Met an old crane hand at a job site in St. Louis last spring who changed how I rig loads

2 comments

2 Comments

Man, old school riggers are something else. That's the thing nobody talks about anymore - the real skill isn't just knowing your hardware, it's knowing how the steel and weather will act in the next five minutes. I worked with a guy who could look at a rusty beam and tell you within a few hundred pounds what it could take before it gave, just from how the paint was flaking. That kind of feel for the load is gone now that everyone trusts the computer and the rated sling tags.

hugo_jones218d ago

I read something a while back in an old OSHA report from the 70s... it mentioned how experienced riggers could practically "hear" when a load was shifting wrong. The article talked about a guy who refused to use a dynamometer on a bridge job, just wrapped his hand around the cable and felt the tension. Said he could feel the wire strands settling before any gauge would show it. There's no training for that kind of thing now... it's all about the digital readout and the inspection sticker. Makes you wonder what we've lost in the name of safety regulations.