TOWER CLIMBING!

[Manukau heads obs]

OMG!
I could hardly watch it!

http://video.yahoo.com/network/10114963 ... &l=5144241

[kelhb]

OMG! Thats totally insane! I think Ill keep my job thanks!

[Michael]

Was good except for the absolutely frustrating buffering

[gllitz]

WOW!!!!
I literally had sweaty palms and tingly feet watching these dudes climb...HOLY CRAP!!!
NO THANK YOU, ya couldn't pay me enough...but good on 'em for doing it!!

It would REALLY suck if you forgot something below..."Damnit, no where's that phillips head screwdriver?!?"

Also wondering if they ever drop stuff...just for the hell of it?? Can you IMAGINE the distance they would get on a paper airplane from that height??

[tgsnoopy]

Meh, lazy buggers used a lift and only climbed the last 300 odd feet. My record (albeit 30 odd years ago) was 517' with only 1 rest.

Those lights would be LED these days so far less climbs would be necessary.

I still rig, but not very often and not on any big guyed masts. I'd need to do some serious training before I tried. Highest I've been up in the last 4 years is an 80'.

As for dropping stuff, yep, yell "Headache" on the radio and watch them scurry for cover below. Try to have two of any tool that was essential. Spare connectors etc with you. Easier to climb once with extra weight than climb twice to get a replacement. Sometimes entire tool bags were thrown if practical to reduce weight and make the descent easier. I always hated the descent, seemed much harder.

[Richard]

WOW!!!!
I literally had sweaty palms and tingly feet watching these dudes climb...HOLY CRAP!!!
NO THANK YOU, ya couldn't pay me enough...but good on 'em for doing it!!

It would REALLY suck if you forgot something below..."Damnit, no where's that phillips head screwdriver?!?"

Also wondering if they ever drop stuff...just for the hell of it?? Can you IMAGINE the distance they would get on a paper airplane from that height??

Me Too.......holy crap alright

[Dale]

All in a days work before I stopped & got into the laser industry.
Only, wasnt as ballsy as that video, we did highrises (mainly residential & commercial) in Brisbane & Adelaide.. our job, to tie in & climb the Favco tower cranes.. one job ill go back to anyday.


Every 3 weeks we (my late father & I) would have a tie cut, fabricated & welded, painted and ready to wrap around the crane(s) & shut the site down on a sunday morning for the climb.. once everything was secured & tacked in the big welding job started, course the old man was 'the' man & me being the t/a at the time.. I would don my kit and head out with the brambles riggers onto the crane itself to start lifting towers.. an amazing process and you need balls of steel to hang up there 35+ floors flogging in bolts to tie the crane secure.. the whole time it is gimballing 1-3 feet in a 360º radius as it jibs up and down with the new towers.. thats how I ended up getting my rigging and dogging ticket & to keep up my crane whistles, its how i would control my old dog.. he used to love coming onsite also.

Sometimes we would walk the ties without harnesses, sometimes with, depended on the weather conditions.. couldnt do anything like that nowadays but its not for the faint hearted.

Oh and as for the headache thing.. we would flag off an area around the crane during the climb in case an errant 50mm dia nut fell.. which occasionally happened while flogging up the bolts. One instance it went down 28 levels (roughly 280m) & all we saw was a little puff of concrete dust at the base of the favco.. so being the lackie, I went down to retrive it.. never found the nut, but found a 1 foot diameter hole in the concrete where it hit.

The joys of it all? Having a crowd of people moseying about Brisbane on a sunday morning market shop, stop and watch the amazing process of a tower crane self climbing.

I got a load of pics on the hdd here, will put some up later once I do a size reduction.

[Michael]

will put some up later once I do a size reduction.

loosing some weight

[Manukau heads obs]

it always amazes me the hidden talents of people on this forum!

[Dale]

Haha Michael.. no im sure foggy wouldnt appreciate me putting up 1mb scans..

[Dale]

Birds eye view of Admiralty Towers stage 2, from stage 1 crane.. Brisbane.

AT1.jpg

[Dale]

AT2.JPG

AT3.jpg

AT4.JPG

Looking down.. looking up.. and playing with the boys.. memories

[Dale]

Sorry, made a balls up big time with the height thing.. 280 ft is a lot more realistic

[tgsnoopy]

will put some up later once I do a size reduction.

loosing some weight

No that's me, I'm practically 20 kilos and 20cm bigger than back then.

[Richard]

I take my hat off to you Dale,that's one job a land lover like me couldn't do

[Dale]

Haha Richard, it had its risks but at the same time, it is in the blood. Im sure TGSnoopy will appreciate the views whilst working at heights.. as I always did in Bris, looking out over everything.. photo below being the Story Bridge from Kangaroo Pt to the city side of the river.. & out to the islands.


Psst, best part was on a fine day, numerous topless ladies would do some photo shoots at the KP end of the bridge in the parklands.. well when you are 30 floors up on the jumpform with dumpy levels.. birds eye view. Not only that stage 2 was higher than 1 so we also had our posh topless lady sunbathing on her deck Im sure fat bob the crane operator wasnt calling crane problems through the radio for no reason.

storybridge.JPG

Also, I really did approach OHS to see if the crane would slew out over the Brisbane River so I could bunjy from the end of the jib.. request was denied
Shame.. it would have been awesome.

[tgsnoopy]

Ahh Story bridge. Fantastic late August or early September for River Fire.

I usually stay in Medina Executive just to the left of this photo.

As for the view, oh for a modern digital camera and software available today when I was a younger man doing rigging work.

Saw lots of interesting things. Once up a tower I observed MOT loose contact with a car they were chasing. I relayed via handportable to my boss who used a landline to the MOT to relay on the RT to the MOT officers chasing which way to go. They got the driver and the passenger did a runner. Sadly he needed over 100 stitches after the police dog used to track him was finished with him. Stolen car and then the escaped passenger tried to assault the dog handler. Silly boy.

I could tell other stories, but I'd better not.

[Dale]

LOL yeah.. the same with the storys.. such was life on the highrises.