How the hell did the first guy climb up that beam?

Talk about gigantic balls! No F'n way could I ever do that, nope!

Started to watch and then simply couldn't go on. I get extreme vertigo and this flick was churning my stomach from the get go.

My knees start getting shaky climbing up my 22' extension ladder! NOPE!

For those who don't know they wire spool they are tied off to works off of inertia. You can move around slowly and the cable moves in and out freely but if you fall it locks up. They use the same thing at rock climbing centers if you don't have a partner to climb with.

quote:

Originally posted by MikeinNC:
what are they tied off to?? looks like a small steel cable that is under a tension...kinda like a janitors keys?

That first guy climbed up and took his chain off the beam...then hung on with one arm while he wiped the bottom of his shoe. No thanks...

Nope. I was thinking, well I could be the crane operator....until I saw the ladder they climb up to the crane. Hell no. I think I could be a pilot before doing any of this high rise work.

I've driven past this site on Arch Street lots of times. Never heard any reports of dropped tools or bolts. Or deaths.

Ever work with concrete? The basement floor I yanked out of my home averaged 2" thick, and I put back nearly 4" across compacted gravel. The "basement floor" of the new Comcast building is TEN FEET thick. Fourteen million pounds of concrete. In addition, naturally, to columns down to bedrock.

a career highlight for Andrew Blasetti, 32, Angela Heinze, also 32, Lou Ross, 26, and Stephen Kane, 25 ... the four engineers Thornton Tomasetti, one of the world's leading structural firms ... assigned to the tower's construction.

http://www.philly.com/philly/h...ers_on_the_rise.html

Maybe with a wingsuit and a parachute.

Nope...not even then.

Back in the day, I think most such workers came from a particular tribe of Native Americans--Navajo?

flashguy

Further news about the job - they do have some kind of fall arrestors. Can’t work without one now days. I think too the contractor has to put up catch netting as every two stories go up. The farthest you might fall, if the arrest or fails, is two stories into netting. In the past (my Dad retired around 2000) they didn’t have arrestors or nets.

As far as climbing the column, it involves toes against one inside flange of the steel I beam and fingers pulling against the opposite inside flange. Dad could climb one of those faster than I could climb a ladder the same height.

He was 6’ of muscle.

As far as dropping things, when you heard “HEADS UP!” you didn’t stand there looking at the sky, you ran for cover. Things did get dropped and everyone (that had any sense) wore a hard hat the whole time they were on the job.

I think most of Dads career was without arrestors and most jobs probably didn’t have nets.

I wonder how much those guys get paid?

quote:

Originally posted by Scoutmaster:
I wonder how much those guys get paid?

Not enough! You could not pay me enough to get me to do that.

flashguy

Grandad did that back in the day in Chicago after he got out of the service. I still have the pocket watch that the owners of the boarding house he lived at gave him when he quit and moved back home.

He claimed that after the third floor or so you didn't really notice the increasing height... No tether in his day, and no bolts. Hot rivets, heated in a forge and tossed to the guys setting them.

One day he saw a man slip and fall to his death. They got the rest of the day off, next morning business as usual.


Big ol' Nope...

quote:

Originally posted by flashguy:
Back in the day, I think most such workers came from a particular tribe of Native Americans--Navajo?

flashguy

I believe mostly from Native American Tribes in the North East.

I did some fabrication, punching holes and slots and, a lot of priming and painting of structural steel. I could move the beams and plates about with a over head gantry throughout the shop, load them on flat beds. I would never go up in the air like that. Hell no! I saw a old black and white photo from the early years and a line of these guys were sitting way up and out there, on a beam, eating their lunch.

They earn their pay as far as I'm concerned. I'm glad I'm not the only one who wouldn't be able to do that. Actually, I know I could do it; it'll just take me 30 minutes to move an inch along the beam. Maybe. Nah, I'll just freeze there in place.

quote:

Originally posted by Rey HRH:
They earn their pay as far as I'm concerned. I'm glad I'm not the only one who wouldn't be able to do that. Actually, I know I could do it; it'll just take me 30 minutes to move an inch along the beam. Maybe. Nah, I'll just freeze there in place.

Is that 30 minutes before or after you get dizzy/chuck your cookies?

That is something I would like to say I have done, like climbing the face of Half Dome or El Cap. But I would never really do it.

Mohawks.

http://www.whitewolfpack.com/2...anhattan-photos.html

quote:

Originally posted by Scoutmaster:

quote:

Originally posted by Rey HRH:
They earn their pay as far as I'm concerned. I'm glad I'm not the only one who wouldn't be able to do that. Actually, I know I could do it; it'll just take me 30 minutes to move an inch along the beam. Maybe. Nah, I'll just freeze there in place.

Is that 30 minutes before or after you get dizzy/chuck your cookies?

That is something I would like to say I have done, like climbing the face of Half Dome or El Cap. But I would never really do it.

Okay, I have to tell you this story. When I was a young apprentice in the shipyard, I got tasked with stringin electrical cable across the inside of a large hangar building. It involved climbing up and down a ladder. I got partnered with a guy just coming off "medical leave" for about a year. I have that in quotes if you know what I mean and what kind of person we're talking about.

I was supposed to do the work and he was just there to spot me. way before the half way point, he said, "Dang, let me do it." I was going so slow up and down the rickety ladder for him.