Shoutout to the guy in Gary who told me to stop booming down so fast

I ran a rough terrain crane on a school job in Gary for about 4 months. Coming down, I used to bring the boom in at full stick because it felt quicker. An operator with 30 years on me pulled me aside and said I was whipping the load. I watched him run a load of rebar and he inched the boom in slow while keeping the swing brake half on, and the load sat dead still the whole way down. I tried it his way and shaved real time off the landing because I wasn't fighting the bounce or waiting for the sway to settle. My hoist brake pads also stopped wearing so uneven, which I noticed when I finally pulled them. Took me about 2 shifts to retrain my hands but it stuck. What tricks do you all use to keep a load steady when you're booming down on a tight pour?

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parker_jones5018d ago

Pulling the boom in at full stick isn't really what whips the load, it's the swing and the stop that get you. Any boom move makes the load swing out from the tip, so the fix is keeping the swing brake half on and easing the boom so the load never gets ahead of you. Sounds like that old hand was really teaching you to slow the stop, not the stick.

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