Overheard a safety guy say crane operators skip their daily wire rope inspections

Was grabbing coffee at the shop in Tulsa last Tuesday and heard one of the safety coordinators telling the foreman that like 40% of operators don't actually walk the rope before first lift. Made me think, I used to just eyeball it from the cab too. Now I actually get out and run my glove along the full length, takes maybe 3 extra minutes. Found a kinked spot near the drum on a Grove RT530E last month that would have snapped by lunch. Anyone else ever caught something bad during a walk-around that you would have missed from the seat?

3 comments

3 Comments

charles_baker2812d ago

Nah, I gotta call this out. You've had good luck, sure, but luck ain't a safety system - one missed internal break because you stayed in the cab and it's a bad day for everyone on site. Skipping a five minute walk to save time is just rolling the dice, and in crane work that's never a good bet.

olivermason12d ago

Damn, that's a solid point avery_flores made. I get what you're saying about the cab view catching the big stuff, but I think you might be underselling the glove trick a little. Running your hand along the rope isn't just about finding kinks, it's about feeling for that weird flat spot or a single broken wire that's sticking up. I had one on a 7x19 that looked totally fine from 50 feet, but that little wire was like a needle poking through. That kind of junk can slice your hand open or snap and whip around, and you'd never see it from the seat. It's like trusting the oil pressure gauge instead of actually checking the dipstick, both are good but one tells you a lot more about what's really going on.

avery_flores12d ago

Respectfully, I see it a little different. In twenty years of running cranes I've had better luck with a quick cab inspection than walking the whole rope. The glove trick can miss internal corrosion or broken strands hiding inside a valley. A good visual from the cab catches the obvious stuff like birdcaging or heavy abrasion, and that covers 90 percent of what's going to fail in a shift. Walking every foot of a 200 foot boom might make you feel good but it doesn't guarantee you caught everything either. Just my two cents from the seat.