I guess the points I was trying to make were this:
1. I know nothing of cranes and tree work, so therefore please ignore everything I say. I'm only saying this because I like you, and I'm repeating what I've been taught by people who actually know rigging and cranes. Several operators with decades of seat time running heavy lift crawler lattice booms, to decades of hydraulic crane operation. Riggers that are actually being asked by the international union to write training books on rigging. And other guys with decades of experience building large powerplants, foreman of rigging crews where tuggers are used to make cranes from the building frame to lift and drift pipes weighing tens of thousands of pounds. None of this is my info, this is what they made me learn.
2. The weight of the rigging has to be subtracted from the capacity. If the chart says you are good for 3000, but you have a 400 headache ball and 100 pounds of chain hanging, you can only lift 2500.
3. Making picks at 75% capacity or more is considered a critical lift. In construction, you cannot even attempt a critical lift without having a written pick plan, oftentimes reviewed by an engineer. Now tree work is obviously different, but picking that much is literally living on the edge. If anything goes wrong whatsoever, the crane is likely to tip or damage itself. If an outrigger has settled slightly or bleed down, if you aren't perfectly level, if the gibs are worn past spec (allowing the boom to deflect more than the angle finder is reading), if the slew bearing is showing its age, etc, you are in the red. Will the crane fail on that pick, probably no. But crane work is if you mess up once in 40 years you are remembered as that guy (hopefully still around). I guess what I'm trying to say is that per my experience and training, cranes are not meant to be pushed that far. Stay at 50%, make a few more picks, everything will last longer and be safer.
4. If you ever see a construction job where they are building a new building, and are setting steel (I beams, structural fabrications, etc), most times you will see them using an old school lattice boom crane. Sometimes it's for the reach, sometimes it's for pile driving or setting precast concrete sections, but usually it's there because setting steel is considered "duty cycle" work. They are setting one beam after another, all day, and production is a factor in everyone's mind (this is what tree work is like in my mind). This all day repetitive use is very hard on crane itself, so much so that it is worth it to them to bring another hydraulic crane out there to set up the lattice boom, and the associated trucking costs (multiple semi loads). The lattice boom is superior to the hydraulic crane in every way expect mobility and the ability to boom in or out for very tight spots (that should never happen in regular use, booming in or out under load is very hard on the gibs). Even though the sections of I beam are wayyyyyyyyyy under the capacity of the crane, the speed in which they are moved and the continuous movement makes it worthwhile to spend the time and money to set up a crane that can handle the abuse. Obviously a lattice boom is useless for tree work, but the duty cycle factor is enough reason alone to ease up on the pick size.
5. One more time, I know nothing of cranes and trees, but in good conscience I felt compelled to say something. If I was doing something you thought might be getting dangerous, I hope you would say something too. I could be, and probably am, overthinking this, but I feel better about it now lol. I like you, I wish you the best success, I only was speaking up because I want you to succeed and go home at the end of the day.
