Crane Picks

Frax

Frax

Participating member
Location
Expat now in Chapel Hill, NC by way of Calgary, Al
We do very little crane work at our company. Maybe less than half a dozen in the five years I've been here. But one came up on Monday and I got the nod.

First EVER for me. Nothing technical, but a good tree for a crane virgin I guess.

Previously topped poplar with about ten vertical leads from the old topping cut. It was two hours of climbing and cutting as fast as I could. Cranes just look like money bleeding to me and I'm not even the boss!

Climb high, tie on, descend and cut low. Repeat a bunch of times.

I know this is nothing for you crane climbing jocks but it was a good day for me.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WC0SAW6hwCk

One thing checked off my bucket list. i hope i get more.

I will take critique. I'm not gonna cry like a girl either. If I learn something I can be safer next time.
 
Nice work Frax.

Get rid of the stubs! You probably know people in that neighborhood!

No really. If you were to cut all those stubs and stack then end to end you would have the equivalent of what another pick? Two? It's much more efficient to take them with the initial cut. Also makes the logs/trunk that much easier to load. It's safer in that there is nothing for the other picks to bounce around on while being moved through the tree and the stubs do not need to be crashed later.

Looked like good body positioning when cutting from what I could tell. Lots of climbers new to crane work get deer-in-the-headlights syndrome and forget to keep out of the way!


Tony
 
Yes, the stubs. Always the stubs with me! I have to improve on that in all my removals.
And maybe safer positioning too.
I think it was just I was trying to move fast since crane work is expensive, and I think I would have had to position lower under the limbs which would have taken extra time, or maybe not. Perhaps I could have just cut them essentially at boot level.
Maybe I just didn't see better options. Seeing things on film or vid is good learning. It always looks differnt than you think it will.
That crane took the whole trunk and the stubs I left in one go. The limbs were small compared to that.
Fantastic 2 hours for me anyway!
 
Well Done. As long as noone got hurt and a profit was made, Id say you did GREAT. Practice makes perfect. Stay safe. Get the Go pro figured out before the next one that way this peanut galley can really give ya a hard time.


grin.gif
 
Don't you just feel like yelling " KONG EIGHTH WONDER OF THE WORLD" when the last top comes off. Replace Kong with Frax.
All Beauty.
wink.gif

Way to go. Eh!
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Nice Frax, reminds me of my first crane job. Except my first crane tree was WAY bigger.

We do about 2 maybe 3 a year, always the hybrid poplars or cottonwoods. It always amazes me how much easier it is with a crane.

And Classic, crane work is more expensive, unless you own the crane.
 
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And Classic, crane work is more expensive, unless you own the crane.

[/ QUOTE ]

I've been thinking about this statement all weekend, and please don't get offended about what I'm going to say but if you think crane work is expensive either your CO is way over charging you or you're doing something wrong.

think about it this way if you buy a crane in like the one Frax's video you're gonna pay about $450,000 on top of that you've got insurance, maintenance, fuel, and your operator has to make a living too.

Now say you rent that same crane the owner has all the exact same expenses, and he charges accordingly.

So the only differences between owning and renting is if you own one its always available or if you rent you don't have to pay those expenses year round.
 
We try and look at it this way.
If we can get it on the ground in a couple of hours instead of most of a day, that might be about even cost-wise.
But we are really ahead because the entire crew is still relatively fresh, because way less physical effort and time involved and we can make more money that day on other jobs, so we are actually ahead.
But it does mean moving fast and keeping crane time to as short a time as practical. Maybe less of a concern if the crane is owned by the company.
This is what I take into consideration if I recommend a crane option on a job I estimate. I did not estimate this one but I think we did OK.
 
Nice job Nora..
I wouldn't worry about the stubs in that situation.. Looks like it saved some time and tough body positioning to leave them, and in this case they did not cause any trouble..

Generally it is the mark of the newbie to leave stubs on most every cut.. BUT sometimes it helps to leave them for steps or other purposes.. In this case it was faster to leave them.. the pieces were still but heavy and they were easy to handle on the ground..

Looks like fun...
 
Classic i see your point. In my market and Frax's too, there isn't enough volume of large trees to warrant a tree service owning a crane, the trees just don't get big enough anyway.

Maybe i was wrong to say that it is more expensive. I would prefer to keep all of the income from a tree removal in house and not have to hire subs (the crane co) and have to pay their overhead, profit etc. I'd prefer to pay our overhead, profit etc.

Frax made a good point about our crews getting ahead from the job made easier with a crane. A mini skid steer also helps this out.

When we use a crane, it's most often because conventional methods are impossible. Most of our removals we can handle with conventional rigging and the skid steer for handling the wood.

That said, nothing boots morale like ripping apart a giant tree and removing it from site by 1pm with the help of a crane.

450k for a crane? Really? Jeez! I had trouble with 8k for a stump grinder!
 
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