That time a boom truck operator saved my day on the Columbia River

I was working a job near Portland on the Willamette last spring, clearing out a silted-up marina channel. Had this nasty patch of clay and old tires that kept clogging my cutterhead every 20 minutes. I was about to pull the rig and go complain to the foreman about the site conditions. But the old boom truck guy who was feeding me pipe just said "try swapping to the wider tooth pattern you used on that gravel job upriver." I thought he was nuts but I gave it a shot. The clay dropped off way cleaner and I ran 6 hours without a single plug. Now I always ask the support crew what they see from the bank before I change anything. Anybody else ever had a tip from a deckhand or crane operator that totally changed how you run?

3 comments

3 Comments

henryp401mo ago

Slow down your swing? That's like telling a race car driver to take it easy coming out of the pits. I get that it works for some guys, but honestly, most of the time if your bucket is dumping halfway through the swing, the problem isn't the speed, it's how you're loading it. You're probably scooping too deep or not letting the material settle before you lift. Changing swing speed just covers up bad technique.

tara6421mo ago

My buddy Dave runs a boom truck on the Snake River and he saved my butt once too. I was digging in this weird sandy clay mix that kept sliding back into the trench as fast as I could pull it out. He just yelled down that I needed to slow my swing speed and let the bucket fill slower, like half full instead of full. I thought he was talking down to me but I tried it and the walls stopped caving in. Now I swear by watching what the guys on the bank see before I change my technique.

david_jones381mo ago

That thing about slowing down the swing speed really hit home for me. I was on a job up near the Dalles where we were pulling old concrete chunks out of a slough, and I was just ripping through the swing cycle as fast as I could. The crane guy kept waving at me to slow it down, and I swear I almost ignored him. Finally I dropped the swing speed by half and let the bucket just barely scrape the bottom, and the chunks stayed in the bucket instead of falling out halfway through the swing. It was like magic how much smoother the whole cycle got after that.