Amsteel Crane Slings

[SeanKroll]

quite possibly.

the guy who showed me was in his 60's. When he was 19, in Oregon, he said they had to notch one log to fit the bunks of the truck. 1 1/8" chokers. 3" mainline, IIRC. One season of high lead logging big trees, then came back here to more sensible, dangerous logging a while.

 

[Tree09]

That would be cool to see!!!

 

[squisher]

We always called it a bridle up here, what Sean described. For some reason I always thought of it as bridal until I read Sean type it otherwise. I guess in my mind it was because you marry two chokers together.


Yah kink, not kind. Lol.

 

[Tree09]

Yeah Sean has the proper spelling. Lately I'm finding lots of things that are called by different names in different rigging disciplines and professions, this is probably another one... we use the bridle slings I'm talking about for pulling ditch boxes, and lifting stuff that is set up specifically for using bridle slings. They usually have a hook on the end of each sling do you can quickly attach to rigging eyes, although the larger ones sometimes just use a shackle. I used one made from 2 chain slings when fabbing pipe all the time, because you have a single choker, a double choker, a handy spot to hang a come along to lift angle pieces, and the hooks allowed you to pick up a flange that was laying on the floor or table, all without changing rigging.

 

[pantheraba]

???

 

[Tree09]

Exactly

 

[pantheraba]

Can you splice some tenex into a circle and basket hitch that to a bumper/truck pull point...and the excavator hooks into that soft splice?

Or I guess you need your own bridle made up and ready to use so the excavator cowboys don't mess up your not new truck....

 

[Tree09]

I have 2 pull points, and because it's on the stock bumper, i think i should be using both. So that's why i was going to take the time to splice a bridle. Usually the excavator teeth are quite jagged, so i was gonna use a master link for them to hook to, either by just slipping a tooth in it or using company rigging at that point. Steel will be best for hooking to a machine i think. I will likely be super buried in mud, and it's not unheard of to have a dozer or excavator for each welding rig to basically drag them down the row

I've come to love master links, and reach for them quite often. Hands down they are the best for grouping a bunch of rigging points together and clipping into a crane hook, and using one as the main tie in point, you can run a short strap to another one to hook to the crane hook if you have to transfer the load, which is common enough in complicated construction rigging. It's basically a rigging plate or ring for industrial rigging. You use the crane to fly whatever up to an opening in the building, and then transfer the load to a chain fall rigged to an i beam, then drift it into the building using another fall. We even built a 4x4x4 box just for this task, and would fly all sorts of tools up to whatever floor we needed. The pipe fabs are flown in the same way, as is the cutting torches, purging and welding gases, welding machines, etc.

 

[sotc]

Where I logged a bridle and a swede were the same thing

 

[Tree09]

always learning here

 

[Stumpshot]

We had to pull the log truck (60,000 GVW) back onto the road with the chip truck (30,000 GVW) this past week due to the snowmelt making things mucky on a slight incline -- barely able to call it a "hill." We used chains + an Amsteel sling, did just dandy. Done the opposite in the past -- pulled out the chip truck with the log truck using a 3/4" bull rope (double bowlined to the front towing hook).

 

[chris_girard]

always learning here

Yup, good stuff.

 

[Stumpshot]

Well, yesterday we picked up a massive root ball from an oak stump with our grapple truck. We used 2 slings to basket it and just barely were able to pick it up and crane it onto the truck. So in a low risk situation we proved to ourselves that the weight rating on the American Riggers slings is accurate -- greater than 10,000 lb. working load, max for our truck. Stronger than our grapple crane itself, so as long as the slings are inspected and remain in good shape, we can trust them to the limit of our equipment.

 

[stig]

That is always good to know.

 

[Tree09]

Rigging slings are rated 5x what they break at. It's incredibly wise to never exceed what they set as their safety rating.

 

[Stumpshot]

Is that 5x figure well documented? I would have assumed 1.5 to 2x the labeled rating, but that's a bit much more than I would have expected. For sure you can't afford a failure when craning over property -- buildings, cars, etc. Last week we craned a walnut log over a garage end of a house. Our 50' reach is pretty limiting, but with our knuckling capability, we were able to match the roofline and telescope out as far as possible, then reach the log with a sling and chains. Heaviest things we've lifted have been the chipper (8,000 lb.), a solid plate steel welding table (10,000 lb.) and now this stump/rootball (10-12,000 lb.). Larger items have required chains, as we don't have Amsteel slings sufficiently large for those big items.

 

[squisher]

I'm sure Kyle will answer. But I highly doubt crane hardware has only a 1.5 to 2 time safety factor. Five to one seemed possibly low to me?

 

[MasterBlaster]

I thought it was more like 10...

 

[squisher]

Then the breaking strength decreases with use and abuse right. Cycles to failure. The harder it's used the more strength it looses or less cycles before failure.

 

[sotc]

I think it is 5 times

 

[treebilly]

I believe you’re right. 5X for rigging

 

[SeanKroll]

I've always heard 10:1 for textiles, 5:1 for hardware.

Besides that, I don't think Kyle speaks tech-spec stuff from the lower end.

 

[Marc-Antoine]

In industrial supply, I saw some gear with a double rating. One wll for pulling, one for lifting. With a bit of math, that gives a safety factor of 4 for pulling and 5 for lifting. But that's for hardware.

what puzzled a while is the tree cabling ropes. The rating is very different than our other ropes for the same diameter. That's because the safety factor is only 2 !

 

[Tree09]

Rigging for industrial applications is 5 to 1 (aka crane slings, straps, beam clamps, chain falls, come alongs, etc). Rigging for life support is 10 to 1, i think logging is 3 to one, as is rigging for equipment tie downs. These are osha mandated safety ratings, and damaged rigging must be removed from service. As far as chain goes, grade 100 or higher is needed for overhead lifting, such as crane service. 70 is usually for equipment tie down, and you cannot use it for crane rigging. The standards to which it is built is different, and that's why.

If you have multiple slings, you have to take in to consideration the sling angle and attachment. A choker is i believe 60 percent of a straight pull, a basket is double.

 

[Stumpshot]

Lost a sling today -- or rather, decided on early retirement. It had a nick in it and a few pulled fibers. Time for another one or two new ones to ring in the new year. Besides, we need a choker with more length to go around the circumference of some of these trees we've been facing lately. Today's big hackberry we had to bore cut with a 36" bar on the 395 -- close to 5' dia. at the stump cut.