These slender rods are called rebar, which is short for reinforcing steel bar rod.
Busters are ironworkers who build infrastructure with rebar.
Their work is both artistic and critical, but the results of their labor are always
covered with concrete, out of sight and therefore out of mind.
Time to correct that.
So this part of the deck is already tied.
This is actually ready for concrete, so it's easier to walk where it's been tied and the
spacings are closer together.
If you come out to here, you'll see the spacings are further apart, right?
It's an art. You kind of get used to it.
Well, how many times do your feet slip between the holes there, thereby removing the
skin from your ankle?
It has happened.
A lot of math goes into properly spacing rebar and it varies from job to job.
This bridge's blueprints call for nine inch squares.
Let's go do some real work.
My boss for today is veteran ironworker Jack Thomas, who is very serious about heavy
metal. What's that way?
One of those.
It's like £3.25 of foot.
Don't quote me on that.
And it's 60ft.
60 foot.
60. That's £180 of.
Bar. Roughly.
That's four bars.
Was that four bars there, Cory?
Yeah.
We usually carry one per man and then one for the company.
We'll put you closer to the end because you're taller than most of the guys out here.
And tall guy.
In the middle is.
Screwed. Yes. You carry basically all the weight.
Beyond the math and the artistry, Rod busting demands a measure of brute strength.
Upper body strength is mandatory.
So is lower body strength.
How many are we taking that?
Whatever we can grab today.
Left shoulder. There you go.
Take it easy now, guys.
Don't kill him. You don't know how to walk on rebar.
Just watch your step, Mike.
Look where you're putting your foot.
Yeah, I'm watching.
You'll be all right. There's really no great place to put it.
Until we get here. Then you can walk up on the bundle.
That makes sense.
But you got to be careful there, too, because the bars will roll and you wind up on your
ass.
How many times you wound up on your ass, Jack?
More than I care to admit.
Now, now, place it on your knee.
Yep. Hold it with your other hand, and then we'll grab one at a time.
Right.
Good. Oh, man.
How do you know which one he's grabbing?
Cause that's what I'm here for.
Pull it up high enough so you know which one to grab.
It's 90 degrees at 10 a.m..
The humidity, 80%.
One more. I'm not complaining.
I'm just saying.
All right. About 20 more trips to that.
Rod Buster's aren't much for taking breaks.
They're paid by the pound.
So if they're not busting rod, they're not making money.
I should probably be in here somewhere, right?
Or am I just in the way? We could jump in with me and Craig.
Yeah, why not? I was just thinking, you know, we never do anything together anymore.
And so it goes.
One trip after another under an unforgiving sun and a punishing load of steel.
The pace is relentless.
All right.
Ready? Up on your shoulder.
All right. Come in.
Easy.
And the consequences of putting my foot in the wrong place at the wrong time are
impossible not to think about.
You with us, Mike? I'm with you.
All right. I'm not having a great time.
Yeah. The less people there are on the bundle, the harder it is to carry.
Why is there only three of us on this one?
Because we're professionals.
I see. Now, There you go.
By the time this project is done, this crew will have installed over £21 million of
rebar. Which one is that?
This guy? Yep. There's a giant spaghetti joke in here somewhere.
Write in if you got one.
Don't got to be perfect, Mike.
We'll fix it later. All right.
We'll fix it later.
There we go. How old are you?
53. I'll be 53 in September.
Craig, how old are you?
I'm 43.
I'll be 44 this year.
How long have you been doing this?
21 years.
Well, what's the average age on this crew?
Some of those guys are in their 20s, right?
Yes.
Yes. We look for the young me.
Yeah, You got. I don't know what I'm doing here.
The Fresh Mac. How hard is it to.
Find guys who want to do this.
Nowadays? Really hard because everybody thinks they're going to get rich off the
Internet. Yes.
And that just don't happen to everybody.
Yes.
There's not a lot of Internet going on up here.
No. All right.
Want to get some more? We need more.
Yep. Oh, yeah, Yeah.
We need probably three more trips.
Oh, that's. That's too bad, because I thought Jack was about to say no.
Mike, you're done. Why don't you take a break?
That'd be awesome. Rod Busters work in the sun.
Ready? And they work in the cold.
All right. But no matter the temperature, one man's slip up could be another's horrible
injury. There are really about a thousand ways to fall down, Jack.
It's not just about brute strength.
It's also about balance and coordination.
Oh, sorry. And doing what you're told.
My bad. And using muscles you didn't even know you had.
Whew. Almost in.
Oh, sitting down on the job.
I'm sitting down, Craig.
All right, take him off the clock.
You exhausted? Go take a break in the shade.
Go when you're ready. Let us know when you get ready.
No, I'm good.
I'm just start getting paid again.
I'm just enjoying the view.
Taking in some fresh air.
I hear that.
Bustin rods has me sucking wind, and it's not even lunchtime.
Now you get to take a break.
And by brake we mean bend over and tiny.
I don't want to overstate it, but these rod busters, tough sons of bitches.
Remember Brooks?
He hasn't rested since we shook hands.
Brooks How are you doing, man?
Pretty good. The hard part is over, I would say.
Would you? Yeah, for now.
That's because you're an optimist.
That's it. You just got to embrace the suck face.
The suck. Get your arms around.
That suck and give it a squeeze.
That's right.
I'm here to observe your technique.
Brooks is giving me a crash course on tying rebar.
It's critical that every rod be secured with steel wire so nothing moves when the concrete
is poured over it.
How hard can that be?
Now, these things are called chairs right here, right?
Yep. And that's just designed to keep the bar off of the.
What do you call that again? The plate.
These are deck pans.
Deck pans. They're called chairs because the rebar sits on them.
You know what I mean? Very clever.
Yeah. Actually, though, this more like a sofa, really?
I mean, if you think of it in terms of length, you can use that later if you want.
If you're looking for some humor.
Taking mental.
Notes. Yeah.
Mike Rowe came out and said, No, no, guys, they're not chairs, they're sofas.
Sometimes I just try and amuse myself.
The best way to hold the wire in your pliers.
Most guys think up here, you really want to hold it where the cutting part is, right?
But if you're trying to grab it with the front teeth, you're always going to slip.
The wire is going to slip. Yeah.
Let me see how you're holding the pliers.
Not well.
Probably put your pointer finger underneath like that.
Underneath, like so.
Yeah. So you can always open it.
Oh I see. Yeah.
He took the string off him.
Oh, yeah. You don't need a spring.
Well it don't mean a thing if it ain't got that spring.
You know what I'm saying?
I'm taking that one too.
Go ahead, grab it. Now.
Flip your hand around like this.
Yeah, grab it.
Pull it up a little bit.
Give yourself some slack. Yeah.
There you go.
Just like that.
Then come in. Like that.
Yeah, that'll work.
That'll work. And then hit one like that.
Yeah. He's getting it good.
The only thing I was getting until now was sun stroke.
So. Yeah, the tricky thing is.
You think you want to grab it with the top part, but you don't.
They'll slip. You want to grab it with the cutting part.
But the problem with grabbing it with.
The cutting part is if you squeeze too hard.
You cut the wire and you don't want to cut the wire, you want to twist the wire.
So it's a very.
It's a very nuanced kind of thing, right?
I mean, it looks daggone simple, but you're running around like that.
And then you come in and you get this and you twist it.
You got to give it a twist. So it's tight.
You have it moved and then you.
I'm making a TV show.
Brooks. I don't know what you're doing.