January 11, 2024 • 51 mins
You’ve probably seen cranes moving elegantly in the sky, but did you know what an important role they play in their surroundings? Learn all about cranes in this episode on cranes.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, everybody, we're coming to the Pacific Northwest. So if
you live in that area or can get on a
plane to go to that area, or a boat or
snowshoe whatever, we'll see you at the end of January.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
That's right, brand new show, brand new topic. We don't
even know what it is yet, but we'll be in Seattle,
Washington on January twenty fourth, Portland on January twenty fifth,
and then our annual trip to San Francisco's Sketch Fest
on January twenty sixth in Seattle. We're counting on you.
We're at the Paramount this year and that's a lot
of seats, so we need a lot of your lovely
(00:31):
faces in the audience.
Speaker 1 (00:33):
Yes, So get THEE two Stuff youshould Know dot com
and click on the tour button to get all your facts.
Or you can go to link tree slash sysk and
get the same links and the same facts and we'll
see you guys in January. We can't wait.
Speaker 3 (00:48):
Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 1 (00:57):
Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Chuck and
Jerry's here too, and this is Stuff you Should Know.
The Tanka edition.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
M you know, I had a terrible thought earlier that
it might be fun to release this episode on cranes
and then one of the bird cranes, and then we
have another one coming up that I just you know,
asked our friend Dave Ruse to get on that. Could
we could also do you know that one is? Did
(01:28):
you see that? I don't want to give it away.
It's also a food in a cartoon. I don't We
could do one on the food in the cartoon with
the same title, and we should just start doing even
more confusing titles.
Speaker 1 (01:40):
Okay, I think that's a great idea.
Speaker 3 (01:43):
So we got to do one on the bird cranes next.
Speaker 1 (01:45):
Okay, so and we'll just title them the same thing.
Speaker 2 (01:48):
Yeah, okay, how cranes work. How cranes work. Figure, people
won't know what they're because that happens a lot anyway.
Like when we did Nirvana, we actually put not the
band right.
Speaker 1 (01:59):
Right, That was the opposite of being purposely confusing.
Speaker 3 (02:02):
Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1 (02:03):
Today in this episode a couple of minutes in now
we'll finally reveal we're talking about the construction version of Cranes.
Speaker 3 (02:10):
That's right.
Speaker 1 (02:12):
Yeah, that's why I said the Tonka edition, which is
probably a bit of a giveaway. Were you into Tonka?
Speaker 3 (02:17):
I wasn't that into Tonka.
Speaker 1 (02:19):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (02:20):
I think I had a truck or something, but I wasn't.
I was a sensitive boy. I wasn't banging trucks around
and building things.
Speaker 1 (02:25):
I was too.
Speaker 2 (02:29):
I also feel like we've gone back in time because
this feels like a very ten years ago thing for us.
Speaker 1 (02:35):
Oh yeah, the article on the House of Work site
was written by Marshall Brain himself. Oh but mister Ruse
helps us out with this one.
Speaker 3 (02:44):
Yeah, okay, was that the deal?
Speaker 1 (02:47):
No, it wasn't. I actually didn't know that there was something.
I was looking up some fact or whatever and that
article came up and I was like, oh, oh okay,
So yeah, no, that wasn't the deal. But I don't
remember what made me want to do this.
Speaker 3 (03:02):
I think it was just probably saw one. Huh.
Speaker 1 (03:04):
I don't think so. I mean, I've seen plenty, but no,
I really don't think that's what did it. I don't
know where it came from, but I think it's just
kind of like a lifelong fascination with it. Like I'm
not like a crane aphile or anything like that. I
can't tell you, like, you know, the names of the operators.
I don't have like trading cards or anything. But I
do find construction stuff pretty impressive from like a distance,
(03:30):
you know what I mean.
Speaker 3 (03:30):
Totally, Yeah, you see the people.
Speaker 2 (03:33):
Yeah, when I see one of those things going, I
always stop and take a look and just think, my lord,
what have we come up with now?
Speaker 1 (03:40):
Yeah, and we should say there's a ton of different cranes.
So this is specifically tower cranes. And we didn't call
the episode that just because apparently we're going to confuse everybody.
No tower cranes would have given it away. But we're
talking about a very specific kind of crane, and it
is the construction crane, the kind you see on construction sites,
especially these days if you're driving through toront know.
Speaker 2 (04:01):
Yeah, apparently Dave dug up some stats on crane usage.
Speaker 3 (04:05):
Who knew that existed?
Speaker 2 (04:07):
And Toronto right now leads the way in North America
with the most operating cranes. I guess they're building a
lot there. Yeah, they've got one hundred and twenty one going.
But one boy in the twenty tens he found that
there were about one hundred thousand cranes operating around the
world during that big you know, twenty tens construction boom.
Speaker 1 (04:29):
Yeah, and I mean that's a really good proxy for
how the global construction industry is doing, because I guess
I think you essentially can't undertake any decent sized construction
project without a tower crane of some sort on your site.
Speaker 3 (04:46):
Yeah, if you want height, you're gonna need a crane.
Speaker 1 (04:49):
Yeah, you want height, you want to very quickly and
easily move like a pile of you know, steel girders
or rebar like, Yeah, you can break down that bunch
of rebar and have a bunch of guys just kind
of card it from one side to the other, or
you can save about twenty man hours and just lift
it up and move it over with the crane. They're
(05:09):
they're invaluable for a construction site.
Speaker 3 (05:13):
They are.
Speaker 2 (05:13):
And he also found this cool stat which is the
largest one going right now from I don't know how
to say that Kroll cranes that oh has a null set.
It's Danish, so yeah, some some Danish pronunciation crue. But
the K ten thousand, my friend, as you know and
my friends out there listening, that can lift about one
(05:35):
hundred SUVs five hundred and twenty eight thousand pounds, Yeah,
and like one hundred SUVs. Yeah, not like escapes either,
like normal sized SUVs.
Speaker 3 (05:45):
At googleed like mid sized fall bo asuv bit.
Speaker 1 (05:49):
Yeah, it makes sense. It's a lot of SUVs all
at once that it could lift up. And that's as
we'll see. It depends on where it's lifting from and
all that. There's a lot of a lot of variables
and factors, and all of that put together, combined with
the danger and just the unique situation anybody who's operating
a crane is in, makes it a really demanding, high
(06:14):
pressure job. I saw one crane operator basically liking it
to eight hours of NonStop surgery essentially because of the
attention to detail you have to have at all times.
You have to anticipate what people on the ground are
going to do based on the body movement. And you're
working with your hands like you use two joysticks and
(06:35):
it seems very simple, but you can make the crane
do all sorts of interesting things with just those two joysticks.
And depending on how busy the construction site is, you
might not stop moving those joysticks essentially the entire day.
Speaker 2 (06:49):
Yeah, all sorts of things. How about a solfshoe. Sure, yeah,
it's like a battle zone. Remember that game No Battles.
I think we even talked about this. That's the one
where you look through the arcade game where it was
made out of like green what's it called when it's
just lined out and not colored in like a vector
(07:11):
like a yeah, sort of, and you had a left
and right joystick like you were driving a tank around, okay,
and looking and looking through an eyepiece.
Speaker 1 (07:17):
Yes, I remember now. And then that made me talk
about Sea Wolf. I think the Paris game basically yeah,
all right.
Speaker 3 (07:26):
Yeah, but you can move on from market, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1 (07:29):
It's kind of like that, but with real death involved potentially, right.
Speaker 2 (07:37):
And this whole thing was the idea of a German
construction engineer post World War two named Hans Liba, because
Hans Liba had a lot of Germany and all of
Germany had a lot of Germany to rebuild, especially in
the city centers. Yeah, post World War two, and so
he came up with this idea in nineteen forty nine
(07:58):
of a mobile tower crane that you could you know,
take from place to place. What you would say now,
it was probably what we would call a luffing crane
of the UFFI and G which we'll talk about a
little bit later on when we're detailing cranes. So not
that you know the hugest, super tall ones, but it
was nineteen forty nine. It was a good start.
Speaker 1 (08:17):
Yeah, I mean, give liber a break, Like he's the
one who essentially said, like, we need cranes, and we
can do more with cranes, like there would not be
skyscrapers without tower cranes. Sorry, face it. Yeah, and also
we should probably give them their due. It goes all
the way back to at the very least the sixth
century BCE Greeks, who were the first ones to start
(08:38):
using cranes and construction projects. Yeah, so basically nothing happened
for twenty six hundred years roughly until Hans Lieber came along.
Speaker 2 (08:49):
These climbing cranes were going to detail came about in
the nineteen sixties thanks to and these things are pretty remarkable.
That's the really giant tall ones that you see that
kind of build themselves and boy, just stick around everybody
because it gets pretty hot. But they were came to
his courtesy of a couple of Ozzie brothers Ted and
(09:10):
Eric Favell, I guess in nineteen sixty two. And because
they were Australian, of course, they called them kangaroo jumping cranes.
Speaker 1 (09:19):
Like for real, I'll bet everyone but the Australians called
it that.
Speaker 2 (09:25):
Maybe so, but they helped to erect the Twin Towers
in New York City.
Speaker 1 (09:29):
Yeah, apparently so did the K ten thousand from what
I understand.
Speaker 3 (09:33):
Oh, so that one's been around. Huh.
Speaker 1 (09:35):
Yeah. I think a lot of cranes helped build the
Twin Towers. But you couldn't have built the Twin Towers
without climbing cranes. And like you said, man, well, if
you understand how the climbing cranes work, they're just it's amazing.
But it also answers a really great question, like how
did those little cranes get all the way on top
of a skyscraper? Just wait, just you wait, the eight
(09:58):
year old kid in all.
Speaker 2 (10:01):
But we're going to be mainly talking about what's known
as a hammerhead tower crane, and that is when you
look up in the sky and you see a giant,
giant tall tea, essentially with a very long side of
that tea horizontal tea and a shorter side coming out
the other side of the tea.
Speaker 1 (10:20):
It's like an inexpertly written tea.
Speaker 3 (10:23):
It looks like one of my daughter's teas.
Speaker 1 (10:25):
Okay, well, I would call her inexpert at this point,
she's just starting out.
Speaker 3 (10:30):
Yeah, her penmanship is terrible. We're working on it.
Speaker 1 (10:33):
Just teach her how to cut letters out of magazines.
Speaker 3 (10:36):
We were, yeah, I should.
Speaker 2 (10:37):
We were working on her math last night and she
was having me check her actual math work and I said, your.
Speaker 3 (10:41):
Math is all perfect.
Speaker 2 (10:43):
I said, I'd like to see work on just sort
of the neatness in how you display your answers. She
was like, what it's like, Well, you know, I can
look at this. I was kind of pointing things out
in a very Larry David kind of way, so I'm
not sure if it's sunk in.
Speaker 3 (10:57):
We'll see.
Speaker 1 (10:57):
Did she get the curb references?
Speaker 3 (11:00):
Oh, she totally did. Jeff Garland's your favorite.
Speaker 1 (11:03):
So all right, well, let's talk about the components of
a crane, because it's actually extraordinarily simple. It's extraordinarily it's
just as it's just as easy as that. They're really
simple machines, but they're intricate in how precise they need
to be.
Speaker 2 (11:23):
Yeah, so we gotta start. Let's go bottom up. You
want to go bottom up?
Speaker 1 (11:29):
Okay, yeah, that seems all right.
Speaker 2 (11:32):
All right, Well, we got to start with a foundation
because obviously, if something is this tall and they're you know,
lifting things like one hundred SUVs, basically you're going to
have to have a heck of a foundation and that's
where you're going to start. These things are actually sunk
into a concrete pad. The concrete pad for the largest
ones weighs about four hundred thousand pounds, and it is
(11:56):
it's not like they do this in blocks and sections.
It's one big long con crete pour through rebar to
just make that thing as solid as it was built
into the actual bedrock of the earth.
Speaker 1 (12:07):
Yeah. They essentially are creating their own bedrock to pour around.
The foundation of the mast is what it's called. That
part of the crane that rises upward from the ground.
That's called the tower or the mast, and the bottom
of the mast is cemented into an enormous multi hundred
thousand pounds block of concrete. It's pretty impressive in and
(12:30):
of itself, right totally, So the mast, you might if
you look closely, you'll see it's made of essentially trusses,
squares and trusses. And if you will refer to our
Bridges episode, we came face to face with the realization
that trustes are the most beautifully strong structure on Earth essentially.
(12:51):
So it makes sense because as we'll see, you want
these the mast sections to be fairly lightweight, and you
can make something lightweight if you use trusses. So I'm
sure it was Hans Leber who figured that one out,
like right out of the gate.
Speaker 2 (13:09):
Yeah, absolutely, depending on you know your project, is how
tall your tower is going to be, because like you said,
they well you'll see how they build themselves. But you
don't want one that's taller than it needs to be,
and obviously you want it tall enough. The tallest ones
are over four hundred feet tall, and the more standard
(13:30):
wins are and then like two hundred and fifty foot range.
Speaker 1 (13:33):
Right, I guess that with a K ten thousand, and
I think some I think China just released like the
largest toughest crane around. It's a real competitor to the
K ten thousand. Button surprised me anything over about four
hundred feet. We haven't really cracked the physics of a
free standing tower crane. Beyond that, it just it's too unstable,
(13:55):
it's too risky, it doesn't work. So let's say we
top out at about two hundred and two fifty I
think you said something like.
Speaker 3 (14:03):
That, Yeah, two fifty ish.
Speaker 1 (14:06):
The top I don't know. Ten percent of that probably
would be made up of what's called the cat's head.
And the cat's head is essentially the top of the
crane that all of the parts that actually do the
work above the mast connect to. Okay, yeah, So for example,
you have the slewing unit, and the slewing unit is
(14:29):
at the neck basically the base of the head of
that cat's head, and it's essentially a huge disk that
the whole thing can spin around on three hundred and
sixty Degrease, go buy a work site tower crane. Shout
up to him, say do me a three sixty. Any
crane operator worth their salt will just stop what they're
doing and do a three sixty for you to show
(14:50):
just how amazing the slewing unit is.
Speaker 3 (14:52):
Uh. Did you know what the definition of slew is?
Speaker 1 (14:56):
Uh? Does it have something to do with seattle?
Speaker 2 (15:00):
No, it's to turn violently or uncontrollably. No, yeah, that's
what the verb is, you know, undergoing slewing, or as
a noun a violent or uncontrollable sliding movement.
Speaker 1 (15:15):
Chuck, I tip my Breton cap to you for looking
up that word in year fifteen. Man, way to go.
Speaker 2 (15:22):
Well, I didn't know what it meant, so I appreciate that.
But it's just I don't know. I'm sure someone can
explain this.
Speaker 3 (15:29):
Boy. I'm hoping we hear from crane people.
Speaker 2 (15:31):
Oh.
Speaker 1 (15:31):
I hope so too, And I hope they're like, gosh,
you guys sure got it right, Not like I'm never listening.
Speaker 3 (15:35):
To you again like the scuba people.
Speaker 1 (15:38):
So the slewing unit is the it's where the mast
and the top functioning part of the crane meat and
it spins it around. It's what allows the whole thing
to spin around.
Speaker 3 (15:49):
All right.
Speaker 2 (15:49):
The next thing we have is that the you know,
the big long arm, that big working arm that extends
way out, the horizontal arm.
Speaker 3 (15:55):
That lifts the stuff. Although it doesn't actually lift the stuff,
it holds the stuff.
Speaker 2 (16:01):
That's called the jib arm. A jib is it's not
specific to cranes or all kinds of jib arms. If
you've ever worked on a movie set and they you know,
have crane shots and stuff like that. Those are called
jibs as well.
Speaker 3 (16:15):
Why is it funny? Why are you laughing at everything.
Speaker 1 (16:18):
Because you're drunk? No, I'm not drunk. I'm drunk ish,
but not fully, not enough to explain my last finess.
Speaker 2 (16:25):
So the jib can go out, you know, a few
hundred feet sometimes for the extra large ones, and it
basically allows it to lift things up, swing it over,
and drop it off somewhere else. And if you're thinking, well,
that sounds a lot more complicated than that, it is,
and it isn't. It's not in that that's what that
(16:47):
jib arm is there for. But there is a something
called a load chart that you know, you really got
to be well acquainted with, because if you're picking up
something from the very tippy end of that three hundred
foot jib, not gonna be able to lift as much
as you would if that thing were pulled back to
like fifty or sixty feet because of physics, it would
tip over.
Speaker 1 (17:07):
Yeah, you can't lift the full load of Volvo mid
sized SUVs that you could if it's much closer, if
the load's closer to the center of gravity for the
whole crane, right.
Speaker 2 (17:20):
Yeah, So I guess that maximum lift capacity would be
when it's at its peak of you know position, yeah,
peak balance, like lifting, yeah, peak balance.
Speaker 1 (17:31):
Right, So it would not necessarily be I don't know.
It depends on the weight of the load where that
peak of balance would be, right. So, but for the
heaviest for its maximum lift, it would probably be pretty
much close to the center of the jib arm. Maybe, yeah, No,
I think it's actually a little closer regardless. The thing
(17:54):
that I think is ingenious about all this is that
the jib arm never moves. It's static. It might move
like swiveling, but it's not swiveling itself. It's just swiveling
with the rest of the whole working part of the crane, right,
So the jib arm stays where it is. So they've
actually designed everything else around the fact that the jib
(18:15):
arm stays straight, and that's what allows loads to like
move toward the cab, away from the cab, toward the
end of the arm, toward the inside of the arm.
The jib arm through a bunch of pulleys and specifically
a something called the trolley which is attached to the
underside of the jib arm, and it's just what moves
back and forth along the jib arm, allowing you to
(18:38):
kind of move a load, you know, closer or further away,
depending on where the people on the ground need it.
Speaker 3 (18:44):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (18:44):
Like if you stood up and put one arm out,
that arm would just stay there. And there's and picture
a little little carriage on the underside of your arm
that slides, you know, down to your fingertips and back
to your arm pit.
Speaker 1 (18:58):
Yeah, that stuff that hangs down from your bicep. When
you just let your arms stay there, imagine that moving
towards your fingers.
Speaker 2 (19:05):
Oh god, it's called aging. So your arms stays straight
the whole time, and that little carriage on the underside
of your arm is what's moving stuff.
Speaker 3 (19:12):
And then if you want to move.
Speaker 2 (19:14):
It from here to there, you turn your whole body
and you go er while you do it.
Speaker 1 (19:19):
Yep.
Speaker 2 (19:19):
So you know your kids will laugh and stuff, but
that's essentially it. That arms just stays there.
Speaker 1 (19:24):
Yeah, and when you turn your whole body, your hips are.
Speaker 3 (19:26):
Slewing, right, I guess so like Elvis.
Speaker 1 (19:30):
So then the hook, the thing that actually hooks onto
the load that's just connected to the trolley. Right, it's
pretty neat because you actually raise and lower the hook.
So it's connected to a system of pulleys, like a
whole bunch of different pulleys. And when you connect these
pulleys together, it's called reaving. And so there's a certain
(19:51):
way to connect all these pulleys to maximize the just
the grip and traction they have while also allowing like
the heaviest possible load to kind of hang from that
cable without snapping.
Speaker 2 (20:04):
Yeah, and it just works as a like a Roden reel,
like when you're fishing. You just wind it in to
raise it and let it out to lower it.
Speaker 1 (20:12):
Now, that technically is found in the hoist unit, which
to me is just I mean, it's the thing that
makes everything move. Well, no, I guess this slewing unit
makes the thing moved to Anything that has to do
with the load, the hook, all of that stuff, it's
found in the hoist unit.
Speaker 2 (20:32):
Yeah, and that works with that hook block through a
series of a series of pulleys. They're not just like, hey,
let's put get this gigantic pulley and a giant cable.
Speaker 3 (20:44):
They want it. They want that cable running through several several.
Speaker 1 (20:47):
Pulleys right, and so that goes up and then usually
up above the top of the jib arm and then
back behind to the counter jib where it sits. I
think usually the hoist unit sits behind the counter waits.
And it consists of a big, old, burly one hundred
and eighty horsepower motor that's spinning, a giant drum that
(21:08):
has a bunch of steel cable wound around it. So
the whole thing acts like a fishing line. A rodden
reel essentially, is the best analogy for it. When you
want to lower something, the drum spins and the line
pays out. When you want to raise it back up,
the drum spins the other way and reels the line
in in mister, you got a big old couple hundred
(21:30):
ton fish on the end of your line. Their congratulations.
Speaker 3 (21:34):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (21:34):
And that cable is I mean, you would think like
it's got to be like three feet around or something,
but cable is really really strong. I'm not sure how
big this cable is, but I've seen cables that like
pull a boat out of the water, and those things
are not big around at all. And I'm constantly thinking, well,
I wonder when I'm going to see somebody's boat snap off. Yeah,
(21:57):
and it just doesn't happen. Cable is just super super strong.
Speaker 1 (22:00):
Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 2 (22:01):
You know, next time we do a topic like this,
we should get two five year olds to come in
and explain this part because they would do it such
so much more simple.
Speaker 1 (22:10):
Do you think so?
Speaker 3 (22:11):
I think so simply. Yeah, all right, two five or
maybe maybe four year olds.
Speaker 2 (22:17):
Okay, it's got a counter jib, but that is if
you look at the tower crane and you see that
big long arm on the other side of the mast,
you're going to see a much shorter horizontal arm out
of what I guess you would call the back of
the crane, and that is going to hold the counterweights
because you got to counterbalance all those bobo suvsh with
a lot of serious weights. And that is that those
(22:37):
are the counterweights. The K ten thousand requires almost as
many counterweights as it requires for like the maximum lift.
It's four hundred and ninety one thousand and change of
poundage compared to what I say, like five eighty or
something like that.
Speaker 1 (22:55):
Yeah, it's a yeah. And there's just these huge concrete
slabs that are shaped slightly like a t so the
bottom parts fit into a slot, but the tops won't,
so they just dangle there. It's nuts. Actually, if you
think about what's going on hundreds of feet up in the.
Speaker 2 (23:11):
Air, well, what's nuts is when they're not lifting anything,
those counterweights make the crane kind of tip backward a
little bit. And if you're a crane operator and you
start lifting and dropping things off, that crane does a
little weeble wobble of a few feet when it's lifting
and releasing things, and you just gotta you know, you
(23:32):
gotta be used to that, I guess.
Speaker 1 (23:34):
Yeah, yeah, I'm sure that takes a lot of getting
used to.
Speaker 3 (23:37):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (23:37):
And then there's a tower peak, which hammerhead tower cranes
don't usually have a peak, it's just flat all the
way across. But sometimes they have a nice little almost
like a sailboat sail masting kind of thing. Yeah, And
usually that's to help support from above the jib because
those things extend out pretty far and they're cann of levered,
(23:57):
so they can use all the support they can get.
Speaker 2 (24:00):
There's more cableage basically right kind of supporting it from above, yes, yeah, yeah,
And there's one more big, big piece of equipment as
far as importance goes, if you asked me, it could
be a little bigger. I have some thoughts on how
to improve these things. But that is the operator cab
where the person sits the crane operator sits for eight
to twelve to fifteen hours a day, depending on how
(24:21):
much they're being put to work.
Speaker 1 (24:23):
Yeah, and it's like roughly smallish walk in closet size
in a mid market priced suburban home.
Speaker 2 (24:34):
So here are my two thoughts. A. These people climb
up a ladder to get there.
Speaker 1 (24:39):
Yeah, how long does it take them? Chuck?
Speaker 2 (24:42):
It can take like ten minutes or more, depending on
how fast they're climbing. So my first improvement is you
got to get them out of like off that ladder.
No one needs to be climbing up that thing at
the beginning or the end of a shift.
Speaker 1 (24:54):
Okay, check one.
Speaker 2 (24:56):
There's got to be a way to get somebody up there,
like a rig they attached them to and mechanically pulley
themselves up or something like that. Okay, So that's my
first suggestion. The other one is that thing needs a
little tiny toilet. There's no bathroom. There's climate controlled, which
is great, but they don't have a toilet, and Dave
(25:16):
said he found out they pee in a bottle and
poop in a plastic bag. Like get a little bitty
You could make that thing a little bit bigger and
put a couple of mod cons in there for these people.
Speaker 1 (25:28):
Yeah, no, it's true for sure. I think the thing
that fascinated me the most about the cab, besides not
having a bathroom, is that the windshield essentially extends all
the way down below the operator's feet, so when you're
sitting in the seat, your feet are dangling over the
ground and hundreds and hundreds of feet below. Yeah, it's
(25:53):
really something.
Speaker 3 (25:53):
List see.
Speaker 2 (25:54):
I'm not trying to be gross, but this is real
world stuff. What if you've got you know, diarrhea or something,
then then you're up there.
Speaker 1 (26:00):
Well, you know, I saw I saw a lot of
real pro for sure.
Speaker 3 (26:03):
It is.
Speaker 1 (26:03):
I saw a lot of like blogs and articles about
how as a crane operator you really need to take
care of yourself, like probably more than the average construction
worker would. In addition to like getting sleep so you're
not like off your game on any day. You want
to eat well, at least for that reason, Like you
don't want to eat like a dozen wings for breakfast, lunch,
(26:26):
and dinner. That's a bad Idelly, no chili, nothing like
that chili dog's chili concarne, none of that stuff. Yeah,
this is a real consideration for sure. And because it
takes at least ten minutes to get to the ground,
of course, you're not going to stop every time you
have to go to the potty. You're gonna just go
(26:47):
up there.
Speaker 3 (26:48):
Yeah, you put a little tiny body up there, it's
all I'm saying.
Speaker 1 (26:50):
Plus, also, even if you don't, even if you're like,
I want to climb back down and this is going
to be awful, So I need to get out of
this cap. When you're climbing down and you go to
the bathroom and then you have to climb back up,
that could be forty five minutes an hour worth of time.
Speaker 3 (27:07):
That's my point.
Speaker 1 (27:08):
That the entire construction site has just essentially shut down
waiting on you, or whatever was coming next is just
waiting on you. You have literally slowed down the entire project.
That's the amount of pressure that's on the crane operator
at all times.
Speaker 3 (27:22):
Typically, little bathroom solve that whole problem.
Speaker 1 (27:25):
Yeah, at the very least one of those like stadium
catheters that people use at football games.
Speaker 2 (27:32):
Should we take a break, Yes, all right, we'll be
right back with more on tower cranes.
Speaker 1 (28:05):
Okay, Chuck, So now we're at probably the coolest part.
You thought everything was cool thus far, just wait for this,
because you mentioned the Favel Brothers out of Australia and
they invented that kangaroo crane, which from what I can tell,
no one calls it that anymore. They probably did at first.
Now they call them climbing cranes. There's actually two ways
(28:25):
they figured out to make cranes climb to essentially build themselves.
That's what they do because there's only so much of
the mast that you can build using smaller cranes. Eventually,
the crane's going to get too tall for the cranes
that are helping build it to lift, and it needs
(28:45):
to start taking over. It needs to stand on its
own two feet and take charge of its own life.
Speaker 3 (28:51):
Yeah, or really four legs.
Speaker 1 (28:52):
Sure.
Speaker 2 (28:54):
The two methods are top climbing and bottom climbing. So
at the beginning of each job, or when you're going
to get a job, I guess you have to determine
if you're a top or a bottom, and for top climbing,
it really helps. I got to say to look at
a video like Dave sent us these video demos. We're
going to do our best to describe this stuff. If
(29:15):
you happen to be at home or a safe place
when you're not driving your car, you know, give yourself
thirty seconds and check it out.
Speaker 1 (29:21):
I found a good one for top climbing search Stafford
Soima soo Ima, okay. And then for bottom climbing, Hans
Leber's company has a great video on it too.
Speaker 3 (29:35):
I love these guys.
Speaker 2 (29:35):
Hopefully this is going to blow up Andy and be like, man,
where are we getting all these views from.
Speaker 1 (29:39):
We've gotten one hundred views in the last six months.
Speaker 2 (29:41):
Now, yeah, I hope that doesn't mean like we should
invest in buying more cranes because of all the interest.
Speaker 1 (29:49):
Hey, that's on them if they miousread the market that badly.
Speaker 2 (29:52):
All right, So the climbing frame is what is necessary
to build a top climbing crane. The climb frame is
three sided. It's got you know, three sides and then
one open side, and it's built around the base of
the mast kind of like Dave describe it as like
a cage that's a little wider than the mass, so
it can slide up and down on the outside, which
(30:13):
makes a lot of sense.
Speaker 1 (30:14):
You know those construction elevators that they have on construction
sites that are essentially that that people like used to
get up. Imagine that. But there's no place for you
to stand because it's the mast of the crane is
going through it. Yeah, that's a much more convoluted way
to think of it.
Speaker 3 (30:31):
I like to think, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2 (30:34):
The cool thing about this climbing frame is it is
equipped with these hydraulic jacks. So what it does is
it they have all these you know, trusses in a
very straight line, because while you're doing this, that jib
arm has to stay completely straight and still or I'm sorry, yeah,
that long arm. You don't want it moving around, and
you'll see why in a second. So they line them
(30:54):
all up in a row, and that climbing frame goes
down and it picks up one of these trusses, or
you know, it doesn't pick it up. I imagine it
gets loaded in or whatever, and then these hydraulic jacks
push it up, you know, kind of you know, a
few feet at a time. Basically it's you know, decompressing
(31:15):
and compressing and inching this thing up and up and
up until it gets to the top of where you
need a new section, and then they slide it in
and attach it. But the frightening part is all of
this is done like this thing has to be unbolted
another to bolt in order to bolt the new section on.
(31:35):
So there's a very tenuous time where everything has just
got to be perfectly imbalanced while they unbolt this thing.
Speaker 1 (31:41):
Yeah, and what's scary is at that most tenuous time,
that's when the crane is lifting the next mass section
up so that it can be slid into that open
fourth wall of the climbing frame.
Speaker 2 (31:54):
It's yeah, really, and the drivers, the operators even out
because they don't even want anyone in the cab moving
around like you know, with diarrhea.
Speaker 1 (32:03):
Right. But no, I saw in one video that the
the crane had to have the operator in there to
lift up the east each mass section.
Speaker 2 (32:12):
Well, I saw that a lot of times they're not
in there. So some may be self operational and some
may require just a very steady h you know, someone
on some emodium maintaince.
Speaker 1 (32:22):
I mean, yeah, no, that makes sense that there wouldn't
be any in there because it's it's very dangerous because
the only thing connecting the entire top part of the crane,
which is already built to the bottom of the mast,
is that climbing frame at those points when they're starting
to move a new section in. But when you do this,
you can do this up till what was it about,
you know, four hundred feet where the whole thing tops out, Like, yeah,
(32:44):
that's I can't imagine seeing something like that, let alone
working on it, because I don't know if you said
on that climbing frame, there's some dudes being gender neutral
here riding that thing, like you're a dude if you
are still making giant pins into the mass frame sections
to erect a giant, a giant tower crane. That's just
(33:09):
the kind of personality it takes, I think.
Speaker 2 (33:12):
Yeah, And I had always assumed these were telescoping like
a fire truck ladder.
Speaker 3 (33:19):
Nope.
Speaker 2 (33:20):
I thought it was just some huge unit on the
ground that could just telescope up to four hundred feet.
The fact that this is how it's done is remarkable.
Speaker 1 (33:27):
Yeah, So you can almost imagine the climbing frame is
like a giant speculum that separates the top of the
tower crane from the bottom, and you insert another section
and then it does it again.
Speaker 2 (33:40):
All right, you explained the bottom because I got it
and I saw the video, but I had a couple
of questions.
Speaker 1 (33:47):
Oh okay, all right, So bottom climbing you do the
opposite with the top climbing. You're adding the new sections
at the top. At the bottom. You build the crane
like any other tower cran to start up to two hundred,
three hundred feet whatever, and you use it like normal.
But the difference is with the bottom climbing crane, you
(34:08):
build the building around the crane.
Speaker 3 (34:12):
With the top climbing inside the building exactly.
Speaker 1 (34:14):
Top climbing is outside of the building. It stays outside
of the building the whole time. Bottom climbing, you build
the building around the crane, and eventually, as the building
gets tall enough, it starts to serve as the support
structure for the crane, because eventually you have to decouple
the crane from the foundation that was poured for it,
like any other crane, and there's a jack that climbs up.
(34:39):
These climbing rails essentially two ladders that are on the
outside of the crane. Itself, and it pushes the crane
up little by little, usually about three stories at a time.
And so now the crane has lost its bottom section
because the bottom section is now three stories above it,
and the top three stories is now unsecured to the
(35:01):
next top three stories of the building. So they then
secure that to the building with callers, and then they
disassemble everything below it and build the building out around
the shaft where the crane used to be. They fill
it in as the crane just moves higher and higher
and higher. And with this method you can build as
(35:21):
tall a building as physics will allow, because the crane
grows upward with the building as the building grows upward.
Speaker 2 (35:28):
Yeah, it's amazing, and I guess i'd answer my question.
My question was sort of if you need that kind
of foundation for a freestanding outside, like is being attached
to the building enough And I guess it is.
Speaker 1 (35:42):
Yeah, yeah, yes, for sure. And I think it's like
special parts of the building. It's not like they attach
it to like studs and drywall or something like that.
Like I think the building is designed to accommodate this pain.
Speaker 3 (35:54):
Also, yeah, I think that more than answer my question.
Speaker 1 (35:58):
Yes, but those are the two ways that you can
raise a crane, and they're both spectacular in their in
their ingeniousness.
Speaker 2 (36:04):
All right, so that's how they're built. Bottom up or
top down, not top down.
Speaker 3 (36:10):
How do we say.
Speaker 1 (36:12):
Either one? I think bottom climbing or top climbing.
Speaker 3 (36:15):
You mean, I guess.
Speaker 2 (36:16):
So those are the giant tower cranes. We mentioned that
luffing crane at the beginning. This is a This is
when you don't have a ton of space, and I
saw a video where it showed, especially when there's multiple
cranes on a job swinging around. Yeah, you got to
think about the fact that, like if you're swinging something
three hundred feet, everything has got to be out of
the way of that swing as well. So when you
(36:38):
have tighter spaces, you might want a luffing jib arm.
And that is when the horizontal arm actually raises and lowers.
So instead of having that that block and hook going
you know, up and down on with a pulley, it's
just sort of there and the action of lifting that
arm up and down is what brings the the thing
(36:58):
on the hook closer further away.
Speaker 1 (37:01):
Yeah, if you've ever seen like one of those wrecking
balls that they use that's attached to a luffing crane.
Speaker 3 (37:07):
Typically, sure, what about self erectors?
Speaker 1 (37:12):
These are pretty neat. They usually show up on the
back of like a truck, and the truck puts down
some feet for stabilization and probably lifts the truck off
of the ground and a crane just kind of pops out.
It folds out. Telescope, it's that telescoping effect that you
were You thought the original tower cranes were doing this essentially.
Speaker 3 (37:33):
Does this is a folding.
Speaker 1 (37:35):
It's not telescoping, okay, but it's it's folded up in itself.
It's all there and it unfurls. I guess is what
I'm after here.
Speaker 3 (37:43):
Yeah, I just want to make sure you knew what
telescoping meant.
Speaker 1 (37:46):
I learned what telescoping means and slewing thanks to you
in this one episode.
Speaker 3 (37:51):
That's right.
Speaker 2 (37:52):
These thing's just unfold into the sky and it's a
really also some really cool videos you can watch.
Speaker 3 (37:57):
Yeah, should we take another break?
Speaker 1 (38:00):
Well, before we do, I want to take another crackhet
explaining bottom climbing.
Speaker 3 (38:05):
We'll be right back, all right.
Speaker 2 (38:33):
We talked a little bit about the operator, but there
are all kinds of a team of people that work
with these cranes. Obviously, in the US there's a certifying
body called the n c c c O National Commission
for the Certification of Crane Operators, and so that's that's
the big job. That's the most experienced person. They have
(38:56):
worked on all these other jobs that we're about to
talk about for years and years before they get to
be the crane operator. And I was curious what kind
of money they made. And it's all over the map
if you look on the internet, because it seems like
it's just kind of hard to find that stuff out.
But I did see that in the southeastern United States,
like ninety thousand dollars puts you at about the seventy
(39:17):
fifth percentile. I also saw on Reddit, like my friend
os this in New York kind of thing. Yeah, but
apparently this people on Reddit are saying, in New York City,
you can make you know, two to three to four
hundred thousand dollars as like one of the top two
or three earners in New York, which, as I imagine,
the top of the game in the world.
Speaker 1 (39:38):
Yeah. No, I totally believe that, like you're so in
demand that you have nothing to do with raising the
crane or taking it down. You're there as long as
they need a person to operate the crane for the job.
And then once that's done, they move you over. Somebody
hires you on another job site, like you are untouchable
(39:58):
as far as like the the job site's concerned.
Speaker 2 (40:01):
Yeah, And in the interview, their first question is how
much fiber do you include in your diet?
Speaker 1 (40:08):
So then there's a lift director. That's somebody who basically
manages the lifting that goes on. If it's a heavy
load or any kind of unique or dangerous load, they're
supposed to formulate a plan for it of how it's
going to be lifted, where it's going to go, what
direction it's going to follow, all that stuff, and they
essentially are just kind of running the show on the ground.
(40:29):
I believe they're usually the one.
Speaker 3 (40:31):
No.
Speaker 1 (40:32):
I was going to say they're the one that the
crane operator's probably in touch with, but I believe that's
the signal person instead.
Speaker 2 (40:39):
That's right, And the signal person is doing just what
you think. They're on the radio and constant communication, but
they're also doing hand signals, not just on that CB
radio or whatever. They use walkie talkies and there are
times when that crane operator is working blind and they
don't have sight of what they're doing, and that's when
(40:59):
that signal person and really everyone working together is so key.
Speaker 1 (41:04):
Yeah, that's the person who communicates to the crane operator
that the people on the ground want them to toot
their horn, right, and they use that same pull down
motion that you use for big rig truckers.
Speaker 2 (41:13):
Right, or it gets the message that I have to
go potty, so let's shut everything down for forty minutes.
Speaker 1 (41:18):
That's the international squeeze your knees together and hold your
crotch signal.
Speaker 2 (41:23):
Uh, did you go over their rigor no? Okay, Now
that is the person who was preparing the load attaching
it to the crane hook. Obviously that load on the ground,
it's not just like, you know, just attach it there
and I'm sure it's fine. Like everything has to be
so buttoned up, like nothing can be loose or falling
off of that thing, Like it's got to be a
(41:44):
very nicely wrapped Christmas present.
Speaker 3 (41:47):
Yes.
Speaker 1 (41:48):
So, depending on where you're working, there are sixteen states
and seven cities that require you to have a license.
That's it. Everywhere else there's state or the city does
not require you to have any sort of formal training whatsoever.
The thing is, the NCCCO offers certification too, which is
(42:10):
usually voluntary. But I get the impression that if you
want to be one of those higher end crane operators,
you would be certified for that job multiple times over,
and not only just to kind of enhance your desirability
as an employee, but also wow, I put that as
like the HR person and to all HR people, but
(42:32):
also like some job sites might require you to have
at least a certification, if not a license, and it
might not even be the job site. It might be
their insurres, Like nobody's gonna be like, hey, you come
over here and operate this crane, Like you're gonna have
to have tons of experience and probably some sort of
paperwork to back that experience up. But I find it
shocking and alarming that plenty of states don't require the
(42:55):
person who's four hundred feet in the air lifting two
hundred tons to have some sort of formal training.
Speaker 3 (43:02):
For that totally it is. It shocked me as well.
Speaker 2 (43:05):
Yeah, these things are expensive to rent, you're you know,
obviously it's a cost a lot of money to build one,
but they get that money back. Because Dave just looked
up just sort of an average rental a flat top
tower crane within just an eighty eight thousand pound capacity lift,
(43:25):
which is I don't know how many babos that is,
but it's nowhere close to what I said earlier.
Speaker 1 (43:29):
It's forty four tons.
Speaker 2 (43:31):
A two hundred and sixty two foot jib arm, so
about you know, a little more than half of sort
of the maximum that that sucker is thirty five thousand
dollars a month. Yeah, the cheapest is thirty six hundred,
and that's for the one you bring on the truck.
Speaker 1 (43:48):
Yeah, and a lot of those rental prices will include
putting the thing together over the course of four or
five days and taking it down too, and maybe even
a skilled crane operator depending, So you can imagine that
these things are actually fairly dangerous. Safety is far and
away like the number one concern for any crane operator.
(44:09):
Every single interview I've read with a crane operator, they
all were like, it's all about safety essentially, Like, yes,
you're really important on the job site, but if it's
not safe, you don't do it, Like you just don't.
I mean, you're lifting heavy loads, you're swinging them through
the air, you can drop them. There's all sorts of
stuff that can happen. And yes, wind is a big one,
(44:30):
as we'll see, but they've kind of figured that out.
But just the fact that there's that you have these
huge loads high up in the air. When they get
dropped or when something goes wrong, people can die, and
I mean it does happen. I remember this past July
in Manhattan, the entire jib arm of a crane fell down.
(44:52):
I think, I don't remember how many stories, but it
was significant. I actually I think it did kill one
person who was in a nearby apartment building, Like some
of the debris like crashed through their window and killed them,
I think. But they were the only person who died
out of this, A sixteen ton load in a jib
arm crashing to the ground in Manhattan in the middle
of a day.
Speaker 3 (45:13):
That one caught on fire, didn't it.
Speaker 1 (45:14):
Yeah, there was a fire in the hoist unit for
some reason. I couldn't figure out what caused it.
Speaker 3 (45:21):
That's a lot that no one was killed. I mean that.
Speaker 2 (45:25):
I remember when that happened too, and I was just like,
how can that happen? In New York City and not
kill like twelve people below at least, you know.
Speaker 1 (45:32):
Yeah, apparently another real danger chuck is hitting power lines.
Speaker 3 (45:36):
Yeah, because people.
Speaker 1 (45:37):
Will walk like they'll walk like a load you know,
along to stabilize it, say, like a bunch of pipes,
and that pipe is connected via metal cable to the crane.
And if the crane came in contact with a thirteen
thousand volt power line, whoever's got their hand on that
load of pipes is it will be electrocuted. And it
(45:58):
happens like a lot, Like not a lot, It happens frequently,
to an alarming degree.
Speaker 2 (46:04):
How about that, Well, they found some stats and what
he got was from twenty eleven to twenty seventeen, over
that seven years, they averaged forty two crane related deaths
per year. That's not insignificant, you know, forty two per year.
And I think half of those were things falling on people.
(46:24):
Not all of them were tower cranes. It's kind of
all cranes basically lumped together. But yeah, sometimes they're taking
it apart and it falls apart on them. It seems
like there's a lot of crushing death with it, which
is just you know, unfathomable.
Speaker 1 (46:40):
Yeah, people have gotten caught in the climbing cage, caught
between that and the frame of the mast. There was
one guy who was taking a part a crane and
he was on the forty fifth story and that platform
that he was on outside the crane removing pins didn't
have a railing. It didn't have a railing, and it
(47:01):
shifted and he fell forty five stories because it didn't
have a railing. Wow. I just couldn't believe it. When
I read like the Oshra report, I'm just like, oh
my god, that's insanely nuts. But yeah, so safety is
extraordinarily important. You can see and I said, I tease something,
(47:22):
Chuck that I think you should take us home with that.
They figured out what to do in high winds.
Speaker 2 (47:27):
Yeah, you know what you do in high winds is
you unbolt that thing and let it spin with the wind.
Obviously you've got the reel all the way reeled in
and it's not like swinging anything around. But when if
you see and heavy winds a horizontal arm moving, that's
what it's supposed to do. Because they have learned that
(47:48):
if that thing is bolted down, that puts the entire
thing at risk, whereas if you just let it move
with the wind and obviously out of the way of
hitting anything, then that's the way to go.
Speaker 1 (47:59):
Yeah, and I read an interview with a crane operator
who had to ride out a storm once because it
was too dangerous to make the ten minute climb down,
so you had to sit there in the cab and
just get pushed around by the wind, letting it a
weather vane.
Speaker 3 (48:13):
And I'm not even going to make a poop joke. There.
Speaker 1 (48:16):
You got anything else?
Speaker 3 (48:17):
I got nothing else.
Speaker 1 (48:19):
This was robust. Thanks for doing it with me. This
was fun. Thanks for being the top or the bottom
to this crane episode, Chuck, Hey, anytime if you want
to know more about cranes. Apparently there's a Housetiff Works
article on it by Marshall Brain. And there's plenty of
other interesting stuff too, including really mesmerizing CGI videos of
(48:39):
cranes building themselves magically. And since I said that it's
time for listener mail.
Speaker 3 (48:48):
All right, I'm going to call this.
Speaker 2 (48:52):
Well, I'm going to call it sits scuba related. This
is kind of very poignant email. Hey, guys, been listening
for a long time. I learned to scuba with my
brother and dad when I was fourteen, back in nineteen
eighty nine, the moment we took our first breaths underwater,
we were hooked along. Aside from a long hiatus, I've
been an avid diver ever since. Many of my best
(49:12):
memories were created on dive trips with my brother and dad. Tragically,
we lost my brother to suicide last year after a
decade's long battle with mental illness, and I just wanted
to take a moment to commend you and your team
for your sympathy and in dexterity with which you handle
mental illness on your show. Know that the links in
which you go to assure you were using the most
(49:34):
compassionate language to discuss mental illness and other touchy subjects
does not go unnoticed and is greatly appreciated. But to
be clear, so are the moments you choose to essue
the acceptable standards for a moment to make a joke, Chuck,
this is for you by all means. Please get scuba
certified with your daughter and your wife if she's interested.
I have so many crystal clear, fantastic memories with my
(49:57):
dad and my brother diving. You can't make a child's
any more awesome than by taking them to visit another planet.
Lifetime memories are made by the moment. It's a magical pursuit.
Speaker 3 (50:07):
Do it.
Speaker 2 (50:08):
My brother used to say diving is easy to do
and difficult to master.
Speaker 3 (50:11):
So true.
Speaker 2 (50:12):
He was my friend, my die buddy, and my hero
and I miss him like crazy. He sure would have
loved the Scoob episode. And that is from Dan Man.
Speaker 1 (50:23):
Dan, thank you for writing in about that. That was
really amazing stuff. I'm sorry about your brother.
Speaker 3 (50:29):
Same.
Speaker 1 (50:31):
If you want to be like Dan and write us
just a masterful, amazing, heartfelt email, we'd love those things.
You can address it directly to us at stuff Podcasts
at iHeartRadio dot com.
Speaker 3 (50:48):
Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For
more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Hey, everybody, we're coming to the Pacific Northwest. So if
you live in that area or can get on a
plane to go to that area, or a boat or
snowshoe whatever, we'll see you at the end of January.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
That's right, brand new show, brand new topic. We don't
even know what it is yet, but we'll be in Seattle,
Washington on January twenty fourth, Portland on January twenty fifth,
and then our annual trip to San Francisco's Sketch Fest
on January twenty sixth in Seattle. We're counting on you.
We're at the Paramount this year and that's a lot
of seats, so we need a lot of your lovely
(00:31):
faces in the audience.
Speaker 1 (00:33):
Yes, So get THEE two Stuff youshould Know dot com
and click on the tour button to get all your facts.
Or you can go to link tree slash sysk and
get the same links and the same facts and we'll
see you guys in January. We can't wait.
Speaker 3 (00:48):
Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 1 (00:57):
Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Chuck and
Jerry's here too, and this is Stuff you Should Know.
The Tanka edition.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
M you know, I had a terrible thought earlier that
it might be fun to release this episode on cranes
and then one of the bird cranes, and then we
have another one coming up that I just you know,
asked our friend Dave Ruse to get on that. Could
we could also do you know that one is? Did
(01:28):
you see that? I don't want to give it away.
It's also a food in a cartoon. I don't We
could do one on the food in the cartoon with
the same title, and we should just start doing even
more confusing titles.
Speaker 1 (01:40):
Okay, I think that's a great idea.
Speaker 3 (01:43):
So we got to do one on the bird cranes next.
Speaker 1 (01:45):
Okay, so and we'll just title them the same thing.
Speaker 2 (01:48):
Yeah, okay, how cranes work. How cranes work. Figure, people
won't know what they're because that happens a lot anyway.
Like when we did Nirvana, we actually put not the
band right.
Speaker 1 (01:59):
Right, That was the opposite of being purposely confusing.
Speaker 3 (02:02):
Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1 (02:03):
Today in this episode a couple of minutes in now
we'll finally reveal we're talking about the construction version of Cranes.
Speaker 3 (02:10):
That's right.
Speaker 1 (02:12):
Yeah, that's why I said the Tonka edition, which is
probably a bit of a giveaway. Were you into Tonka?
Speaker 3 (02:17):
I wasn't that into Tonka.
Speaker 1 (02:19):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (02:20):
I think I had a truck or something, but I wasn't.
I was a sensitive boy. I wasn't banging trucks around
and building things.
Speaker 1 (02:25):
I was too.
Speaker 2 (02:29):
I also feel like we've gone back in time because
this feels like a very ten years ago thing for us.
Speaker 1 (02:35):
Oh yeah, the article on the House of Work site
was written by Marshall Brain himself. Oh but mister Ruse
helps us out with this one.
Speaker 3 (02:44):
Yeah, okay, was that the deal?
Speaker 1 (02:47):
No, it wasn't. I actually didn't know that there was something.
I was looking up some fact or whatever and that
article came up and I was like, oh, oh okay,
So yeah, no, that wasn't the deal. But I don't
remember what made me want to do this.
Speaker 3 (03:02):
I think it was just probably saw one. Huh.
Speaker 1 (03:04):
I don't think so. I mean, I've seen plenty, but no,
I really don't think that's what did it. I don't
know where it came from, but I think it's just
kind of like a lifelong fascination with it. Like I'm
not like a crane aphile or anything like that. I
can't tell you, like, you know, the names of the operators.
I don't have like trading cards or anything. But I
do find construction stuff pretty impressive from like a distance,
(03:30):
you know what I mean.
Speaker 3 (03:30):
Totally, Yeah, you see the people.
Speaker 2 (03:33):
Yeah, when I see one of those things going, I
always stop and take a look and just think, my lord,
what have we come up with now?
Speaker 1 (03:40):
Yeah, and we should say there's a ton of different cranes.
So this is specifically tower cranes. And we didn't call
the episode that just because apparently we're going to confuse everybody.
No tower cranes would have given it away. But we're
talking about a very specific kind of crane, and it
is the construction crane, the kind you see on construction sites,
especially these days if you're driving through toront know.
Speaker 2 (04:01):
Yeah, apparently Dave dug up some stats on crane usage.
Speaker 3 (04:05):
Who knew that existed?
Speaker 2 (04:07):
And Toronto right now leads the way in North America
with the most operating cranes. I guess they're building a
lot there. Yeah, they've got one hundred and twenty one going.
But one boy in the twenty tens he found that
there were about one hundred thousand cranes operating around the
world during that big you know, twenty tens construction boom.
Speaker 1 (04:29):
Yeah, and I mean that's a really good proxy for
how the global construction industry is doing, because I guess
I think you essentially can't undertake any decent sized construction
project without a tower crane of some sort on your site.
Speaker 3 (04:46):
Yeah, if you want height, you're gonna need a crane.
Speaker 1 (04:49):
Yeah, you want height, you want to very quickly and
easily move like a pile of you know, steel girders
or rebar like, Yeah, you can break down that bunch
of rebar and have a bunch of guys just kind
of card it from one side to the other, or
you can save about twenty man hours and just lift
it up and move it over with the crane. They're
(05:09):
they're invaluable for a construction site.
Speaker 3 (05:13):
They are.
Speaker 2 (05:13):
And he also found this cool stat which is the
largest one going right now from I don't know how
to say that Kroll cranes that oh has a null set.
It's Danish, so yeah, some some Danish pronunciation crue. But
the K ten thousand, my friend, as you know and
my friends out there listening, that can lift about one
(05:35):
hundred SUVs five hundred and twenty eight thousand pounds, Yeah,
and like one hundred SUVs. Yeah, not like escapes either,
like normal sized SUVs.
Speaker 3 (05:45):
At googleed like mid sized fall bo asuv bit.
Speaker 1 (05:49):
Yeah, it makes sense. It's a lot of SUVs all
at once that it could lift up. And that's as
we'll see. It depends on where it's lifting from and
all that. There's a lot of a lot of variables
and factors, and all of that put together, combined with
the danger and just the unique situation anybody who's operating
a crane is in, makes it a really demanding, high
(06:14):
pressure job. I saw one crane operator basically liking it
to eight hours of NonStop surgery essentially because of the
attention to detail you have to have at all times.
You have to anticipate what people on the ground are
going to do based on the body movement. And you're
working with your hands like you use two joysticks and
(06:35):
it seems very simple, but you can make the crane
do all sorts of interesting things with just those two joysticks.
And depending on how busy the construction site is, you
might not stop moving those joysticks essentially the entire day.
Speaker 2 (06:49):
Yeah, all sorts of things. How about a solfshoe. Sure, yeah,
it's like a battle zone. Remember that game No Battles.
I think we even talked about this. That's the one
where you look through the arcade game where it was
made out of like green what's it called when it's
just lined out and not colored in like a vector
(07:11):
like a yeah, sort of, and you had a left
and right joystick like you were driving a tank around, okay,
and looking and looking through an eyepiece.
Speaker 1 (07:17):
Yes, I remember now. And then that made me talk
about Sea Wolf. I think the Paris game basically yeah,
all right.
Speaker 3 (07:26):
Yeah, but you can move on from market, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1 (07:29):
It's kind of like that, but with real death involved potentially, right.
Speaker 2 (07:37):
And this whole thing was the idea of a German
construction engineer post World War two named Hans Liba, because
Hans Liba had a lot of Germany and all of
Germany had a lot of Germany to rebuild, especially in
the city centers. Yeah, post World War two, and so
he came up with this idea in nineteen forty nine
(07:58):
of a mobile tower crane that you could you know,
take from place to place. What you would say now,
it was probably what we would call a luffing crane
of the UFFI and G which we'll talk about a
little bit later on when we're detailing cranes. So not
that you know the hugest, super tall ones, but it
was nineteen forty nine. It was a good start.
Speaker 1 (08:17):
Yeah, I mean, give liber a break, Like he's the
one who essentially said, like, we need cranes, and we
can do more with cranes, like there would not be
skyscrapers without tower cranes. Sorry, face it. Yeah, and also
we should probably give them their due. It goes all
the way back to at the very least the sixth
century BCE Greeks, who were the first ones to start
(08:38):
using cranes and construction projects. Yeah, so basically nothing happened
for twenty six hundred years roughly until Hans Lieber came along.
Speaker 2 (08:49):
These climbing cranes were going to detail came about in
the nineteen sixties thanks to and these things are pretty remarkable.
That's the really giant tall ones that you see that
kind of build themselves and boy, just stick around everybody
because it gets pretty hot. But they were came to
his courtesy of a couple of Ozzie brothers Ted and
(09:10):
Eric Favell, I guess in nineteen sixty two. And because
they were Australian, of course, they called them kangaroo jumping cranes.
Speaker 1 (09:19):
Like for real, I'll bet everyone but the Australians called
it that.
Speaker 2 (09:25):
Maybe so, but they helped to erect the Twin Towers
in New York City.
Speaker 1 (09:29):
Yeah, apparently so did the K ten thousand from what
I understand.
Speaker 3 (09:33):
Oh, so that one's been around. Huh.
Speaker 1 (09:35):
Yeah. I think a lot of cranes helped build the
Twin Towers. But you couldn't have built the Twin Towers
without climbing cranes. And like you said, man, well, if
you understand how the climbing cranes work, they're just it's amazing.
But it also answers a really great question, like how
did those little cranes get all the way on top
of a skyscraper? Just wait, just you wait, the eight
(09:58):
year old kid in all.
Speaker 2 (10:01):
But we're going to be mainly talking about what's known
as a hammerhead tower crane, and that is when you
look up in the sky and you see a giant,
giant tall tea, essentially with a very long side of
that tea horizontal tea and a shorter side coming out
the other side of the tea.
Speaker 1 (10:20):
It's like an inexpertly written tea.
Speaker 3 (10:23):
It looks like one of my daughter's teas.
Speaker 1 (10:25):
Okay, well, I would call her inexpert at this point,
she's just starting out.
Speaker 3 (10:30):
Yeah, her penmanship is terrible. We're working on it.
Speaker 1 (10:33):
Just teach her how to cut letters out of magazines.
Speaker 3 (10:36):
We were, yeah, I should.
Speaker 2 (10:37):
We were working on her math last night and she
was having me check her actual math work and I said, your.
Speaker 3 (10:41):
Math is all perfect.
Speaker 2 (10:43):
I said, I'd like to see work on just sort
of the neatness in how you display your answers. She
was like, what it's like, Well, you know, I can
look at this. I was kind of pointing things out
in a very Larry David kind of way, so I'm
not sure if it's sunk in.
Speaker 3 (10:57):
We'll see.
Speaker 1 (10:57):
Did she get the curb references?
Speaker 3 (11:00):
Oh, she totally did. Jeff Garland's your favorite.
Speaker 1 (11:03):
So all right, well, let's talk about the components of
a crane, because it's actually extraordinarily simple. It's extraordinarily it's
just as it's just as easy as that. They're really
simple machines, but they're intricate in how precise they need
to be.
Speaker 2 (11:23):
Yeah, so we gotta start. Let's go bottom up. You
want to go bottom up?
Speaker 1 (11:29):
Okay, yeah, that seems all right.
Speaker 2 (11:32):
All right, Well, we got to start with a foundation
because obviously, if something is this tall and they're you know,
lifting things like one hundred SUVs, basically you're going to
have to have a heck of a foundation and that's
where you're going to start. These things are actually sunk
into a concrete pad. The concrete pad for the largest
ones weighs about four hundred thousand pounds, and it is
(11:56):
it's not like they do this in blocks and sections.
It's one big long con crete pour through rebar to
just make that thing as solid as it was built
into the actual bedrock of the earth.
Speaker 1 (12:07):
Yeah. They essentially are creating their own bedrock to pour around.
The foundation of the mast is what it's called. That
part of the crane that rises upward from the ground.
That's called the tower or the mast, and the bottom
of the mast is cemented into an enormous multi hundred
thousand pounds block of concrete. It's pretty impressive in and
(12:30):
of itself, right totally, So the mast, you might if
you look closely, you'll see it's made of essentially trusses,
squares and trusses. And if you will refer to our
Bridges episode, we came face to face with the realization
that trustes are the most beautifully strong structure on Earth essentially.
(12:51):
So it makes sense because as we'll see, you want
these the mast sections to be fairly lightweight, and you
can make something lightweight if you use trusses. So I'm
sure it was Hans Leber who figured that one out,
like right out of the gate.
Speaker 2 (13:09):
Yeah, absolutely, depending on you know your project, is how
tall your tower is going to be, because like you said,
they well you'll see how they build themselves. But you
don't want one that's taller than it needs to be,
and obviously you want it tall enough. The tallest ones
are over four hundred feet tall, and the more standard
(13:30):
wins are and then like two hundred and fifty foot range.
Speaker 1 (13:33):
Right, I guess that with a K ten thousand, and
I think some I think China just released like the
largest toughest crane around. It's a real competitor to the
K ten thousand. Button surprised me anything over about four
hundred feet. We haven't really cracked the physics of a
free standing tower crane. Beyond that, it just it's too unstable,
(13:55):
it's too risky, it doesn't work. So let's say we
top out at about two hundred and two fifty I
think you said something like.
Speaker 3 (14:03):
That, Yeah, two fifty ish.
Speaker 1 (14:06):
The top I don't know. Ten percent of that probably
would be made up of what's called the cat's head.
And the cat's head is essentially the top of the
crane that all of the parts that actually do the
work above the mast connect to. Okay, yeah, So for example,
you have the slewing unit, and the slewing unit is
(14:29):
at the neck basically the base of the head of
that cat's head, and it's essentially a huge disk that
the whole thing can spin around on three hundred and
sixty Degrease, go buy a work site tower crane. Shout
up to him, say do me a three sixty. Any
crane operator worth their salt will just stop what they're
doing and do a three sixty for you to show
(14:50):
just how amazing the slewing unit is.
Speaker 3 (14:52):
Uh. Did you know what the definition of slew is?
Speaker 1 (14:56):
Uh? Does it have something to do with seattle?
Speaker 2 (15:00):
No, it's to turn violently or uncontrollably. No, yeah, that's
what the verb is, you know, undergoing slewing, or as
a noun a violent or uncontrollable sliding movement.
Speaker 1 (15:15):
Chuck, I tip my Breton cap to you for looking
up that word in year fifteen. Man, way to go.
Speaker 2 (15:22):
Well, I didn't know what it meant, so I appreciate that.
But it's just I don't know. I'm sure someone can
explain this.
Speaker 3 (15:29):
Boy. I'm hoping we hear from crane people.
Speaker 2 (15:31):
Oh.
Speaker 1 (15:31):
I hope so too, And I hope they're like, gosh,
you guys sure got it right, Not like I'm never listening.
Speaker 3 (15:35):
To you again like the scuba people.
Speaker 1 (15:38):
So the slewing unit is the it's where the mast
and the top functioning part of the crane meat and
it spins it around. It's what allows the whole thing
to spin around.
Speaker 3 (15:49):
All right.
Speaker 2 (15:49):
The next thing we have is that the you know,
the big long arm, that big working arm that extends
way out, the horizontal arm.
Speaker 3 (15:55):
That lifts the stuff. Although it doesn't actually lift the stuff,
it holds the stuff.
Speaker 2 (16:01):
That's called the jib arm. A jib is it's not
specific to cranes or all kinds of jib arms. If
you've ever worked on a movie set and they you know,
have crane shots and stuff like that. Those are called
jibs as well.
Speaker 3 (16:15):
Why is it funny? Why are you laughing at everything.
Speaker 1 (16:18):
Because you're drunk? No, I'm not drunk. I'm drunk ish,
but not fully, not enough to explain my last finess.
Speaker 2 (16:25):
So the jib can go out, you know, a few
hundred feet sometimes for the extra large ones, and it
basically allows it to lift things up, swing it over,
and drop it off somewhere else. And if you're thinking, well,
that sounds a lot more complicated than that, it is,
and it isn't. It's not in that that's what that
(16:47):
jib arm is there for. But there is a something
called a load chart that you know, you really got
to be well acquainted with, because if you're picking up
something from the very tippy end of that three hundred
foot jib, not gonna be able to lift as much
as you would if that thing were pulled back to
like fifty or sixty feet because of physics, it would
tip over.
Speaker 1 (17:07):
Yeah, you can't lift the full load of Volvo mid
sized SUVs that you could if it's much closer, if
the load's closer to the center of gravity for the
whole crane, right.
Speaker 2 (17:20):
Yeah, So I guess that maximum lift capacity would be
when it's at its peak of you know position, yeah,
peak balance, like lifting, yeah, peak balance.
Speaker 1 (17:31):
Right, So it would not necessarily be I don't know.
It depends on the weight of the load where that
peak of balance would be, right. So, but for the
heaviest for its maximum lift, it would probably be pretty
much close to the center of the jib arm. Maybe, yeah, No,
I think it's actually a little closer regardless. The thing
(17:54):
that I think is ingenious about all this is that
the jib arm never moves. It's static. It might move
like swiveling, but it's not swiveling itself. It's just swiveling
with the rest of the whole working part of the crane, right,
So the jib arm stays where it is. So they've
actually designed everything else around the fact that the jib
(18:15):
arm stays straight, and that's what allows loads to like
move toward the cab, away from the cab, toward the
end of the arm, toward the inside of the arm.
The jib arm through a bunch of pulleys and specifically
a something called the trolley which is attached to the
underside of the jib arm, and it's just what moves
back and forth along the jib arm, allowing you to
(18:38):
kind of move a load, you know, closer or further away,
depending on where the people on the ground need it.
Speaker 3 (18:44):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (18:44):
Like if you stood up and put one arm out,
that arm would just stay there. And there's and picture
a little little carriage on the underside of your arm
that slides, you know, down to your fingertips and back
to your arm pit.
Speaker 1 (18:58):
Yeah, that stuff that hangs down from your bicep. When
you just let your arms stay there, imagine that moving
towards your fingers.
Speaker 2 (19:05):
Oh god, it's called aging. So your arms stays straight
the whole time, and that little carriage on the underside
of your arm is what's moving stuff.
Speaker 3 (19:12):
And then if you want to move.
Speaker 2 (19:14):
It from here to there, you turn your whole body
and you go er while you do it.
Speaker 1 (19:19):
Yep.
Speaker 2 (19:19):
So you know your kids will laugh and stuff, but
that's essentially it. That arms just stays there.
Speaker 1 (19:24):
Yeah, and when you turn your whole body, your hips are.
Speaker 3 (19:26):
Slewing, right, I guess so like Elvis.
Speaker 1 (19:30):
So then the hook, the thing that actually hooks onto
the load that's just connected to the trolley. Right, it's
pretty neat because you actually raise and lower the hook.
So it's connected to a system of pulleys, like a
whole bunch of different pulleys. And when you connect these
pulleys together, it's called reaving. And so there's a certain
(19:51):
way to connect all these pulleys to maximize the just
the grip and traction they have while also allowing like
the heaviest possible load to kind of hang from that
cable without snapping.
Speaker 2 (20:04):
Yeah, and it just works as a like a Roden reel,
like when you're fishing. You just wind it in to
raise it and let it out to lower it.
Speaker 1 (20:12):
Now, that technically is found in the hoist unit, which
to me is just I mean, it's the thing that
makes everything move. Well, no, I guess this slewing unit
makes the thing moved to Anything that has to do
with the load, the hook, all of that stuff, it's
found in the hoist unit.
Speaker 2 (20:32):
Yeah, and that works with that hook block through a
series of a series of pulleys. They're not just like, hey,
let's put get this gigantic pulley and a giant cable.
Speaker 3 (20:44):
They want it. They want that cable running through several several.
Speaker 1 (20:47):
Pulleys right, and so that goes up and then usually
up above the top of the jib arm and then
back behind to the counter jib where it sits. I
think usually the hoist unit sits behind the counter waits.
And it consists of a big, old, burly one hundred
and eighty horsepower motor that's spinning, a giant drum that
(21:08):
has a bunch of steel cable wound around it. So
the whole thing acts like a fishing line. A rodden
reel essentially, is the best analogy for it. When you
want to lower something, the drum spins and the line
pays out. When you want to raise it back up,
the drum spins the other way and reels the line
in in mister, you got a big old couple hundred
(21:30):
ton fish on the end of your line. Their congratulations.
Speaker 3 (21:34):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (21:34):
And that cable is I mean, you would think like
it's got to be like three feet around or something,
but cable is really really strong. I'm not sure how
big this cable is, but I've seen cables that like
pull a boat out of the water, and those things
are not big around at all. And I'm constantly thinking, well,
I wonder when I'm going to see somebody's boat snap off. Yeah,
(21:57):
and it just doesn't happen. Cable is just super super strong.
Speaker 1 (22:00):
Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 2 (22:01):
You know, next time we do a topic like this,
we should get two five year olds to come in
and explain this part because they would do it such
so much more simple.
Speaker 1 (22:10):
Do you think so?
Speaker 3 (22:11):
I think so simply. Yeah, all right, two five or
maybe maybe four year olds.
Speaker 2 (22:17):
Okay, it's got a counter jib, but that is if
you look at the tower crane and you see that
big long arm on the other side of the mast,
you're going to see a much shorter horizontal arm out
of what I guess you would call the back of
the crane, and that is going to hold the counterweights
because you got to counterbalance all those bobo suvsh with
a lot of serious weights. And that is that those
(22:37):
are the counterweights. The K ten thousand requires almost as
many counterweights as it requires for like the maximum lift.
It's four hundred and ninety one thousand and change of
poundage compared to what I say, like five eighty or
something like that.
Speaker 1 (22:55):
Yeah, it's a yeah. And there's just these huge concrete
slabs that are shaped slightly like a t so the
bottom parts fit into a slot, but the tops won't,
so they just dangle there. It's nuts. Actually, if you
think about what's going on hundreds of feet up in the.
Speaker 2 (23:11):
Air, well, what's nuts is when they're not lifting anything,
those counterweights make the crane kind of tip backward a
little bit. And if you're a crane operator and you
start lifting and dropping things off, that crane does a
little weeble wobble of a few feet when it's lifting
and releasing things, and you just gotta you know, you
(23:32):
gotta be used to that, I guess.
Speaker 1 (23:34):
Yeah, yeah, I'm sure that takes a lot of getting
used to.
Speaker 3 (23:37):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (23:37):
And then there's a tower peak, which hammerhead tower cranes
don't usually have a peak, it's just flat all the
way across. But sometimes they have a nice little almost
like a sailboat sail masting kind of thing. Yeah, And
usually that's to help support from above the jib because
those things extend out pretty far and they're cann of levered,
(23:57):
so they can use all the support they can get.
Speaker 2 (24:00):
There's more cableage basically right kind of supporting it from above, yes, yeah, yeah,
And there's one more big, big piece of equipment as
far as importance goes, if you asked me, it could
be a little bigger. I have some thoughts on how
to improve these things. But that is the operator cab
where the person sits the crane operator sits for eight
to twelve to fifteen hours a day, depending on how
(24:21):
much they're being put to work.
Speaker 1 (24:23):
Yeah, and it's like roughly smallish walk in closet size
in a mid market priced suburban home.
Speaker 2 (24:34):
So here are my two thoughts. A. These people climb
up a ladder to get there.
Speaker 1 (24:39):
Yeah, how long does it take them? Chuck?
Speaker 2 (24:42):
It can take like ten minutes or more, depending on
how fast they're climbing. So my first improvement is you
got to get them out of like off that ladder.
No one needs to be climbing up that thing at
the beginning or the end of a shift.
Speaker 1 (24:54):
Okay, check one.
Speaker 2 (24:56):
There's got to be a way to get somebody up there,
like a rig they attached them to and mechanically pulley
themselves up or something like that. Okay, So that's my
first suggestion. The other one is that thing needs a
little tiny toilet. There's no bathroom. There's climate controlled, which
is great, but they don't have a toilet, and Dave
(25:16):
said he found out they pee in a bottle and
poop in a plastic bag. Like get a little bitty
You could make that thing a little bit bigger and
put a couple of mod cons in there for these people.
Speaker 1 (25:28):
Yeah, no, it's true for sure. I think the thing
that fascinated me the most about the cab, besides not
having a bathroom, is that the windshield essentially extends all
the way down below the operator's feet, so when you're
sitting in the seat, your feet are dangling over the
ground and hundreds and hundreds of feet below. Yeah, it's
(25:53):
really something.
Speaker 3 (25:53):
List see.
Speaker 2 (25:54):
I'm not trying to be gross, but this is real
world stuff. What if you've got you know, diarrhea or something,
then then you're up there.
Speaker 1 (26:00):
Well, you know, I saw I saw a lot of
real pro for sure.
Speaker 3 (26:03):
It is.
Speaker 1 (26:03):
I saw a lot of like blogs and articles about
how as a crane operator you really need to take
care of yourself, like probably more than the average construction
worker would. In addition to like getting sleep so you're
not like off your game on any day. You want
to eat well, at least for that reason, Like you
don't want to eat like a dozen wings for breakfast, lunch,
(26:26):
and dinner. That's a bad Idelly, no chili, nothing like
that chili dog's chili concarne, none of that stuff. Yeah,
this is a real consideration for sure. And because it
takes at least ten minutes to get to the ground,
of course, you're not going to stop every time you
have to go to the potty. You're gonna just go
(26:47):
up there.
Speaker 3 (26:48):
Yeah, you put a little tiny body up there, it's
all I'm saying.
Speaker 1 (26:50):
Plus, also, even if you don't, even if you're like,
I want to climb back down and this is going
to be awful, So I need to get out of
this cap. When you're climbing down and you go to
the bathroom and then you have to climb back up,
that could be forty five minutes an hour worth of time.
Speaker 3 (27:07):
That's my point.
Speaker 1 (27:08):
That the entire construction site has just essentially shut down
waiting on you, or whatever was coming next is just
waiting on you. You have literally slowed down the entire project.
That's the amount of pressure that's on the crane operator
at all times.
Speaker 3 (27:22):
Typically, little bathroom solve that whole problem.
Speaker 1 (27:25):
Yeah, at the very least one of those like stadium
catheters that people use at football games.
Speaker 2 (27:32):
Should we take a break, Yes, all right, we'll be
right back with more on tower cranes.
Speaker 1 (28:05):
Okay, Chuck, So now we're at probably the coolest part.
You thought everything was cool thus far, just wait for this,
because you mentioned the Favel Brothers out of Australia and
they invented that kangaroo crane, which from what I can tell,
no one calls it that anymore. They probably did at first.
Now they call them climbing cranes. There's actually two ways
(28:25):
they figured out to make cranes climb to essentially build themselves.
That's what they do because there's only so much of
the mast that you can build using smaller cranes. Eventually,
the crane's going to get too tall for the cranes
that are helping build it to lift, and it needs
(28:45):
to start taking over. It needs to stand on its
own two feet and take charge of its own life.
Speaker 3 (28:51):
Yeah, or really four legs.
Speaker 1 (28:52):
Sure.
Speaker 2 (28:54):
The two methods are top climbing and bottom climbing. So
at the beginning of each job, or when you're going
to get a job, I guess you have to determine
if you're a top or a bottom, and for top climbing,
it really helps. I got to say to look at
a video like Dave sent us these video demos. We're
going to do our best to describe this stuff. If
(29:15):
you happen to be at home or a safe place
when you're not driving your car, you know, give yourself
thirty seconds and check it out.
Speaker 1 (29:21):
I found a good one for top climbing search Stafford
Soima soo Ima, okay. And then for bottom climbing, Hans
Leber's company has a great video on it too.
Speaker 3 (29:35):
I love these guys.
Speaker 2 (29:35):
Hopefully this is going to blow up Andy and be like, man,
where are we getting all these views from.
Speaker 1 (29:39):
We've gotten one hundred views in the last six months.
Speaker 2 (29:41):
Now, yeah, I hope that doesn't mean like we should
invest in buying more cranes because of all the interest.
Speaker 1 (29:49):
Hey, that's on them if they miousread the market that badly.
Speaker 2 (29:52):
All right, So the climbing frame is what is necessary
to build a top climbing crane. The climb frame is
three sided. It's got you know, three sides and then
one open side, and it's built around the base of
the mast kind of like Dave describe it as like
a cage that's a little wider than the mass, so
it can slide up and down on the outside, which
(30:13):
makes a lot of sense.
Speaker 1 (30:14):
You know those construction elevators that they have on construction
sites that are essentially that that people like used to
get up. Imagine that. But there's no place for you
to stand because it's the mast of the crane is
going through it. Yeah, that's a much more convoluted way
to think of it.
Speaker 3 (30:31):
I like to think, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2 (30:34):
The cool thing about this climbing frame is it is
equipped with these hydraulic jacks. So what it does is
it they have all these you know, trusses in a
very straight line, because while you're doing this, that jib
arm has to stay completely straight and still or I'm sorry, yeah,
that long arm. You don't want it moving around, and
you'll see why in a second. So they line them
(30:54):
all up in a row, and that climbing frame goes
down and it picks up one of these trusses, or
you know, it doesn't pick it up. I imagine it
gets loaded in or whatever, and then these hydraulic jacks
push it up, you know, kind of you know, a
few feet at a time. Basically it's you know, decompressing
(31:15):
and compressing and inching this thing up and up and
up until it gets to the top of where you
need a new section, and then they slide it in
and attach it. But the frightening part is all of
this is done like this thing has to be unbolted
another to bolt in order to bolt the new section on.
(31:35):
So there's a very tenuous time where everything has just
got to be perfectly imbalanced while they unbolt this thing.
Speaker 1 (31:41):
Yeah, and what's scary is at that most tenuous time,
that's when the crane is lifting the next mass section
up so that it can be slid into that open
fourth wall of the climbing frame.
Speaker 2 (31:54):
It's yeah, really, and the drivers, the operators even out
because they don't even want anyone in the cab moving
around like you know, with diarrhea.
Speaker 1 (32:03):
Right. But no, I saw in one video that the
the crane had to have the operator in there to
lift up the east each mass section.
Speaker 2 (32:12):
Well, I saw that a lot of times they're not
in there. So some may be self operational and some
may require just a very steady h you know, someone
on some emodium maintaince.
Speaker 1 (32:22):
I mean, yeah, no, that makes sense that there wouldn't
be any in there because it's it's very dangerous because
the only thing connecting the entire top part of the crane,
which is already built to the bottom of the mast,
is that climbing frame at those points when they're starting
to move a new section in. But when you do this,
you can do this up till what was it about,
you know, four hundred feet where the whole thing tops out, Like, yeah,
(32:44):
that's I can't imagine seeing something like that, let alone
working on it, because I don't know if you said
on that climbing frame, there's some dudes being gender neutral
here riding that thing, like you're a dude if you
are still making giant pins into the mass frame sections
to erect a giant, a giant tower crane. That's just
(33:09):
the kind of personality it takes, I think.
Speaker 2 (33:12):
Yeah, And I had always assumed these were telescoping like
a fire truck ladder.
Speaker 3 (33:19):
Nope.
Speaker 2 (33:20):
I thought it was just some huge unit on the
ground that could just telescope up to four hundred feet.
The fact that this is how it's done is remarkable.
Speaker 1 (33:27):
Yeah, So you can almost imagine the climbing frame is
like a giant speculum that separates the top of the
tower crane from the bottom, and you insert another section
and then it does it again.
Speaker 2 (33:40):
All right, you explained the bottom because I got it
and I saw the video, but I had a couple
of questions.
Speaker 1 (33:47):
Oh okay, all right, So bottom climbing you do the
opposite with the top climbing. You're adding the new sections
at the top. At the bottom. You build the crane
like any other tower cran to start up to two hundred,
three hundred feet whatever, and you use it like normal.
But the difference is with the bottom climbing crane, you
(34:08):
build the building around the crane.
Speaker 3 (34:12):
With the top climbing inside the building exactly.
Speaker 1 (34:14):
Top climbing is outside of the building. It stays outside
of the building the whole time. Bottom climbing, you build
the building around the crane, and eventually, as the building
gets tall enough, it starts to serve as the support
structure for the crane, because eventually you have to decouple
the crane from the foundation that was poured for it,
like any other crane, and there's a jack that climbs up.
(34:39):
These climbing rails essentially two ladders that are on the
outside of the crane. Itself, and it pushes the crane
up little by little, usually about three stories at a time.
And so now the crane has lost its bottom section
because the bottom section is now three stories above it,
and the top three stories is now unsecured to the
(35:01):
next top three stories of the building. So they then
secure that to the building with callers, and then they
disassemble everything below it and build the building out around
the shaft where the crane used to be. They fill
it in as the crane just moves higher and higher
and higher. And with this method you can build as
(35:21):
tall a building as physics will allow, because the crane
grows upward with the building as the building grows upward.
Speaker 2 (35:28):
Yeah, it's amazing, and I guess i'd answer my question.
My question was sort of if you need that kind
of foundation for a freestanding outside, like is being attached
to the building enough And I guess it is.
Speaker 1 (35:42):
Yeah, yeah, yes, for sure. And I think it's like
special parts of the building. It's not like they attach
it to like studs and drywall or something like that.
Like I think the building is designed to accommodate this pain.
Speaker 3 (35:54):
Also, yeah, I think that more than answer my question.
Speaker 1 (35:58):
Yes, but those are the two ways that you can
raise a crane, and they're both spectacular in their in
their ingeniousness.
Speaker 2 (36:04):
All right, so that's how they're built. Bottom up or
top down, not top down.
Speaker 3 (36:10):
How do we say.
Speaker 1 (36:12):
Either one? I think bottom climbing or top climbing.
Speaker 3 (36:15):
You mean, I guess.
Speaker 2 (36:16):
So those are the giant tower cranes. We mentioned that
luffing crane at the beginning. This is a This is
when you don't have a ton of space, and I
saw a video where it showed, especially when there's multiple
cranes on a job swinging around. Yeah, you got to
think about the fact that, like if you're swinging something
three hundred feet, everything has got to be out of
the way of that swing as well. So when you
(36:38):
have tighter spaces, you might want a luffing jib arm.
And that is when the horizontal arm actually raises and lowers.
So instead of having that that block and hook going
you know, up and down on with a pulley, it's
just sort of there and the action of lifting that
arm up and down is what brings the the thing
(36:58):
on the hook closer further away.
Speaker 1 (37:01):
Yeah, if you've ever seen like one of those wrecking
balls that they use that's attached to a luffing crane.
Speaker 3 (37:07):
Typically, sure, what about self erectors?
Speaker 1 (37:12):
These are pretty neat. They usually show up on the
back of like a truck, and the truck puts down
some feet for stabilization and probably lifts the truck off
of the ground and a crane just kind of pops out.
It folds out. Telescope, it's that telescoping effect that you
were You thought the original tower cranes were doing this essentially.
Speaker 3 (37:33):
Does this is a folding.
Speaker 1 (37:35):
It's not telescoping, okay, but it's it's folded up in itself.
It's all there and it unfurls. I guess is what
I'm after here.
Speaker 3 (37:43):
Yeah, I just want to make sure you knew what
telescoping meant.
Speaker 1 (37:46):
I learned what telescoping means and slewing thanks to you
in this one episode.
Speaker 3 (37:51):
That's right.
Speaker 2 (37:52):
These thing's just unfold into the sky and it's a
really also some really cool videos you can watch.
Speaker 3 (37:57):
Yeah, should we take another break?
Speaker 1 (38:00):
Well, before we do, I want to take another crackhet
explaining bottom climbing.
Speaker 3 (38:05):
We'll be right back, all right.
Speaker 2 (38:33):
We talked a little bit about the operator, but there
are all kinds of a team of people that work
with these cranes. Obviously, in the US there's a certifying
body called the n c c c O National Commission
for the Certification of Crane Operators, and so that's that's
the big job. That's the most experienced person. They have
(38:56):
worked on all these other jobs that we're about to
talk about for years and years before they get to
be the crane operator. And I was curious what kind
of money they made. And it's all over the map
if you look on the internet, because it seems like
it's just kind of hard to find that stuff out.
But I did see that in the southeastern United States,
like ninety thousand dollars puts you at about the seventy
(39:17):
fifth percentile. I also saw on Reddit, like my friend
os this in New York kind of thing. Yeah, but
apparently this people on Reddit are saying, in New York City,
you can make you know, two to three to four
hundred thousand dollars as like one of the top two
or three earners in New York, which, as I imagine,
the top of the game in the world.
Speaker 1 (39:38):
Yeah. No, I totally believe that, like you're so in
demand that you have nothing to do with raising the
crane or taking it down. You're there as long as
they need a person to operate the crane for the job.
And then once that's done, they move you over. Somebody
hires you on another job site, like you are untouchable
(39:58):
as far as like the the job site's concerned.
Speaker 2 (40:01):
Yeah, And in the interview, their first question is how
much fiber do you include in your diet?
Speaker 1 (40:08):
So then there's a lift director. That's somebody who basically
manages the lifting that goes on. If it's a heavy
load or any kind of unique or dangerous load, they're
supposed to formulate a plan for it of how it's
going to be lifted, where it's going to go, what
direction it's going to follow, all that stuff, and they
essentially are just kind of running the show on the ground.
(40:29):
I believe they're usually the one.
Speaker 3 (40:31):
No.
Speaker 1 (40:32):
I was going to say they're the one that the
crane operator's probably in touch with, but I believe that's
the signal person instead.
Speaker 2 (40:39):
That's right, And the signal person is doing just what
you think. They're on the radio and constant communication, but
they're also doing hand signals, not just on that CB
radio or whatever. They use walkie talkies and there are
times when that crane operator is working blind and they
don't have sight of what they're doing, and that's when
(40:59):
that signal person and really everyone working together is so key.
Speaker 1 (41:04):
Yeah, that's the person who communicates to the crane operator
that the people on the ground want them to toot
their horn, right, and they use that same pull down
motion that you use for big rig truckers.
Speaker 2 (41:13):
Right, or it gets the message that I have to
go potty, so let's shut everything down for forty minutes.
Speaker 1 (41:18):
That's the international squeeze your knees together and hold your
crotch signal.
Speaker 2 (41:23):
Uh, did you go over their rigor no? Okay, Now
that is the person who was preparing the load attaching
it to the crane hook. Obviously that load on the ground,
it's not just like, you know, just attach it there
and I'm sure it's fine. Like everything has to be
so buttoned up, like nothing can be loose or falling
off of that thing, Like it's got to be a
(41:44):
very nicely wrapped Christmas present.
Speaker 3 (41:47):
Yes.
Speaker 1 (41:48):
So, depending on where you're working, there are sixteen states
and seven cities that require you to have a license.
That's it. Everywhere else there's state or the city does
not require you to have any sort of formal training whatsoever.
The thing is, the NCCCO offers certification too, which is
(42:10):
usually voluntary. But I get the impression that if you
want to be one of those higher end crane operators,
you would be certified for that job multiple times over,
and not only just to kind of enhance your desirability
as an employee, but also wow, I put that as
like the HR person and to all HR people, but
(42:32):
also like some job sites might require you to have
at least a certification, if not a license, and it
might not even be the job site. It might be
their insurres, Like nobody's gonna be like, hey, you come
over here and operate this crane, Like you're gonna have
to have tons of experience and probably some sort of
paperwork to back that experience up. But I find it
shocking and alarming that plenty of states don't require the
(42:55):
person who's four hundred feet in the air lifting two
hundred tons to have some sort of formal training.
Speaker 3 (43:02):
For that totally it is. It shocked me as well.
Speaker 2 (43:05):
Yeah, these things are expensive to rent, you're you know,
obviously it's a cost a lot of money to build one,
but they get that money back. Because Dave just looked
up just sort of an average rental a flat top
tower crane within just an eighty eight thousand pound capacity lift,
(43:25):
which is I don't know how many babos that is,
but it's nowhere close to what I said earlier.
Speaker 1 (43:29):
It's forty four tons.
Speaker 2 (43:31):
A two hundred and sixty two foot jib arm, so
about you know, a little more than half of sort
of the maximum that that sucker is thirty five thousand
dollars a month. Yeah, the cheapest is thirty six hundred,
and that's for the one you bring on the truck.
Speaker 1 (43:48):
Yeah, and a lot of those rental prices will include
putting the thing together over the course of four or
five days and taking it down too, and maybe even
a skilled crane operator depending, So you can imagine that
these things are actually fairly dangerous. Safety is far and
away like the number one concern for any crane operator.
(44:09):
Every single interview I've read with a crane operator, they
all were like, it's all about safety essentially, Like, yes,
you're really important on the job site, but if it's
not safe, you don't do it, Like you just don't.
I mean, you're lifting heavy loads, you're swinging them through
the air, you can drop them. There's all sorts of
stuff that can happen. And yes, wind is a big one,
(44:30):
as we'll see, but they've kind of figured that out.
But just the fact that there's that you have these
huge loads high up in the air. When they get
dropped or when something goes wrong, people can die, and
I mean it does happen. I remember this past July
in Manhattan, the entire jib arm of a crane fell down.
(44:52):
I think, I don't remember how many stories, but it
was significant. I actually I think it did kill one
person who was in a nearby apartment building, Like some
of the debris like crashed through their window and killed them,
I think. But they were the only person who died
out of this, A sixteen ton load in a jib
arm crashing to the ground in Manhattan in the middle
of a day.
Speaker 3 (45:13):
That one caught on fire, didn't it.
Speaker 1 (45:14):
Yeah, there was a fire in the hoist unit for
some reason. I couldn't figure out what caused it.
Speaker 3 (45:21):
That's a lot that no one was killed. I mean that.
Speaker 2 (45:25):
I remember when that happened too, and I was just like,
how can that happen? In New York City and not
kill like twelve people below at least, you know.
Speaker 1 (45:32):
Yeah, apparently another real danger chuck is hitting power lines.
Speaker 3 (45:36):
Yeah, because people.
Speaker 1 (45:37):
Will walk like they'll walk like a load you know,
along to stabilize it, say, like a bunch of pipes,
and that pipe is connected via metal cable to the crane.
And if the crane came in contact with a thirteen
thousand volt power line, whoever's got their hand on that
load of pipes is it will be electrocuted. And it
(45:58):
happens like a lot, Like not a lot, It happens frequently,
to an alarming degree.
Speaker 2 (46:04):
How about that, Well, they found some stats and what
he got was from twenty eleven to twenty seventeen, over
that seven years, they averaged forty two crane related deaths
per year. That's not insignificant, you know, forty two per year.
And I think half of those were things falling on people.
(46:24):
Not all of them were tower cranes. It's kind of
all cranes basically lumped together. But yeah, sometimes they're taking
it apart and it falls apart on them. It seems
like there's a lot of crushing death with it, which
is just you know, unfathomable.
Speaker 1 (46:40):
Yeah, people have gotten caught in the climbing cage, caught
between that and the frame of the mast. There was
one guy who was taking a part a crane and
he was on the forty fifth story and that platform
that he was on outside the crane removing pins didn't
have a railing. It didn't have a railing, and it
(47:01):
shifted and he fell forty five stories because it didn't
have a railing. Wow. I just couldn't believe it. When
I read like the Oshra report, I'm just like, oh
my god, that's insanely nuts. But yeah, so safety is
extraordinarily important. You can see and I said, I tease something,
(47:22):
Chuck that I think you should take us home with that.
They figured out what to do in high winds.
Speaker 2 (47:27):
Yeah, you know what you do in high winds is
you unbolt that thing and let it spin with the wind.
Obviously you've got the reel all the way reeled in
and it's not like swinging anything around. But when if
you see and heavy winds a horizontal arm moving, that's
what it's supposed to do. Because they have learned that
(47:48):
if that thing is bolted down, that puts the entire
thing at risk, whereas if you just let it move
with the wind and obviously out of the way of
hitting anything, then that's the way to go.
Speaker 1 (47:59):
Yeah, and I read an interview with a crane operator
who had to ride out a storm once because it
was too dangerous to make the ten minute climb down,
so you had to sit there in the cab and
just get pushed around by the wind, letting it a
weather vane.
Speaker 3 (48:13):
And I'm not even going to make a poop joke. There.
Speaker 1 (48:16):
You got anything else?
Speaker 3 (48:17):
I got nothing else.
Speaker 1 (48:19):
This was robust. Thanks for doing it with me. This
was fun. Thanks for being the top or the bottom
to this crane episode, Chuck, Hey, anytime if you want
to know more about cranes. Apparently there's a Housetiff Works
article on it by Marshall Brain. And there's plenty of
other interesting stuff too, including really mesmerizing CGI videos of
(48:39):
cranes building themselves magically. And since I said that it's
time for listener mail.
Speaker 3 (48:48):
All right, I'm going to call this.
Speaker 2 (48:52):
Well, I'm going to call it sits scuba related. This
is kind of very poignant email. Hey, guys, been listening
for a long time. I learned to scuba with my
brother and dad when I was fourteen, back in nineteen
eighty nine, the moment we took our first breaths underwater,
we were hooked along. Aside from a long hiatus, I've
been an avid diver ever since. Many of my best
(49:12):
memories were created on dive trips with my brother and dad. Tragically,
we lost my brother to suicide last year after a
decade's long battle with mental illness, and I just wanted
to take a moment to commend you and your team
for your sympathy and in dexterity with which you handle
mental illness on your show. Know that the links in
which you go to assure you were using the most
(49:34):
compassionate language to discuss mental illness and other touchy subjects
does not go unnoticed and is greatly appreciated. But to
be clear, so are the moments you choose to essue
the acceptable standards for a moment to make a joke, Chuck,
this is for you by all means. Please get scuba
certified with your daughter and your wife if she's interested.
I have so many crystal clear, fantastic memories with my
(49:57):
dad and my brother diving. You can't make a child's
any more awesome than by taking them to visit another planet.
Lifetime memories are made by the moment. It's a magical pursuit.
Speaker 3 (50:07):
Do it.
Speaker 2 (50:08):
My brother used to say diving is easy to do
and difficult to master.
Speaker 3 (50:11):
So true.
Speaker 2 (50:12):
He was my friend, my die buddy, and my hero
and I miss him like crazy. He sure would have
loved the Scoob episode. And that is from Dan Man.
Speaker 1 (50:23):
Dan, thank you for writing in about that. That was
really amazing stuff. I'm sorry about your brother.
Speaker 3 (50:29):
Same.
Speaker 1 (50:31):
If you want to be like Dan and write us
just a masterful, amazing, heartfelt email, we'd love those things.
You can address it directly to us at stuff Podcasts
at iHeartRadio dot com.
Speaker 3 (50:48):
Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For
more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
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