Chat with an old tower crane guy changed how I prep for high wind

I was swapping stories with a retired operator named Pete at a yard in Pittsburgh last Tuesday, and he told me he always set his boom at a specific angle before storms came in. He said most guys just lock the swing brake and hope for the best, but he'd calculated the exact position to let the wind spill off instead of fighting it. Has anyone here ever tried adjusting boom angle specifically for wind instead of just riding the weather out?

3 comments

3 Comments

angela7285d ago

@lisas78 that magnet story cracked me up, I've definitely been the guy stubbornly believing in some weird fix that probably did nothing. I tried adjusting my boom angle once based on an old timer's advice and ended up looking like a fool when the wind caught it sideways anyway. But hey, at least I didn't have a magnet on my fuel line too.

dylan_ward6d ago

32 years in the shop and I never bought into that trick.

lisas786d ago

Remember a guy who swore by putting a magnet on his fuel line to improve mileage. Said it aligned the molecules or something like that. Never saw any proof it worked, but he was convinced until the day he traded the truck in.