- And today we're gonna talk about top issues
and abuses and missuses of just rigging,
just rigging in general.
(upbeat rock music)
What's up guys, my name is Devon
and welcome to another episode of The Table.
Joined with me is, Tom Horner,
one of the Corporate Rigging Inspection Managers,
and then Bryan Holmgren as well who's
your Regional Rigging Inspection Manager, correct?
- Yes.
- And then Mike Close one of our Content Managers here.
And today we're gonna talk about,
really just talk about like top issues
and abuses and misuses of just rigging in general,
does that sound good?
- Absolutely.
- Yeah, I mean, we brought the two of you guys in here
'cause you're out in the field, you know,
you're part of our inspection group
and you see a lot of equipment that's either
been misused and abused, that's coming out of service,
things like that.
So we kinda just wanted to put together
a list of some of the top problems you see
when you're out in the field.
- Number one problem, missing tag.
People don't realize that a tag is required
on just about everything.
Everything requires different information on that tag,
but the tag is required, that's required by OSHA
for chains and ASME for all slings.
- Is it stuff that's ripped off
or stuff that just never had a tag
or stuff that's just so jacked up that you can't see
like what the label is, like what kind of stuff
are you seeing in the field?
- Everything, but it's usually getting ripped off
or it's getting heavily damaged or just wiped clean,
but it's not that it didn't have a tag to begin with,
it got ripped off.
Synthetics cuts and abrasion are a big one.
- Discoloring, loss of their, you know,
if you have it treated which are usually a bright yellow.
If they're not a bright yellow any more
is it UV damage, is it chemical damage, is it issue damage.
- You know a lot of these guys will take
and throw them in their solvent tanks
because they get grease on 'em, can't do that.
- Okay.
- Like you said, wash 'em off?
- Yeah. - Oh.
- Yeah solvent will break the material down.
Alloy chain slings, the biggest one probably is
stretched-bent links.
Like Tom was saying, they think they'll lift the world
because they're steel.
So grab a 9/32 chain and they'll load
10, 15,000 pounds on there, so,
stretched-bent links on chains.
- [Mike] And does that tie back to the first one
where they're just not reading the tag
to check the capacity?
- Or they like, you know, there is a misconception
that there's extra capacity there.
That's a huge misconception.
- This is a great one there.
What he's talking about is a safety factor.
- Yeah, design factor and safety factor, so,
these people hear about design factors
and safety factors, and they say...
As a matter of fact we just had a customer
that told, our Rigging Inspection Coordinator,
that the last inspection group in there
was telling 'em that that working load
is just there for reference, but there's a safety factor
built in so they can go over that working load,
and that's what they were tellin' 'em.
So they were rigging more then the working load.
- Really what was happening is we're lifting to 100%,
plus, because now we are thinking that
this four to one gives us over 100%.
And that was coming from another inspector
from another organization which is why we received
a phone call immediately.
- Do you guys see anything with wire rope,
wire rope and wire rope slings?
- [Tom] Broken wires is the biggest one.
- [Bryan] Corrosion is another big one with wire rope.
- Kinks.
- Yeah, kinks are a misconception.
Some people think a kink is, is a kink or isn't a kink.
Dog-legs.
- Right.
- But yeah, some people think just because
they have a little curve in their rope it's called a kink,
but it's not a kink.
A kink is when you actually take a rope
and you twist it around and go
and pull it against itself and you try to pulley,
the circle out, the loop out, that becomes a kink.
- And so I shot a video of Tom Coral the other day
and he was kind of demoing like a seven part
and how durable and flexible it is
and then he had this other, different,
I guess the capacity was higher
so he picks it up and it just had
all these different angles and it's all gripper rubber
and he was saying that it didn't necessarily mean
that that rope was bad, you could still rig it,
obviously a lot more difficult to get it on a hook
because of all the different angles and stuff
and rig it properly.
It had kinks all over the place,
but it, I mean it looked like it was bad to me,
but he said that was, it was actually safe.
- Right, because all inspection is subjective
what I always went by is if I could clearly tell
that that deformation is not gonna come out under load,
then I'm failing it.
And it's real easy to come up to something
and you could say that's not, you know,
that's, it's an L. - Put a,
put a light load on it and see if it comes out.
- Okay.
- You know not this, but if you can check if,
you know if you just tell it's gonna come out.
- So say it's bad and say you start to pull it,
what does it, what does it do versus what is it,
you know, supposed to do?
Does it completely straighten out
and do a straight line-- - It should straighten out.
- And if it doesn't, if it still has
a couple grooves, is that where, you know,
like alright, there's something wrong here
and turn it in? - Yeah, what you've done is,
you've literally, so wires,
wires need to pull against themselves.
They need to be able to move kind of just like a nylon,
so if you've put a curve in it
now you've created a, what is that, resistance,
for the wires to be able to move.
- [Devon] Okay.
- So, yeah, once you put a load on it
and you can see that there's still a kink in it,
or a dog-leg in it, now you need to pull it out.
- Rigging the hardware, which goes, you know,
with the rigging, we're talking shackles,
eye bolts, hoist strings, items like that,
they all have different requirements,
but what you see there is basically
the same thing you'll see on the slings.
Eye bolts misused, so you come in and they're bent
or they're chopped in half or somebody did something
and welded 'em and made some sort of a configuration,
and shackles with incorrect pins
and you know, stretched shackles and worn things
and, you know, all that, hoist strings that are locked up
and frozen because they've been overloaded
and you can't, you know, rotate your,
your threaded sub piece, or your bolt I should say.
I'll be driving down the road and I'll see
a construction site and I'll see stuff
hanging off the crane and I'm looking for a tag.
- That's what I'm looking for,
a tag. - I'm looking for a tag,
I'm like this is construction, you know,
they're number one and you're like, where's your,
and you can clearly see when there's no tag.
It's like the culture is either checking off a box
or do we really care?
- Right.
- It's like there almost is no in between
from what I've ever seen.
- No.
- You know it's-- - You can't really
go halfway.
You know you're just gonna do it
to fulfill your-- - So is there,
sure, I mean, you know, is it tough
for people in certain organizations,
I guarantee it.
Is it easier for people in other organizations?
I guarantee it 'cause we're seeing, you know,
seeing an advancement finally and the realization of,
of what this looks like and customers
are really starting to get the big picture now.
- Kinda to close it out I think we've talked about
lifting slings, we've talked about hardware,
the last kind of component of that is below the hook,
lifting devices, and there's all kind of, you know,
spreader beams, lifting beams, C-hooks,
all kinds of stuff.
What are some of the common problems you see there?
- These beams are huge, they're massive,
they can be, same as an alloy chain sling,
it looks like it's indestructible
so they really take it to the limits.
Sometimes they smash them right against the crane and,
I mean literally I've seen cranes where the crane's,
you know, smashed in where they took the lifter up
too high and, you know, caved the lifter
right into the crane and, jeese,
but yeah deformation probably.
- I'm gonna go with homemade, you know,
in the world of slings that people have.
Today generally you don't find as many homemade items
as you used to below the hook
'cause it's such an evolving world
and everything is so custom.
- Right.
- Everything is custom, so we can understand
there's some generic stuff out there in the world,
but almost everything is custom
to a lift in an application, lifting this unit
and putting it over here.
So you're gonna see the homemade stuff.
You're gonna see the tagging, 'cause tagging,
like Bryan said, they take abuse
and these tags are often just like cheaply riveted on.
You can't just simply test and re-tag
below the hook device.
It's not like anything else.
OSHA's just the body that's gonna come question you.
- And fine you. - And fine you.
(laughing)
- They do this right? - More importantly
they fine you.
- But what we're seeing is these ASME, where we live,
that's where we want our customers to live.
- Right. - Yeah.
- You know we wanna help you, you know, be there
and apply it to your facility.
- I mean OSHA, they really do defer to the experts.
There's all these little micro organizations
that live with all these industries.
You've got CMAA. - Yes.
- OSHA refers to CMAA, you've got NEC
for their grounding requirements,
so they really do just, kind of.
- They enforce. - Yeah.
- They're just right,
they're just-- - Like they
defer to these organizations that are equipped
to actually write the standards.
- Yes.
- Absolutely.
- So yeah, that is, that is a good misconception kind of.
- Well the one thing I was thinking about
when we were kinda of talking just to close this out
is you can be selfish with your safety really,
but there's no reason that anybody
who's watching this stuff can't educate themselves.
And I say, and it's just that easy,
so if you're going online and you're looking at the blogs
and stuff we put together, you're on the YouTube channel,
you're checking out the videos,
but you can also contact these guys
if you guys have any questions,
if you're not sure about the stuff that you're lifting,
if you just need help or if you have questions,
or if you're pretty sure that something isn't correct,
wouldn't you rather make a phone call to these guys
and say, hey, I need you to check this out,
as opposed to just going for it
and hoping it all works out?
Their whole team can help you with all that stuff, so.
Tom, Bryan, and Mike, I really appreciate your time.
I feel this is really good conversation,
really interesting conversation,
and a really beneficial conversation
that can help you and your team stay safe in the future.
So, my name is Devon McCarty,
for all of us at Mazzella Companies,
thank you for watching.