raised mast distance to swing and drop.
Clamming with a small crane with 50' of boom will get you around 35' or 40' of radius with a small bucket .you can cast a bit with the clam when you get practiced if your digging a really soft bottom. If its a bit hard the bucket just flops on its side and wont fill properly . I have not swung a drag bucket too much but id guess you might add 10' or 15' to your radius. Just be sure your pond edges are good enough to work on. We just finished a pond for fish habitat with the 40 ton . We ran 90' of boom down to about 25 deg. I didnt trudge thru the muck to measure but i think we Made it out around 80' with the clambucket. Id bet theres an old Bucyrus lurking around your neighborhood.
I've run the shovel in my avatar as a dragline for awhile dipping out a coal wash plant fines pond. I can say from experience that the guy in that video has more than a few years of experience. The boom is about the angle I like, not so low as to make the machine tippy but low enough to get a good reach and coverage. He doesn't drop the jewelry on top of the bucket when it lands. He only pulls the bucket until full and doesn't try to use it as a bulldozer. The full bucket only comes up far enough to be able to dump efficiently into the truck. The dumped bucket has started the return just as the last of the material falls out. I'll bet at the end of the day he is just exhausted unless he has power controls.
I saw an R-model with a 26' dump trailer parked on a boat ramp start rolling. The dragline op threw his bucket over the tractor into the bed out past his boom tip and held the truck without dropping his cigarette.
I am a guessin Colson could get the hang of that purty quick!!
I'm sure if I had @John C. Or @Tugger2 time in the seat I could be decent. There's a guy about 3 miles south of here that has 2 old cranes with draglines sitting on either side of his pond. In the last 15 years, I've only ever seen one of them run for maybe a day mucking out the bottom. I know of one other crane, not sure make or model, sitting off in the woods near an old pond a couple miles to my east as well. Last time I saw it, it had a tree growing through it, but the engine still busted off and ran.
Never hurts to ask if can rent!!
I can say that at the end of day running my machines with air controls im beat,especially doing logs with the grapple. When i first started doing jobs with the 22B i thought the hand frictions would be brutal, but i feel better after a shift on that. The Bucyrus s are so well engineered.The unused retract drum spins on its own for a bit after you shut everything down,a testament to nice bearing fits. How far is it practical to cast the dragline bucket?
We could coach you thru it ,its not that hard if you are keen and develop some understanding of the mechanics of the machine. Id do a road trip to help you just for a holiday if it werent for this covid thing.
My brother in law can cast his bucket out from under the boom tip about 40' with a 45' boom. I on the other hand, do well not to just snarl it all up about halfway out.
If you want that video carefully and note where the bucket lands each time, it appears the operator is getting the bucket past the tip of the boom about twenty percent of the whole length of the boom. The cool thing to me is that move in the middle of the throw where the bucket is dropping and the machine swing stops for just a moment. Then the operator pulls back just a touch on the drag and lets go just as he eases into the swing. An operator with good feel will pick that up after a day or so and be able to get it to happen perfect maybe twenty five percent of the time to start with. The operator didn't miss a beat through out the video. The Koehring in my avatar was all manual and a little over twenty years old when I ran with the drag. I would have pain in the middle of my shoulders up into my neck. My thighs felt a deep burn for a few hours after I got off the machine. My dad spent ten years on that machine with a clam shell usually running ten hours a day. I never understood just how tired he was when he came home at night, until I got my turn on the machine.
Theres a knack for moving the bucket by playing with the swing. I do that with the clam ,sometimes to bring it in close to catch an edge. It saves booming up and the bucket gets a little wild when your boomed up high to. Ive only had the drag bucket on once we do a lot with the clam ,its slower but less disturbance i think. Men were men when these machines did it all.
I can remember watching some of the "old timers" running a dragline...poetry in motion. Was dumbfounded the first time I watched a friend load a dumptruck with his little Bay City. Ed
I can still remember the first couple days I started out clamming brush off a ditch bank. Which wasn't bad because you got a break by moving the Linkbelt 78 Pipeliner. The first day of running the drag line bucket was a whole different thing. My legs were killing me, by afternoon, I was standing outside stretching and rubbing them when the boss's son drove up. He was laughing said he could remember his first couple days. He then taught me bunch of thing to make it easier. He could run it without using the brake pedals hardly at all. Then crossed his feet and operated the machine. He grew up running one, and was like his dad could make it look so easy!
Heres something different. A few years ago there were guys buying up a lot of our old conventionals and shipping them to Vietnam so we heard . I couldnt resist watching this because of the American in it. If you follow this theres a complete circus over there of these sand and gravel barges navigating the rivers . Crash to pass . Looks like they wanted tons,but got loaded with tonnes instead,ive seen it happen here.
Might have had a bit of help with LEAKS too!!
Nearly all the old US stuff that can be utilized goes Offshore, either Asia or South American markets, some end up on Island paradise lands where can slowly salt water rot to a brown stain. Not much stays in US that is functional or reasonably recent construction but also get bought for pennies or scrap value.
I don't know if there is much old stuff going over seas anymore. In the 2007 time frame there were pickers traveling the US looking for anything and everything. I haven't seen the phenomena for years. Most old stuff that I come in contact with just sits where it stopped running and nature hides it from people's view. A lot of stuff was found by the scrap man back in 2007 and early 2008. There is still plenty of twenty to forty years old stuff running today.
What came around will circle back as time moves by, the foreign purchasers will need to replenish the Simpler limited or non electronic stuff that is now coming to 20-40 years on duty.
Coming from somewhat of a hacker/electronics background I would also expect foreign buyers will figure out easier and easier delete schemes since there is no EPA to breathe down their neck and no warranty. Take a modern Tier 4 that some poor sap in the US has to sell for pennies on the dollar because he can't keep it running or stay in business to Vietnam, blank off the EGR, fix the VGT to some position that just works, remove the junk from the muffler and get some whiz kid to reprogram or replace the ECM with something that takes in cam position and fires the injectors when it's time and ignores all the punishment sensors.
Yes. Hvlp
Pond dredging with a dragline. I even managed to get a log stuck in the bucket. Rigging up a saurman next to reach everything I couldn’t reach.
This was early on in the job. I got much better at casting. I could land the bucket clear on the other shore
Being next to the house would be a little nerve racking.
Doing so slack line with a saurman bucket
Looks interesting.We did the exact same thing years ago with an 044 Madill grapple yarder ,brand new hadnt pulled a log yet. The bucket was rigged with a bridle off the top to a block which ran on the haul back. A scab block as its called in the bush. Once we got the bridle holes in the right place it keep the bucket from rolling around on the way out it worked well i think we were pulling around 400' ,dredging sand to make a booming ground. We also had a mobile tailhold,a TL15 Washington set on what became the outer breakwater. Looks like you can only rig tailholds on your site . Great job your doing .
Yeah I only have a few trees to rig to. It’s a 130’ span im digging. I cant quite cast that far with a 40’ boom
The Lima started a new job . Dredging on a lake .
We got moved on station today inside the silt curtain. Shore side anchor set up. Waiting for survey on the off shore anchor.
Why do you still got a block reeved?
Going to be handling a Suction head instead of bucket work? Moves more materials quicker. The Silt Screen kind of infers that method.
Oh okay makes sense. I saw a clamshell on deck so I figured you’d use it
No we are clamming. I have one more anchor group set off the stern of the barge so im keeping the block reeved in case of any problems with that anchor. Its reeved 3 part so its quick to drop for clamming .
This is the offshore anchor group. we take it out on a gear float under direction of a surveyor .Between the shore anchor and that one we will have a good acurate offset line parallel to our pipe trench . Just have to take the comalong of and zip disc that cross chain off to trip it
Trenching in a pipe or cabling? BIIGG Lake.
Its for a 60" water intake.
BIG Pipe!!
And now we are digging
Great thread and pics, I will need to go through this My first crane gig was in 1980, pilebucking and oiling for a 1960 Lorain 50 ton truck with those banana outriggers. It had an 830 cubic inch gas 6 cylinder for the lower, and weighed 80,000 with the counterweight off. He would put the counterweight in a dump truck up against the tower for a cheap transport. This is the closest picture to it I could find.
I posted a picture of a Bucyrus Erie 30B getting picked by a 140 ton derrick over in my "working on the water and land" thread. I think i got the wrong thread, LOL!
The 30B fits in pretty well on this thread , So does the derrick for that matter . Those things are nice rigs.
Here is another sectional rig we saw from the Box canyon trestle over the dam on the Pend Oreille river. They were building a fish ladder, and looks like a sheet pile caisson there for a footing. Not a work pic, a vacation pic.
How many winches do you have set up to run your anchor lines? Just in and out on the offshore and inshore anchors, or do you have anything else out to the side?
I have a 2 drum Hayes Lawrence winch running an anchor onshore and one off shore,there are set up to be off set from the trench line so theoretically we are kept on center when sucked down tight. The spud winch is a 3 drum Skagit . The 3rd line was going to be a side anchor ,but we are running in a full depth silt curtain with anchors and furling lines all over the place ,so that canceled the side anchors. I have a good laser set up on the beach so we can shoot the center line of the trench before we spud down. I set a couple of marks on the deck for the sides of the trench. Biggest problem is the silt curtain as we are in 45 ft of water ,one side is always drifting down on us .
Yikes, that sounds a little harrowing with the silt curtain. I bet one of those big purse seine tenders would be handy there. Edit: I see a pretty stout workboat in one of those pics above.
Yes the work boat we have on this job is an old seine tender .Its ok but ill take a real dozer boat any day. luckily the silt curtain is tended by the dive crew. We have enough to do.
That's a good deal, I could see you wasting all sorts of production time messing with that curtain.
Its becoming along job sidecasting this muck out of the trench with the 75 ton , but the price is right . The 40 ton is here now loading 3" minus rock on small material scows 65 or 70 tons at a time to ship out to the Lima on the barge. Got a little heavy on that last load.
Nice! glad it is going well for you.
Doing some dock work with a link belt 108.
What's the price tag on the water intake project? Looks expensive.
Im not sure on the price of the intake,theres also a water treatment plant but the project sign lists it as 126 million. Its the biggest kind of work done now in this country ,they have killed all other forms of real industry.
If they haven't their going to , allso "DO YOU HAVE ANY DREAMS WE WANT THOSE TO" .
All i dream of now is freedom 85.23 yrs to go haha. I know my old cranes will make it until they legislate us out of existance.
Setting trusses with the 35 ton P&h
That is a slick rig, you don't see 35 tons with jibs much. I want to ask about the chart, LOL.
The P&H looks like it's on it's first job. What year is it?
There was a big processor ship fire at Trident Seafoods last night in Tacoma. I worked on that dock in 2019, replacing piling, caps, stringers, and deck. Note that we had to suspend the conduit and piping runs so we could replace sections of cap under it. We used one of Trident's operators and this ancient whirly to do this deck repair. If he used the boom at all, he got out of the seat and went back to insure the dog was in. Needless to say we used a lot of travel.
I saw a Ness conventional house and boom butt going down the road today, but no idea of model or if it was a crawler or a truck crane. What was cool was it was all compacted to go on a 48" high truck deck. I had never seen a big house that was not on a lowboy. It looked to be about 10' wide or so.
Setting some roof beams for a new airport firestation
can't like that enough
Why would they build a fire station out of wood? Not that those aren't gorgeous wood beams, but I like the idea of a steel or masonry fire station.
the posts and stem walls are steel and concrete. I like it.
Got to have the Designer view, pretty to look at even as functional, Arketeks!! got to love them.
They used to say that a wood king beam in a house would take more heat than a steel beam. The steel will bend under the heat and fail, before a wood beam burns through.
Heavy timber has its own type of fire rating. Heavy timber is a minimum of 8" x 8". The outside wood chars and protects the interior of the beam. In the old construction where cast iron was used for connections, in a fire the cast iron will fail before the timber. None of the wood used for the roof looks to be large enough to be classed as heavy timber.
Ahhh **** on the beams and the wood look at that sexy yellow and black girl all decked out with her jib and her skirt blowin in the wind . She's lookin fine Ryan
Those beams might survive a fire, but the TGI purlins they're hanging between them go up like a popcorn fart. I've seen them burn and they went hot and fast in a fire. Nice crane work Ryan, I love seeing the old girl out working.
I recall in my mis-spent youth demolishing a building that had been the workshops for a coal mine in the town I grew up in. Somewhere about 300’ long x 60’ wide. All the equipment in the shop was powered by a single shaft running along the roof trusses. IIRC the trusses were 18”x12” pitch pine with cast-iron caps in the corners and on the hip of the roof that were all held together with wrought-iron rods. The building dated from the late 1870’s when the colliery was first opened. It’s centre left on the sepia-toned photo in the link below. https://www.oldminer.co.uk/southgate.html
Nige, had to be some very hard working men back then to dig down over a 1000', in tough conditions!
You're not wrong. I investigated my family tree a few years ago and back somewhere in the 1880's a relative of mine had been wed & widowed twice by the age of 30. Both her late husbands were listed as miners at the time of the wedding. She was left to bring up four children as a single mother.
Looking more closely it was actually my great-grandmother on my mother's side. Coal mining ran in that side of the family right down to my mother's brother and his son. Both did over 40 years underground and survived to tell the tale.
I had to find these photos. The lowboy & shovel parked right in front of said building. Probably late 1950s or early 1960s. Apologies for hijacking Ryan's thread...........
Its ok it was worth it for the picture of that shovel. Nice to see them when they were a respected piece of iron.
Steam power was a great leap forward as a power source. We need to start a movement to outlaw Diesel/Electric locomotives. Only Steam allowed. 4-6-6-4 or larger allowed
We had three of them as I recall, and had face shovel and crane equipment for all of them. Here's the same machine building prefabricated housing just after WWII, probably early 50's. This was housing built to replace what the Luftwaffe flattened during the war. One of my cousin's lived in a similar housing development, known locally as "Concrete Canyon".
This is where the shovel in post #428 was heading. In fact that's probably it in the centre of the photo.
A busy month with the Lima
Looks like the weather is cooperating
Cannot remember seeing Vacuum Breakers on Spuds before, someone got ingenious. Site demo or moving it?
Weather was great ,once we started. Moved the crane in on the weekend. Went back early Mon am to rig up,it was snowing slush.Nothing like crawling around the machine jacking the tracks out with slush running down the back of your neck.The sun came out around mid day and stayed until Sunday am when i had to jack the tracks back in ,guess what more slush /snow. Job went well, Lima is back in the yard for a breather and a few repairs . As to the vaccum breakers ,we arent that ingeneous, just what came with the former fuel barge we had rented. It was another site demo , more industrial infrastructure taken from our fading forest industry. The log booms in the background are destined for export and now i hear theres plywood sold here thats stamped made in china. Ill cut my 2X4 s with a friggin broad axe before i buy one from overseas
Doing a job with the bantam
Nice work! Like those chain headache balls to. Very practical.
Is that a REO with a gas or multifuel ?
The Lima is back at it.
Reo oa-331 gas
Latest addition to the fleet Been sitting 20+ years
90 ton P&h with a vibro hammer
cool kit you have there Ryan Nice little bridge gig, Tugger.
Probably missed it but what is the shovel and dozer in the last pic. post 448? That has to be one old Esco bucket on the shovel.
Thats Ryans Toys in his big boy sandbox
Dont you wish you had one
i was thinking how handy that shovel would be for notching out a bank like that, and how we excavator guys just paw it down and chase it around till we get it cleaned up, or dig a hole (AKA future soft spot!) and blend it back in.
Thats where a shovel shines when its loading from the face
tight little road cut where you spin almost 180 to load the truck
1956 Manitowoc 2000 https://www.facebook.com/marketplac...wse_serp:99bde771-29a7-4461-ab90-f4f5817939b8
What is the little dozer?
Windolph model f
Kind of neat. What year is it?
Another project with the Lima.Around 54000 lb.s on the tank end and 22000 on the hinge end.
Powerful big boat lift!! What purpose for that mechanism?
Its a set of dump skids. The stacker dumps bundled logs into the water on it. They skids are hinged on on one end with the float tank on the other end to keep angle not too steep. This keeps bundles from launching too fast and breaking.
Good basis idea
All deloused, inspected and rehung for another round!!
90% loggerproof now.
Had the 40 ton and a friends Hayes hard at it this week.
It was kind of nice to spend a week on the golf course.Met the buck in our spoil pit,i think he was going to take on the loader.
Packing up.
Ryan since I see your still runnin P&H Im in need of a magnetorque alternator for a 670WLC got any ideas . 670 quit swinging yesterday , found the alternator not putting out and after taking it over to my starter shop they say its got a short in the windings .
im not sure where we get them but I know we have two brand new spares. I think they came from biggie crane. Also have voltage regulators
Could be a Popped Diode
Its been a busy winter For the Lima and the 40 ton doing some ship breaking. We did a 116 year old wood tug and a goverment research vessel is nearing completion.
The interesting part ,dismantling the main engine. Almost 90,000 lbs total weight. Crankshaft was over 16000 lbs.
A few random shots .
very cool! anything near the water is all good.
Was the bow filled with concrete?
Wow, interesting stuff, feel free to post more pics! That was a beautiful tug, what was the name?
She was the Sealion built in 1905 in Vancouver BC. Originally steam and converted to an 8 cylinder Enterprise diesel in the 50 s. She worked towing until 1969 after that became a charter yacht until about 5 years ago when she became derelict. Her keel was one piece fir 18 X 36 X 120' It was a bit tough breaking up such a classy old girl but we saved and directed many artifacts into appreciating hands.
This ship was packing over 250 tons of concrete in the bilges and bow and a lump on the port side midships. Some was ballast and some became part of structural repairs on an old ship.
The main engine on the Ricker was an Akasaka diesel. Heres the flywheel which weighs over 5000 lb.s . It might become a patio table at home.
I'd put legs on that and use it as a welding table forever.
Its a testament to the guys that built and maintained that boat from 1905 on. The keel sounds impressive also. A ship with a tried and true foundation, built by men that knew boats and engines, really exposes the flaws of some of the computer designed gee whiz ships of today. The US navy is pushing to decommision at minimum 8 of the lcs ships, the oldest of which set sail in 2008, because among other things, it has a gun they can't afford to shoot, and a engine/ transmission combining gear that conks out whenever the captains says "full speed". It would be funny if it wasn't so sad, or expensive. Glad to see you've been busy.
The best thing about dismantling the Sealion was seeing the care that was put into her maintenance. Every bolt we had to undo had been never seized,no matter where we dug into her. A true testement to men who cared for the boat.And did spend more time undoing things than just ripping and tearing when we could. We came across 1" X 48" silicon bronze bolts holding the engine bed down. As ugly as the work was ,it was an adventure taking her apart.
What kind of ghosts did you unleash cutting up that old ship?
You forgot the galvanic corrosion between the aluminum hull and the steel prop module.
We found no ghosts we were aware of ,but had some interesting visits from a few oldtimers that crewed on the Sealion. The oddest thing we found in the steel boat was all kinds of steel balls rolling around inside the boxed steel keel.
Slowly whittling her down. Complete engine weighed almost 90000 lbs.2500 HP .350 rpm i believe.
Engine room almost gone. Just a couple of hundred tons of concrete poured in the midship bilges to contend with.
you know how to have fun
Little bit of crane service with the 35 ton and lifting a caboose with my ls58
Building a brake band for a 90 ton P&h power down
Flying parts for the millwrights
near an airport?
Right across the river from the airport
which one? I have flown into a few in Oregon. I am usually too busy to notice a mill on short final. Sometimes it is nice to be the passenger.
North bend coos bay area. Roseburg forest products
cool. My former company was down there dredging for the Corps of Engineers last season, I think they will be back there this season.
American construction with the patriot was there last year. They are in gold beach dredging now the will be back in coos bay
That is them. I never worked the production dredging on the Patriot. They did years of it in Grays harbor Wa. I worked construction in the sound and did a stint of dredging in the Duwamish River in Seattle, with a much sportier Mukilteo.
The crane rescue society saves another one from the torch. I was given this 15B so we did a little recovery mission today and got it back to the shop. A
Like the dual vice grips holding the batt cables on! Ya do what ya have to in times like that!
A diamond in the rough
The 430 had an incident in travel so took the 670 to do some crane service today on a crusher
Damage doesn't look good. Everyone Ok? And what happened?
Is that from a big road pitch change?
It was from going around a really tight corner with the boom in the dolly and hit a tree. The driver was watching the dolly and didn’t realize how far out the side it was sticking and hit a tree
Got the 35 ton fixed and back in service
It pays to have a good shop full of equipment and the required fabrication skills. Being a welder by trade has saved me many thousands of dollars over having to hire it out. I'm sure other trades experience pays off too when you have equipment.
you do good work, Ryan.
Yes im a crane operator but am also the machinist and have structural welding certs
Nice job duplicating the pieces. Not knowing everything going on with them, they seem overly complicated for the what they're doing in the installed photo.
Agree wonder why they could not just be made from rectangular tubing with eyes at the ends? But like Toolslinger says "Not knowing" everything is the key!
I would guess the thicker flat bars instead of tubing would have more tensile(pull apart) strength. They would also be narrower than tubing for that application. Thicker walled tube wouldn't come in a narrow size like that either.
They’re telescopic. Down for travel and up for lifting
Here’s with it up
Ok now I see!
Setting trusses and a couple wood beams with the 35 ton p&h
Latest adventure with the 40 ton.Back yard sheet pile .Can only get in with the rented 5 ton. and barely the 40 ton
Logging road bridge with the Lima.
What is the construction using sheet pile for?
The orange painted signs are the clue. I think those sheets are permanent slope control.
Thanks
Its all fine dry sand in this neighborhood. Owners are building a delux garage structure into the bank. Looked like a fun job on the getgo but my little vibro dosent like the sand,so tomorows mission is to rig a drop hammer . Typical pile driving ,get a bigger hammer. Lining up a bigger vibro but all my local contacts are busy so it looks like it off to ICE in Yelm for a bigger one.Fun n games in piledriving some days i wonder why i do it.
Yelm WA?
Yes . Actually dont go down there just deal with the salesman at ICE and send a truck these days.
well heck I can't buy you a coffee then. It is not far.
Hey id love a trip down there right now,but as usual work gets in the way. Wife and i have always enjoyed our travels around there. One i hope i can take you up on the coffee,same offer stands up here.
Wife and I will meet you in Victoria-ish? Our new digs are going to be ~25 minutes from the Port Angeles Ferry.
Few pictures of the 70 ton and 90 ton
that's a mighty compact float you are sitting on!
Wow I want one of these
That's a whole lot of sweet stuff. Thanks man! The P&H truck reminds me so much of the Lorrain I worked around.
Getting all fancy with that two seater. Lookin good Ryan
What model and how old is the bare crawler in the 1st pic.?
Guessing it's a BE 22B. How big of a job was it to revive?
Cat D318 powered,Says something about those old engines. Like to see today’s engines last 30-50 years or more, one thing I won’t be around by then lol
It was three partial Saturdays to get it lowboy ready. About 4 hours with two guys with chainsaws to cut it out of the trees. Converted it to direct electric start and fired it up with no ether
1959 BE 22b
This one sat 20 years uncovered
We have 4 p&h truck cranes at work that get used regularly. Currently have a 90 ton and 35 ton on a boat marina job and a 2017 kobelco crawler on a barge
Backfilling with a clamshell. 130’ radius with a 2 yard bucket is about all the 790 wants
It does look like a workout for the P&H .Whats the purpose of the backfill? Remediation or a clean bottom for pile driving?
Ryan with it uncovered were the frictions and brakes swelled?
Boat ramp. After grading subgrade a steel rail system was placed in there the backfilled the rails the set precast concrete panels
Yeah everything had to be backed off and after running it 20 hours every still has terrible grip. I bought 50’ of new lining and eventually will reline the whole machine. I already relined the boom brake, clutch and booster
Hope it didnt rust the bands to bad Under the lining
What would this be classified as? *
pretty impressive is what it is. That's got some heft to it. My first crane experience was working around a Lorain.
That is a very unique machine. I saw on Iron Planet a BE 2570 dragline with a 380' boom. The buy it now price is $6,000,000. They listed a couple companies that were approved for dismantling it. It had 56,666 hours. I'd guess that's not considered a whole lot for a dragline. Looking at all the pics. gives a better idea how complex of a machine it is. It was a little comical that the lunch room was a bit of a mess.
A wagon mount. There was a couple of big Manitowocs out here mounted on wagons. They ended up as barge cranes.I remember watching one of them sell cheap at Ritchie Bros in the old Surrey sales yard.Handy rigs until you need to move few feet and the tractor is off on another job.
Put the Lima on a little job this week removing some dump skids for the loggers. The skids weighed around 113000 Lbs. Teamed up with a nice old 4100 on a barge to get this thing on the beach. Then used my Kenworth and lowbed on one end and the Lima carrying the other end to move it across the sort to a laydown area.
Sry i cant get the right order on the pics. The tank end was heavy,over 80000 Lbs. It had been filled partially with P gravel and concrete.Made the Lima work to carry that. Kenworth got the light end.
Wow, that’s a lot to pick and carry. How far did you have to go?
When teaming with a truck like that, do you leave it in neutral and let the weight of the load push it as the crane walks if you don't have low enough gears?
We had to go a little less than 500'. I carried it over the side to keep all lower rollers bearing the load. There was a bit of stop and go as the KW has longer legs than the Lima.The site is sloped for central drainage ,so that added to the fun. The lima has a very heavy duty angle chord boom so it can stand a bit of out of plumb lifting, something i wouldnt consider with a light tubular boom.All said n done it was an interested little project .
I'm thrilled to see you back working. Not a very big barge for a 4100, it must be deep.
Yes that barge is a bit narrow. It lists a bit when they are boomed up high and swinging. They have good deck winches on all corners .We had winch wires running up to my lowbed on one side and running to the log loader on the other side to pull against. They kept the dozer boat pulling hard against the winches which gave a good controlled movement into shore ,keeping the load lined up under the boom tip on both cranes.
Were i worked they had cut a truck crane front end off and put a neck on it. We only used it around there. It worked ok but the truck hooked to it was needing work that never got done. I think it was a 50 ton P&H.
Great thread, @Tugger2 ! Who doesnt like old conventionals? Here's one of the few pics I took of a rig move in 1980, Central California. A Peter Bawden Drilling triple. Using the new 100 ton Link Belt and the older 60 ton, not sure of the make, it did have air controls and and I think it had a Pierce carrier.
I remember Peter Bawden Drilling in Nisku back in the 80's. Not sure what happened to them. Several other drilling companies had their locations at the old Peter Bawden site.
Old Cranes ,old trucks and old guys ( a few good young guys to) just getting work done.
My old 22B cleaning slit traps and a culvert on an irrigation pond.Clammed out the creek bed and dragged about 2' of mud from the box culvert. Built a scraper bucket and rigged a block upstream for the dragline . Used the holding line as a haulback running to a tailhold on the down stream end of the culvert.Sry about the disorganized pics
Nice 22B. Do you know what year it is? A guy I met when I went to look at some vintage machines bought a running 22B for $2500. He wants me to do some welding repairs on the Hendriks dragline bucket. It appears to have done a lot of work.
Thankyou .Its 1957. Managed to keep the long reach excavators away from this job,they didnt have a bucket that would fit down into those silt boxes.
The p&h cranes have been busy the last couple months building tide gates, bridges and cofferdams. The 670 broke all the welds on the swing gear that’s welded to the carbody so had to split it to reweld the ring gear.
Great pictures, thanks for posting!
Good Looking jobs !I see you found some wood sheetpile . Im glad to see you guys are keeping those conventionals busy.Sad story for conventionals here in BC these days. I dismantled a decent 3900 that a contractor i work with bought for a job at scrap price from a big outfit.The big outfit has a 4600 and a Lorain 165 on the chopping block to. The triple 9 Manitowoc loading us out quit numerous times on us with electronic glitches. The 3900 would have never missed a beat if it had been loading out the triple 9.Gotta love the electronic brain. Keep up the good work !
The union school had a pair of 222's with brains. The one they had a long time and it was good and you tested with it. The other came out of somewhere down south and we suspected it went under water or something. The first time it glitched on me, I was booming and swinging, and it started tracking all by itself! I think boom down triggered it and I have no idea how. The only cure was reboot it. The other great glitch was you'd be working it, and then it would start milking in some swing and then it would just go around slowly. Pull up the ball, step out on the walk and enjoy the ride The crane instructor kept working on it and it got better but I don't know if it was ever totally right.
Gents, I am a newbie, but I am just curious if any of you chaps might be familiar with the P&H model 1015 (110 t) crawler crane? Seventy one years ago as a 6 year old I fell in love with lattice boome crawler cranes as I watched a BE 22B dragline dig canals near my home. Since then, I have collected lots of info on the 1015 and designed and fabricated a 1/12th scale RC model that you cam see on my YT channel at: Cranemodel1015 Welcome to my Crane Model Build YT Channel with videos on my 1/12th Scale RC Model of a 1960s vintage P&H Model 1015 Lattice Boom Crawler Mounted Crane. Plea... www.youtube.com Let me know what you think of my creation. BEST, Tom
Looks great to me build well done.
Thanks Hank, for your positive comment. Had you any experience with this specific P&H model 1015, or do you know anyone who did? I would love to learn of their comments on the model. In anycase, have happy and safe holidays
Tom, could you build another one in 1/87th scale and bring it up here to Penn Valley? I need one in my trainroom!
Pops52, I wish I had enough "steam left in my boiler", but I am winding down at this point in time. I actually started designing/building the lower crawler assembly back in 1971 when I was working as a machine design engineer for a large food manufacturer. Then I started having kids and was transferred to a plant in Modesto, so I crated it up and only uncrated it after retiring in 2013, when I got back into researching, designing and fabricating the remainder of the machine. I do however have a full set of digital plans available at: http://lmscnc.com/6342 should you want to divide each dimension by 7.25 to get from 1/12th to 1/87th scale LOL! Anyway, I do live in Rocklin, just an hour or so west of you, so let me know if you ever are in the area and would like to see tge model. BEST, Tom
"Old Cranes, Draglines, & Shovels", is a Facebook group you might want to join. Lots of experience and knowledge there.
Mowing man, Thanks for the heads up! Have a safe and great holiday BEST, Tom
Tom, in your life long love of cranes, have you had the opportunity to run any? If I had had a second choice, it would have been in a crane.. Its a real joy to run one until you get into a "spot" and then the stress level goes up a bit........ from what I hear. Many of the real operators here could tell some hair raising stories I bet. Dave
Dave, As you well know, there are no "worry free rides" out in the working world, but some are worse then others. I spent the last 30 years of my career in manufacturing managing manufacturing plants and I know stress real well! I spent 7 of those years managing a tomato past processing plant in Stockton, CA. and we had Tiechart Construction replace our asphalt tomato truck staging area with concrete, and, back then, Tiechard used to have an "equipment rodeo" for customers. That is when I had opportunity to operate a large John Deere excavator, and that was really an extra ordinary experience, however these new hydraulic machines do not have the same reliability and dependability challenges that the older friction machines had, so my hat is off to the folks who had to operate them back in the day. Tom
I didn't do this job, it's from the Company website. This one is P&H 215 2 lines Detroit Diesel 353, 50' boom, 30' jib on a Crane Carrier Corp truck 23 ton, gas later a Cummins 8.3. I worked for two companies that did poured concrete walls in the Detroit area. I operated for 27 years before I had to quit, because of illness. IUOE Local 324. I am 79 years old and started operating in 1970. All were conventional friction cranes with two lines. We needed two lines, because we lay the stick flat to reach the back and then to set the form next to the crane we would bring it in with the drag. Plus the dragline gave us control when swinging, especially in the wind. It was all production and we swung very fast. See the job in the picture, I could load and set that in less than 7 hours. My first one was a FWD carrier 12 ton, P&H 215 total stick 55'. Most were FWD carrier 15 ton & 18 ton, P&H 215 2 lines with 65' total stick.
1st job of 2026. Drove some 16" pipe to shore up a bulkhead for barge loading. In spite of riprap and rubble 9 out of 10 were straight.I have nt run the drop hammer for a while,it was kind of fun.
I'm very glad to see activity on this thread again. I really enjoyed reading though it, but when it kind of went died I was afraid that maybe you guys weren't around anymore. It is neat to see your old cranes at work, glad you can keep them running. I look forward to more post.
Thanks. Still hangin in there. The old cranes are getting to be a hard sell in todays world but they still do a good job. This is a 5530 75 ton i bought as a wreck. Its been a spare time project for too many years. I finally spent some time on it ( about 6months ) and got it fixed up. Went out on its first job in Nov 2025 and the customer bought it.It was a nice crane to run with the hydraulic swing.
Glad to see you out working.
Thanks . Its good to get out there,little jobs like this are just right for a break from shop work.
Can you reposition the crane with the drop hammer attached? If not would you move the crane and pull the drop hammer over?
I can move around pretty much anywhere theres no overhead hazards set up like this. Heres some pics of a test pile job we did a few years ago in an isolated village up the coast. We had no room for trucks on the barge or room to use trucks around the village . Too many trees , wires and narrow roads to leave the leads rigged. Rolling the leads with my loader and dragging the gear box worked pretty well. We drove 5 test piles in various locations around the village as part of a proposal to put all the buildings on raised foundations to protect from flooding.
Got word yesterday the old 50T P&H used to be at the plant was sent to a Training yard for Equipment Training through IUOE close to fifteen years ago, was scrapped last year, lack of parts to maintain.
Its a shame to see them go ,but its the way of the world today. That P&H probably had the Magnatorque swing,i can see those parts being a challenge to find. Seems Americans are still well supported.Last year i rebuilt the boom hoist on the Lima and parts were easy to get for it.
Was a MAGNA Torque, was also a NH 743 Cummins in the Crane house, scored a piston, to repair was a Engine Swap and misc changes to support that, Too Costly.
I can see that. Labor is a big part of keeping these machines alive. I put a lot of time into my machines for less than minimum wage to keep them going. Trying to sell these old machines now and recover repair or rebuild costs is a dead loss in my neck of the woods.I just try and work them long enough to make things workout
Nice a drop hammer gig. That water work I did, they had no drop hammer work. Last time I was around it was driving wood on Lake Washington with a rented 3000 pound slug from PACO in south Seattle. 1981? It was one of these no-dirt houses along here.
Using the drop hammer reminded me how simple pile driving was. Im having trouble with the power unit on my vibro so we just opted to do it the old way. If im running 3 drums on the crane i can set up the leads properly and reach where needed. I can load and drive short piles like those 40' 16" pretty quick . 10 piles driven in 18'/20'in one easy day is not bad. Just had one run around a boulder go out of plumb on us ,the vibro would have been nice there ,but the sheetpile we were reinforcing was the same way so the engineer aproved it as it was.
My old 75 ton doing what it does best for new owners. Sold it this month,but will still go and run it for them.
That's a super sharp machine.
Surprised are not having you train another for it.
They actually have 2 good conventional operators on their crew now . I get to be the fill in guy which suits me fine.
You know the crane is up to specs. too.
Its been a run of barge jobs lately.Shots from the office,even had a day with no rain.
Another contractor working in some adverse conditions. This looked like a fairly adventurous crew doing bit of white water pile driving.There was some pretty heavy flooding locally last week.
Got close to this ol girl today. Guessing 15 ton capacity ? Any thoughts on how old? Looked like a 3 or 4 cyl Detroit. So covered with oil it was hard to tell. @Birken Vogt might be familiar with it.
I think he has more than one of those, has been using them cleaning ponds around here for decades. I have seen it around everywhere from time to time.
15B?
Not many out there can still manage an old Friction Rig. Worked on many, not enough time in them to build skill.
Does it have some homemade "street" pads on it? Looks like welded up flat bar?
Interesting. Looks like converted over to standard dozer chain & pad.
I'm thinking 22B. The tractor undercarriage is factory. That was an option favored by pipeliners and machines doing lots of walking into tougher places but I think the grousers have been modified into street pads.
Couple more pics. The guy who’s pond they cleaned out is going to let me know when the come to move it out, what should have been 2 weeks ago!
I know this - I would be wore out after the first 12 hour day cleaning out a pond
First thing I noticed was how “shiny” the lever handles were!
That is a BUSY Day staring back atcha! 3/71 DD. Old Enough to have GENERAL MOTORS on Radiator so a True Jimmy.
Back in the late 70-80s in my drilling rig moving days, the good crane operators all seemed to learn on a dragline. We, as truck drivers really looked up to them.
Street pads surely because the fancy people that hire him do have paved driveways but not lowboy friendly so the machine probably has to walk across pavement a lot. I have seen that machine sit on site a very long time after the work was done. Waiting for the next job or the job to be ready I assume. I don't think anybody is going to steal it.
Drag lines are probably the most difficult machine to learn to use, particularly these mechanical linkage type. Darn nearly bust the boom on a NCK305 when I had the hoist rope going up and the drag rope coming in at the same time. Knocked both the levers out of gear and forgot about the brakes. Took me hours to sort out the mess of 2 tangled winch drums. I always tip my lid to those good operators.
They moved it out today. It is in fact a 22. Talked with the owner for a few minutes.
Curious what year it is? I'd guess a relatively late one. They keep it in great shape!
He said it’s a 57 model. He has several of these, a few different yr models.
Old girl has earned her 30 year service pin twice over. Could be on her fourth or even 5th generation of operators.
Of course that's right in there with the B-52's. We're probably going to be flying them long after we build a moon base.
Moon sshh were strapping rockets to Buff and going to Mars and the C5 can bring the 22B
That's a pretty primo looking machine for a 1957 model year!
Draglines are a challenge that is for sure. Years ago I had to unload the clam bucket and get it set up. The owner came by checked to make sure I had it right. He said well there is a few hours start clamming brush off the drainage ditch. Had a lot more confidence in me than I had. He let me finish the half mile of that then had me switch over to the dragline. After a few hours his son came by to see how I was doing. I was standing rubbing my legs when he pulled into the job. He started laughing said he knew how that was from years before when he learned. He showed a few ways to operate, then ran it without using the brakes for a few buckets. It got easier but the first few days were mighty long, ones.
Old guy dredging out a Pond offered for myself to run a Drag or Two and try my luck, went thru the controls, flipped a launch and pulled a load of grunge then swapped me into the seat, Fifteen Minutes later he was laughing so hard almost puked. I excused myself Red Faced as was ABSOLUTELY Crap Worthless on the controls.
Im still running one of its cousins,also 1957.It goes out at least once a year and does a pond cleanout at a local golf course. Thats the high walker( it has the tension springs you see on the outside of the track frame,shovel pads have no tension spring) versus the shovel pads mine has. The high walker gets around a lot better ,but i think its a little less stable than the shovel undercarraige. In answer to Crane Operators coment on operator fatigue,with the frictions set up right its an easy machine on the operator.The levers lock in and give you a little rest on a long pull.Give DMiller another half day and he will do fine to.I havent taken a current picture of it so its more of the old pics.
I never had a problem running the levers on a drag line. It was the drum brakes that left my legs feeling like they would explode at the end of the day. I felt that the clam shell was much more difficult to run and be productive with.
You and me BOTH JohnC, Legs were like Rubber as got out of that Cab! Would take helluva lot longer than a few days to get used to running one, and likely weeks to months to get decent on one!