Old timer told me to ditch the tagline and I almost dropped a beam

Guy named Frank who’s been running a Link-Belt since the 80s told me to skip the tagline on a 12 ton pick of roof steel last Tuesday near Columbus. Wind was calm and the load looked stable, but without that tagline it swung wide and smacked a scaffold. Who else has had a supposedly seasoned operator steer them into a stupid mistake?

2 comments

2 Comments

the_rose1mo ago

Smacked a scaffold" sounds dramatic but did it actually tip over or just rattle it a bit? Guys act like dropping a beam is the end of the world, half the time it's just a loud bang and a stern look from the foreman.

the_anthony1mo ago

Oh boy, that takes me back. Years ago I was on a site where a guy nudged a stack of unistrut with his forklift, just barely. Made this horrible grinding sound and the whole pile shifted maybe six inches. Foreman came running over white as a sheet, thought we'd knocked over a whole row of racking. We stood there for twenty minutes arguing about it while the beam was still leaning at a funny angle. Nothing tipped over, but it sure killed the afternoon.