Masonry Magazine June 1983 Page. 6
SELF-ERECTING CRANES
The self-erecting crane made a big believer recently out of Regina Construction Corp., Alexandria, Va. Warren DiLandro, general superintendent, said that at first glance his firm "could not conceive" using any kind of crane whatsoever on a power plant project in Virginia because of confined space and overhead obstructions. These obstacles, however, were easily overcome with the self-erecting crane because of its compactness and ease of erection.
Another contractor in Portland, Ore., Moran Construction Co., discovered that the new self-erecting crane stopped a lot of eyes-but not traffic. The company had the job of building a six-story bank/office building on the busy corner of S.W. Yamhill and Front Sts. A mobile truck crane was ruled completely out of the picture because of the large amount of operating room it would require. So the versatile self-erecting tower crane the first to appear on the West Coast-got the assignment. It was able to set up on the sidewalk a mere 11 ft. 6 in. from the job, allowing traffic to flow freely and saving the contractor a significant amount in street rental fees alone.
Can Cover Entire Job Site
Another booster of the self-erecting tower crane is Butch Wagy, equipment supervisor for Hensel-Phelps Construction Co., Greeley, Colo. After giving the crane a chance to show its stuff on a hospital project, he was impressed. "This unit can cover the whole jobsite because of its capacity, which could not be done with a conventional truck crane," he said. "It's really a super crane and I'm quite impressed with it because it has helped to increase productivity tremendously."
Wagy added that the particular model he used on the hospital project had a 147 ft. jib and can lift 17,640 lbs. up close with two-part lines and 4,000 lbs. at the tip using an 82 ft. mast.
The FasTower self-erecting cranes are available in five models with lift capacities from 3,850 to 26,460 lbs. and horizontal reaches of 75 to 147 ft. Under-hook heights range from 66 to 164 ft. The units' telescoping design allows them to be transported on a tandem-axle trailer or permanently mounted on a self-contained truck.
According to Morrow, erecting the crane is so automatic it is largely a one-man operation. Erecting and hoisting controls are located at ground level, so there's no need to climb onto the tower to set up. It takes as little as two to three hours to make the smaller-capacity cranes fully operational; the three larger models can be readied in from four to eight hours.
Self-erecting cranes took on even greater depth recently with the addition of a crawler-mounted FasTower engineered to work where site conditions are poor. With crane and tower and jib retracted, the machine can take on 30-degree slopes head-on and 15-degree slopes sidehill.
Perhaps the most unique use of the self-erecting tower crane to date is not a construction application at all. Campbell GFRC Systems, Inc., Kent, Wash., is using a medium capacity crane to handle precast panels in its yard. Campbell originally had a 30-ton mobile crane on the job but it took up too much room and was somewhat clumsy when it came to lifting and placing panels. So the mobile unit was replaced with a self-erecting crane.
The company reports that the unit, with its 131 ft. jib, can service the whole yard and even load staged trucks outside the gates. The net result is that the crane has increased storage capacity by about a third and has upped panel handling efficiency by 50 percent.
Although a majority of the self-erecting tower cranes on the job today operate on outriggers, they are being used to great extent on rails. A retirement center project in Seattle utilized two self-erecting cranes mounted on rails that ran the length of the job. The cranes worked in unison to erect the multi-building complex.
A contractor in Florida first considered using two 155-ton crawler cranes on a hospital job. Instead, he decided to go with one FasTower mounted on rails. It's a classic case of one crane doing the work of two. The savings, according to the contractor, amounted to about $16,000 monthly in rental, fuel and crew costs. The contractor said that the crane's ability to travel and perform all lifting functions simultaneously allowed him to finish the job two months ahead of schedule.
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