Wrn 2014 06

June 2014www.wireropenews.com

The Royal Gorge BridgeNorth America’s Highest Suspension Bridge

story on page 8

Port of CharlestonA Rich Past and Successful Present

story on page 16

AdvertisersIndex

Page 75

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Wire Rope News & Sling Technology June 2014 7

Cover photo:Platform of wire rope bridge crossing Royal Gorge.See article, page 8.

Wire Rope Helps Create North America’s Highest Suspension Bridge .............................8

Once the single highest suspension bridge on Earth, The Royal Gorge Bridge remains a #1 tourist attraction and engineering marvel.By Peter Hildebrandt.

Port of Charleston Remains Viable andActive With Wire Rope’s Help .........................16

This busy port in the city of Charleston, South Carolina is keeping up with today’s continuing shipping demands.By Peter Hildebrandt.

Huge Crane and its Critical Wire Rope Workto Change One City’s Downtown .................24

A lattice boom crawler crane proves its mettle in the town of Rock Hill, SC.By Henry Vere.

Attitude Check: How To Turn NegativeWorkers Into Positive Performers .................38

How to handle employees that may have a tendency to create negative interactions with customers.By Phillip M. Perry.

June 23, 2014

Edward Bluvias, IIIPublisher & Editorial Director

Barbara SpencerContributing Editor/Suppliers Directory

Patricia BluviasCirculation Director

Don TywoniwProduction Manager/Co-Editor

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Vol. 35, No. 5

Contents

Features

Advertiser’s Index ..............................................79Steel Industry News ..........................................46The Inventor’s Corner ........................................60New Products ....................................................73People in the News ............................................78Classified ...........................................................80

Departments

of Wire Rope News

photograph courtesy of Royal Gorge Bridge & Park.

Wire Rope News & Sling Technology June 20148

Wire Rope Helps CreateNorth America’s Highest

Suspension Bridgeby Peter Hildebrandt

Perhaps somebody who visited Colorado’s Royal Gorge of the Arkansas back nearly 100 years ago, contemplating the idea of a bridge there, intoned the catch phrase many of us are so used to hearing nowadays: “If you build it, they will come.” *

The gorge may be narrow but it is also very deep – 1,000 feet to be exact. But what could be more

daring than proposing to build a sus-pension bridge at such a location? Ap-parently construction of a bridge tough enough and safe enough for both ve-hicles and pedestrians could be accom-plished with 1920’s technology.

What would result, was one for the record books, the highest single span suspension bridge on Earth, at least

until 2001 when one in China was built even higher. The Royal Gorge Bridge remains the highest suspension bridge in the United States. The recently-completed Baluarte Bridge in Duran-go, Mexico is the highest cable-stayed bridge in the Americas. Cable-stayed bridges are a bit different in design than suspension bridges as there are no main cables or suspender cables as in a suspension bridge.

The bridge was built solely as a

tourist attraction in only about seven months. No one was hurt or killed in the construction of the bridge. Built in the late 1920s for just 350,000 dol-lars. Today it would take millions of dollars to construct it – as well as sev-eral years, according to Dona Basham, Royal Gorge sales manager.

Just as America was opening the lon-gest toll bridge in the world, the San Francisco Bay Toll Bridge in March of 1929, the small community of Canon City and its City Council were making plans to build a toll bridge that would become the world’s highest suspension bridge for over seven decades. Even though it was not a new idea to build a bridge connecting the 1,000 foot tow-ering walls of the Royal Gorge, money and know how was always at issue un-til the late 1920s when the idea gelled with the promise of stable financing by a San Antonio businessman, according to Nancy Masimer of the Royal Gorge Regional Museum and History Center.

Lon P. Piper had a vision standing on the precipice of the granite walls in 1928. After all, he had built a success-ful toll bridge in 1926 across the Rio Grande, connecting America and Mexi-co with great return on the investment, and he could do one here.

Canon City Council minutes from March 4, 1929, reveal a resolution was adopted by the City Council pertaining to Piper’s proposal to erect a suspen-sion bridge across the Royal Gorge. By May 1929, the City Council, granted Lon Piper a franchise to construct a toll bridge across the Royal Gorge and The Royal Gorge Bridge and Amusement Corporation was born.

Mayor Witcher would be one of the first to cross the bridge in the opening day ceremony, December 8, 1929. The rental agreement for the Royal Gorge Park for the year 1929 was $550.00.

This toll bridge unlike its counter-

Construction workers seem to be right at home another 40+ feet above the 1000 foot drop.photograph courtesy of Royal Gorge Bridge & Park.

*To satisfy movie trivia buffs, the original line from 1989’s Field of Dreams was: “If you build it he will come.”


continued on next page

part in California would be for the sole purpose of enjoying the stunning sce-nic surroundings of the 9-mile granite gorge with the Arkansas River rushing through it, famously back dropped by the peaks of the Sangre de Cristo Range.

Even the name The Royal Gorge promised something spectacular. This nickname was given in 1874 according to a Canon City Daily Record newspa-per article from 1899, when a photog-rapher named Savage from Salt Lake City, in the company of J. L. Harrison of Canon City, took photos and wrote beneath them, The Royal Gorge. An-other story says it was a geologist from Salt Lake City, that looked into the depths and exclaimed, “this is a royal gorge,” and the name stuck.

Before the Bridge was built, the gorge was impressive to all who journeyed to its rim – or through it beginning in 1879 by train. Before the name Royal Gorge stuck, it was referred to as the Grand Canyon of the Arkansas. It became a tourist attraction in earnest around the late 1890s and early 1900s. It was con-sidered a full day round trip from Canon City, not an easy feat in that era. They traveled by foot, horses, or wagons on rough roads, and then by Model T – cars that were said to get up to the Royal Gorge best by “backing” up most of the

A long view up the thousands of cables that make their way across the Royal Gorge. photograph © Thomas Woodruff via Dreamstime.com.

way due to their power trains. Lt. Zebulon Pike, the first Ameri-

can explorer, in 1806 found the Royal Gorge formidable in his attempts to make his way through it and around it. He was followed by Major Stephen Long in 1820, and John C. Fremont, Lieutenant in the Corps of Topographi-cal Engineers during the 1840’s. All three men were looking for the head-waters of the Arkansas River.

The Utes wintered in the Canon City area. Other early visitors included Spanish Missionaries recorded in 1642, followed by fur trappers during the 1700s, Mountain Men in the 1840s and 50s, and finally settlers in the 1860s.

Royal Gorge walls are made of solid granite and associated rock, dating back to the Precambrian age over 1.5 billion years ago. These granite rocks are also found south of the equator. Not so long ago by geologic standards, only a few million years, the Arkansas River began cutting its way down 1,200 feet forming the gorge while the Rocky Mountains were growing upward. Today, it is es-timated that the Arkansas River cuts about a foot every 2,500 years.

On June 11, 1906, a congressional grant ceded the Royal Gorge to the peo-ple of Canon City, President Theodore Roosevelt signed the Act, and the trea-

sured landmark containing 5,120 acres, became property of Canon City. Thus, approval and blessing to build the Royal Gorge Bridge had to be determined by the city before 360 acres of this park could be turned over for one of the most astounding undertakings in America.

George E. Cole of Houston, Texas was hired. Cole served as Chief Engi-neer and General Superintendent for the Royal Gorge Bridge, and later the Incline Railway built in 1931. He was joined by O.F. Copes and Fred Rice, construction superintendents, one for each side of the Bridge.

The project needed a workforce and that was able to quickly come to the site and get to work - working seven days a week, 10-14 hours a day start-ing at 30 to 60 cents an hour. By the time the bridge was completed around 80 men had been involved on the proj-ect. Photos in the Royal Gorge Bridge and Park Plaza Theater and Historical Expo show men working at daredevil heights. The most astonishing fact to come out of this construction was that no one was killed and there were no major accidents or injuries.

In an interview with Will Fisher, grandson of Cole, during the 75th An-niversary Celebration at the Royal


continued from previous page

continued on page 12

Gorge Bridge, Fisher stated “one of the greatest things about Grandfather was that he cared what happened to his workers. He was first and foremost into safety for his men, which was unheard of in those days.”

Prior to the start of construction, a way to bring building supplies and equipment to both sides of the gorge had to be established first along with some sort of infrastructure to keep the work going. The road to the north rim of the gorge was already there, not the case for the south rim. Rock crushing machin-ery, steam hoists and construction ma-terials were moved to the construction sites on each rim also strategically sited close to the towers on each side.

A boarding house was built on the south rim to accommodate some 30 workers. The majority of the workers were on the north rim, simply com-muting the 13.4 miles from Canon City each day. The first actual construction involved building the concrete abut-ments serving as bases for the two steel towers which in turn would support the main suspension cables. Crushed rock excavated from trenches on the canyon rim would be used in anchoring the

tower foundations.As soon as the bases were done the

steel towers were assembled. Steel used in this construction of the tow-ers, railing and bridge deck all were produced and fabricated at the plant of Colorado Fuel and Iron Corporation in Pueblo, Colorado, a company associat-

ed with the infamous Ludlow Massacre some 15 years earlier. The parts of the towers were hauled to the construction site where workers eventually labored without the aid of modern safety equip-ment, high above the Arkansas River.

With the completion of the towers came the installing of the bridge’s main cables from which the suspender ca-bles would hang to support the bridge platform. Half inch steel cables were lowered from both sides of the canyon. Ends were spliced in the bottom and then the cables were pulled back up, completing the first strand across the gorge. This in turn became the carry cable used to pull the ¾ inch cables across the chasm. These two cables be-came trolley cables to pull the single wires composing the main cable.

All of the 4,200 wires (2,100 per ca-ble) were taken across the canyon one wire at a time. A ¾ inch galvanized wire rope served as core for the sus-pension cable and as with the individ-ual wires, was anchored to a steel pin in the anchor trench in the rim. Each of the cables are anchored to a steel pin set in the solid granite chasm wall.

At the time of full construction, some 80 men worked on the bridge – mostly people from Canon City. Few had ever had such an experience with this kind of project. Over 1,000 tons of structural steel was used in the fabrication of the Royal Gorge Bridge.

Once finished, the whole trench was filled with reinforcing steel and concrete. There are more than 100 anchor pins at the end of each cable. As soon as the tow-ers were done and the wire system an-chored, the challenge for workers on the

The devestation left after a fire in 2013 destroyed 90% of the buildings, but only a few planks on the bridge were compromised. photograph courtesy of Royal Gorge Bridge & Park.

A magnificent view of the span across the chasm. photograph courtesy of Royal Gorge Bridge & Park.

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Soon after the bridge was finished, work started on a cable railway to the bottom of the gorge. At a 45 degree angle, this incline railroad was an-other engineering challenge. George F. Cole, engineer on the bridge project

picked a route west of the bridge and down the slope of “Telegraph Gulch.” However, to commemorate the bicen-tennial of Pike’s expedition, the Gulch was renamed “Pike’s Gulch” on July


continued from page 10nascent structure were the high winds sweeping up the canyon unexpectedly.

“We had some near-misses,” recalled one bridge worker. “But for the most part everyone was pretty careful – hanging on tight when the wind blew.”

The crews worked rather quickly from both sides of the gorge and this phase of the work was done in November 1929. To complete the project, a wooden deck was laid down and the ends of the 1300 planks fastened to the two sides of the platform strucuture. After safety side railings were installed by bolting them into place, wire fencing was fastened to the railing and highway approaches were made ready for the first vehicular traffic to cross the bridge.

Even though most of the labor was not experienced in such work, this rather daring and unique feat of construction was finished in just six months – and with no deaths or major accidents. Af-ter the Royal Gorge Bridge was official-ly opened and dedicated, wind and guy wire cables were added in order for the bridge to take the unforgiving winds that roar through the canyon. Yet even with such reinforcement, the bridge pitches and rocks like a storm-tossed ship on windy days.

Soon the Royal Gorge Bridge will be restored to the glory it enjoyed in this photo taken in August of 2010. photograph © Kan1234 via Dreamstime.com.

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continued from page 1222, 2006. Challenges on this project in-cluded finding a way to position all the concrete and the steel pieces required as well as to find a slope with the most consistent gradient for the journey up and down the canyon wall.

To complete the Royal Gorge’s at-tractions an aerial Tram was complet-ed adjacent to the bridge. That attrac-tion was constructed using helicopters and updated safety regulations. For a time after its opening, in June 1969 it was the longest single span aerial tramway in the world.

Recently, in June 2013, a fire de-stroyed 90% of the facilities at Royal Gorge. Fortunately no one was killed or injured and the area is undergoing a rebuilding. The attraction will be fully reopened in August of this year.

On the south side of the bridge some of the wooden planks on the south side were destroyed in the fire. Some brush caught fire underneath the bridge and charred some 100 of the planks of the bridge platform.

The rebuilding effort at one of Colo-rado’s most scenic attractions is now un-derway just two months after a wildfire destroyed much of the Royal Gorge Park. The famous suspension bridge over the

Arkansas River appears to be in relative-ly good condition. A total of 32 of its 1,292 wooden planks are damaged.

“The bridge had about 100 timbers burned on that south end and no struc-tural damage,” according to the Royal Gorge Bridge & Park General Manag-er. An aerial tram car and tram build-ings on either side of the gorge were destroyed and the tram cable dropped into the canyon. An incline railway that descends 1,500 feet to the canyon floor is also damaged.”

Rebuilding hasn’t started just yet because first crews have to clear away all the damage.

“Demolition has been going on every day, 48 structures were burned out of 52 so all those basically had to be cleaned up,” says the park manager.

Estimates to repair all the damage caused by the fire, more than 3,000 acres in June, total about $35 million. The terminal and equipment room for the railway will have to be rebuilt. Demoli-tion should last only a few more weeks then a major rebuilding effort will con-tinue through the winter months.

“By mid-May we had restored all of the basic attractions that have been here for years and several of the newer ones,” added the manager. “But we’ve

decided the wildlife park will not be a part of the new park and we have sold all the animals with the exception of the buffalo. On top of the contractual obligation there’s a moral obligation to the area. It is the No. 1 tourist attrac-tion in the Royal Gorge region.”

The park brings in about $40 million in economic impact for the area. Since its 1929 opening, the park has had about 26 million visitors. Though other features of the Royal Gorge Park didn’t survive the fire, the famous bridge still stands await-ing the next 26 million visitors.

“Though the Royal Gorge Bridge and Park sustained severe damage follow-ing the June 11, 2013 fire, 48 of our 52 structures and over 90% of the park were damaged,” adds Basham. “The bridge was barely scathed – we re-placed 100 of the wooden planks. We are in the midst of reconstruction and plan on being finished with our first phase of construction this August.

“We plan on having a new Gondola ride and Zipline (Zipline is an extra pay fea-ture) constructed by October 2014,” adds Basham. “We will also have a brand new 5,000 seat amphitheater by 2015. How-ever the Incline Railway at the park was damaged and it will be a couple of years before it can be replaced.” WRN

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Port of CharlestonRemains Viable and Active

With Wire Rope’s HelpAnalogous to New York’s Manhattan, the city of Charleston, South Carolina’s geography features a long peninsula coming to a point at something called the “Battery” jutting out into the harbor where the Civil War started with the bomb-ing of nearby Fort Sumter. However, unlike in New York, the easternmost, or the Cooper River side of the peninsula has the active port of the city. Both port cities date to the 1600s when Europeans gravitated to these places with both easy ac-cess to a sheltered deep harbor and a fine site for growing settlements.

Charleston prospered and grew over the years, contributing to the economic viability of the

colony of South Carolina. The city’s ex-cellent port was the economic engine for the area and that remains the case to this day. Tourism is another impor-tant industry for the city. By the An-tebellum decades South Carolina was among the wealthiest states in the country, largely on the backs of an un-paid permanent labor force and due to the fact that the South’s slaves were worth more than all of the North’s in-dustrial capital combined.

Charleston is known as the place

where the bloodiest war, so far, in our nation’s history began with the firing of the first shot on the federal outpost in Charleston Harbor, Fort Sumter. Four years later the fort would be returned to the United States, as would the city and its valuable port. The city of Charleston sustained terrible damage during the war, though not as bad as that of Atlanta and Columbia during Sherman’s march.

At on point in the war, in early 1864, the Confederate submarine H.L. Hunley successfully torpedoed the Union vessel, USS Housatonic in the harbor. Nearly all of the Housatonic’s crew survived that sinking. But the Hunley’s crew was

not as lucky. In the 1990s the combat submarine and the remains of its crew were salvaged from out of the muck of the harbor with the help of equipment and expertise from local wire rope pro-ducer Charleston’s Rigging / Carolina’s Rigging & Marine Hardware.

In the years following the Civil War South Carolina, the state and the city of Charleston were impoverished. But the Port of Charleston remained an economic asset waiting to be developed even as Charleston itself made the bold, innovative decision to preserve virtually the entire city’s architectural

Panoramic view of the Port of Charleston. All Photos Courtesy of South Carolina Ports Authority.

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heritage and integrity. For a time there was some

uncertainty of the future of the port of Charleston as the U.S. Naval Base at Charleston closed in 1996 after 95 years of continu-ous operation. Also, the old bridges, the John P. Grace Memorial Bridge and the Silas N. Pearman Bridge crossing over the Cooper River were structurally un-sound, narrow and obsolete – yet still standing. They opened in 1929 and 1966, respectively. The graceful new Arthur Ravenel, Jr. or New Cooper River Bridge now fills the port’s skyline and has echoed the ongoing growth and development of the port on the river below its deck.

The South Carolina Ports Authority, estab-lished by the state’s General Assembly in 1942, owns and operates public sea-port facilities in Charleston, George-town and Greer (now an inland port), handling international commerce val-

ued at more than $63 billion annually while receiving no direct taxpayer sub-sidy. An economic development engine for the state, port operations facilitate 260,800 jobs across South Carolina and

nearly $45 billion in economic activity each year.

Fast forward to 2014. The Port of Charleston is now growing perhaps

Inland port looking southwest.



continued from page 18as never before in its history. A new heavy-lift crane was actually manufac-tured here in South Carolina. It will be used at the Port of Charleston and all along the coast as well.

Taking advantage of this state of affairs and able to offer their tremen-dous help and expertise is Charleston’s Rigging and Marine Hardware. Also known as Carolina’s Rigging, the firm is a state certified WBE (Women’s Busi-ness Enterprise), SBE (Small Business Enterprise) and DBE (Disadvantaged Business Enterprise) company. The firm is directly involved in many of the activities and work at the port. The played key roles in the construction of both the new Cooper River Bridge and the resurrection of the Civil War Hun-ley Submarine as mentioned earlier.

Charleston’s Rigging & Marine Hard-ware is a distributor of all Types Of Lifting Slings, Rigging Supplies, Ma-rine Hardware & Material Handling Equipment, Tie Downs, Chain Hoists, Air Hoists, Wire Rope Hoists, Winches, Fall Protection Devices. Wire Rope, Round, Chain & Nylon Slings. Tools, Spreader, Beams, All below the Hook Lifting Devices, Cargo Control Straps

and Devices are all items that the com-pany keeps in stock for the busy harbor work in its midst.

Hoist Repair, oil Absorbents and rig-ging inspection workshops as well as training sessions are also available. In addition, CR offers Rentals of Rigging and other Equipment. The company will be there on the spot for the growing list of work going on in the busy port.

This may include a harbor deepen-ing project now going on called a Post 45. The hope is that the harbor will be deepened 50 feet or more by the end of 2018. That process is underway through the Army Corps of Engineers. In 2015 the Corps will issue it’s Chief’s Report, essentially a blueprint for what the details of the project will be and from there construction will begin.

“This is incredibly important for the SC Ports Authority, explains Erin Pabst, Public Relations manager with the SC Ports Authority. “We have a number initiatives that are ongoing. Recently, in the fall we opened an in-land port in the upstate of South Caro-lina, in Greer, South Carolina. Cargo is moved by rail to Greer overnight.”

The Ocean Ranger, Charleston Har-bor’s newest heavy-lift crane, made its Low country debut recently, unloading a 308-ton generator onto a barge at Columbus Street Terminal. The Ocean Ranger has a 500-ton lift capacity and can achieve a lift rating of up to 740 tons for heavier cargo. As a fully mo-bile barge crane, the Ocean Ranger is designed primarily for heavy project cargo lifts to and from break bulk ves-sels but can also lift cargo on barges,

rail cars, trucks and container vessels. The crane also performed the first

salvage operation since it was recently completed. Stevens Towing Company of Yonges Island, SC and Edenton, NC received a call from a dredge company that was working on a project in the Wando River and had a barge sink. They were asked to salvage the barge and take it to their shipyard for repair.

This entailed working with a local dive team in the area to place all the nec-essary rigging under the sunken barge to support it in a way that it could be lifted from the river bottom without damaging the barge.

Once this was done, the crane arrived, attached to the rigging, and was able to lift the 70’ x 30’ deck barge that was full of water to the surface. Stevens got the barge pumped out and patched the holes in the barge so it would float until a rail-way at our shipyard becomes available to pull the barge out for repair.

The SC Ports Authority invested in the construction of the Ocean Ranger to ensure priority access and dedi-cated service over the life of the crane for Port of Charleston terminals. It is owned and operated by Charleston Heavy Lift, Inc.

“The Ocean Ranger is the newest asset in the Charleston Harbor,” says SCPA President and CEO, Jim New-some. “It brings a new capability to meet the needs of our customers who transport their break bulk and non-container project cargo across our docks.”

Ocean Ranger boasts a length overall (LOA) of 200 feet and a 162-feet long lifting boom. Certified by the American Bureau of Shipping and offshore-capa-ble, the crane has the functionality to be used for salvage and recovery proj-ects outside of the Charleston Harbor.

“We look forward to supporting break bulk cargo operations and of-fering ocean carriers the benefit of our expanded services,” says Charles-ton Heavy Lift General Manager Bos Smith.

The crane barge was locally manu-factured by Metal Trades, Inc. at their shipyard in Yonges Island. Ocean Ranger will be docked on the Cooper River near Veterans Terminal.

Cruise ships docking in Charleston are just a very small part of the port’s traffic. Eighty eight cruise ships called at the Port of Charleston last year, in 2013. The port has won awards for sus-tainable operations.

The Port of Charleston is opening a new coffee warehouse. Dupuy Storage and Forwarding, LLC opens its newest coffee warehouse and handling facility in North Charleston to serve the ris-ing quantities of coffee beans imported through the SC Ports Authority. Cof-fee shipments at the Port of Charles-ton are up 60 percent over the last two years, due largely to demand by U.S. coffee roasters and consumption by the Southeast’s growing population.

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continued from page 20“Coffee is a highly specialized type of

cargo, and SC Ports welcomes Dupuy’s newest coffee warehouse to Charles-ton,” says SCPA President and CEO Jim Newsome. “Their opening is a significant addition to our local coffee storage capacity, enabling our Port to continue growing coffee import vol-umes through Charleston.”

Both Arabica and Robusta beans are imported through the SCPA from cof-fee growers primarily in Latin America and Africa. Beans imported in Charles-ton are distributed throughout the Southeast and Gulf Coast.

The port has had its problems as well as recent successes. There was some-thing of a slide in container volumes at the port. In the three years since he was named CEO, Jim Newsome has reversed the slide in container volume at the Port of Charleston by strength-ening its relations with the container lines that call there, even leading Maersk Line to reverse its decision to quit the port. With volumes on the rise, last year’s 9.6 percent growth in con-tainer throughout made the port the fastest growing in the U.S.

“We always had a strong operating culture in the port and engaged the cargo owners, the shippers and those on the shore at the port to connect the dots with the shipping lines,” explains New-some. “It was a two-pronged strategy, growing our cargo base and adding new services to support the growth in cargo.

“In 2012 we grew by almost 10% and we have to continue growing above the market. We are investing 1.3 billion dollars in the next ten years to grow these facilities because we’re optimis-tic about the Southeast market in both exports and imports.”

The new link to Greer, SC 200 miles to the interior of the state, makes use of the most efficient inter-modal trans-portation, rail which within 500 miles can serve 100 million consumers. They are constructing a new terminal at the Charleston Naval Base.

Since the port is encouraging agricul-tural producers from as far away as the Midwest to use their facilities to export their products, Newsome feels that the harbors must be deepened. “We are in the middle of this ambitious deepen-ing project, deepening the harbor to 50 feet and progressing quickly. It’s hoped that the study will be completed by 2015 and hope to have the project done by the time the new naval base is opened, by around the end of 2018.

“We don’t know exactly what percent-age of the cost of the deepening will be

funded by the federal government. The $300,000,000 amount is already in the bank for the project so their really is no question that this is going to be done. Even with a tepid economy we feel cer-tain we can continue to grow above the market and stay viable.”

The SC Inland Port (SCIP) opened in October 2013 in Greer, 212 miles inland from the Port of Charleston. Utilizing an existing overnight Norfolk Southern rail service, it links Charleston’s deep-water container terminals with the ris-ing import-export needs of the growing Southeast region. SCIP established a new rail ramp for intermodal freight in the Southeast, providing access to near-ly 100 million consumers within 500 miles along the I-85 corridor.

“Our region’s competitive advantage grows stronger with every train that departs the South Carolina Inland Port bound for the Port of Charleston. The South Carolina Ports Authority plays a crucial role in fueling our global econo-my and we are most grateful for their continued investment and support of our economic development efforts,” said Jennifer Miller, interim President and CEO of the Upstate SC Alliance.

South Carolina Ports continues to see growth in the container market with a nearly 5 percent increase in twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs) handled fiscal year to date.

The port has moved 1,071,760 TEUs since the beginning of the fiscal year in July, up from 1,024,421 TEUs handled during the same period last year, according to February financial results presented at the SCPA’s regu-lar Board meeting today. Container volume remains on plan for the fiscal year, which runs July through June. Calendar year to date, TEU volume is up 2.5 percent.

Georgetown remains ahead of planned volumes for the fiscal year and handled 12.4 percent in additional tonnage compared to last fiscal year to date. In February the Port of George-town moved 27,697 pier tons of break bulk cargo for use in the manufactur-ing and construction industries.

In action items, the Board modified plans for the design and construction of two super-post-Panamax cranes. Originally approved for North Charles-ton Terminal (NCT), the design of the new cranes will be adjusted for use at Wando Welch Terminal (WWT). The ship-to-shore cranes are being manu-factured by Shanghai Zhenhua Heavy Industries, LTD to meet the needs of larger container ships calling the Port of Charleston.

The purchase allows three existing cranes in the WWT fleet to be moved to NCT, ensuring both terminals have the high speed and structurally robust cranes needed to load and discharge containers from larger vessels and ac-commodate heavy export container vol-umes from the Southeast’s manufac-turing industry.

“Given the trends of the maritime in-dustry, particularly the deployment of big ships through the mega-alliances, ports must modernize to remain com-petitive,” said SCPA president and CEO Jim Newsome. “The SCPA’s con-tinued efforts to reinvest in our exist-ing terminals ensure we are ready and capable to handle industry needs with appropriate equipment and technology.

The Board also announced recent dis-cussions with the Town of Port Royal regarding the potential sale of the port facility. “The SCPA has put forth a proposal to the Town of Port Royal re-garding the sale of the port property,” said SCPA Board Chairman Bill Stern. “While specific contract details have not yet been determined, we look for-ward to continuing dialogue with the Town and are optimistic that we can reach an agreement to benefit the citi-zens of Port Royal Town as well as the SCPA as required by law.”

The city of Charleston and its busy port are keeping up with the continu-ing demands placed on them. Charles-ton’s Rigging, whether supplying fall protection or hurricane tie-down sys-tems is on the job on the banks of the Cooper River as well. WRN



Huge Crane and itsCritical Wire Rope Work to

Change One City’s Downtownby Henry Vere

Cranes for all the spectacular aerial construction work they do, as well as that much closer to the ground, would be useless without the critical wire ropes doing the lifting. Here in Rock Hill a lattice boom crawler crane and its wire rope and rigging is busy doing the work of assembling a segmented concrete parking garage.

Before Rock Hill, South Carolina’s Chris King Memorial Funeral Home existed, the home, on this

site dated back to the turn of the last century here. As summer 2014 is upon us, in its place a new four-story office building is rapidly taking shape. The new structure will contain some 48,000 square feet. Comporium Corporation, a

local phone and internet provider is be-hind this new project but the building will be leased to whatever tenants get signed up for this location.

At center stage is a huge Manitowoc 999 crawler crane assembling the site’s parking garage now that the main of-fice structure is complete. Wire rope is transforming the area both behind the

scenes and in clear view, letting the crane accomplish what it was designed and built for.

Cranes have been with us for millen-niums, assisting in the construction of the pyramids and the Stonehenge thousands of years ago. Though the de-signs of cranes have changed over the

The huge crawler crane is in position to lift a concrete wall slab into place for this soon-to-be parking garage for a downtown office complex.

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continued from page 24centuries, the principles involved in operating a crane are still the same; in a nutshell it’s much easier to lift some-thing by pulling down than pulling up. When we rely on the laws of phys-ics, we also find that they never let us down. Ancients learned that more ma-terial could be lifted by increasing the part of line in a crane.

Today’s cranes are ever more com-plex, though despite the complexity the same principles now allow cranes to lift greater than 6,000 metric tons. An-other Manitowoc 999, the same model as the one here on site recently moved 95,000 pound concrete wall segments up an inclined area to be put into place vertical to form the walls of a wine grape storing facility at the Columbine Vineyard in Delano, California.

The massive, heavy concrete slab filmed in a recent video, looks over-whelming as the tracked crane with its spidery latticed boom assembly moves the piece steadily in place while - at the same time looking incapable of moving such a structure. But be-tween its counter weights, engine and the critical wire rope and fittings ar-ranged in a series of pulleys and pat-terns to handle the weight all team up to make the job a snap. (See the brief YouTube video of this incredible op-eration at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tK_60DpnNhg)

Wire rope is part of the structure of cranes nowadays. It must be carefully selected, inspected and maintained. Moving and standing ropes should al-ways be visually inspected, along with

Despite the bad soil, this crawler crane is right at home in the middle of the action.

all standing ropes, fittings, and pins; any rope that has not been inspected in one month or more must be inspected before use. All ropes should be exam-

ined for conditions that make them extremely susceptible to failure. Only through inspection can hazards be de-tected and accidents avoided.

In most instances the industry uses right lay rope for jobs, including cranes. Non-rotating rope can be used for the main hoist and auxiliary hoist but it is not allowed on the boom hoist; it’s eas-ily damaged and requires special care. Perhaps the most important quarterly operational check on hoisting and rig-ging equipment involves the load-sup-porting wire rope and fittings. Detailed records of wire rope use should be kept.

Lattice cranes such as the one used on this project consist of a live mast and a boom base which can be installed fairly quickly. Boom hoist reeving consisting of critical wire rope is attached to the live mast. Smaller cranes with their wire rope are used to install the counterweights one by one. In the center of the crawler crane is the hydraulic hoist drum and ring gear power unit. Another critical com-ponent on the crane are boom stops; they stop the main boom of the crane


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continued from page 26from going the wrong way.

Once the counterweights are all in place, the crane’s boom sections are put into place. The pin assembly secures the boom sections. Workers should never stand beneath the boom during this assembly. Pins are always inserted into the lattice boom sec-tions outside in. The sections are hoisted into place with slings and wire rope used on a smaller crane.

The boom is unable to be hoist-ed until the pendant lines are at-tached, therefore, the crane has to have additional support. Pendant lines are prepared and attached to the live mast.

A crawler crane is a type of mo-bile crane available with either a telescopic or lattice boom mov-ing on crawler tracks. As a self-propelled crane, it is able to move around a site and perform jobs without much set-up. However, because of its great weight and size, it is quite dif-ficult and expensive to transport the crawler crane from site to site. Besides movement, the crawler tracks provide stability enabling the crane to operate without the use of outriggers, though

some models do include them. Most people perhaps never realize

there are so many different types of cranes. For those who don’t normally do any type of large lifting with ma-chinery it might be a surprise to find out just how many options they have. Crawler cranes with lattice booms are

unique from other types of cranes because of their mobility.

Rather than using tires like the majority of cranes do, they actu-ally use treading like that on a military tank. This type of track allows for crawlers to be one of the strongest cranes available because it makes the crane sta-ble. Most cranes need to have an outrigger but the unique crawl-ing system used by these cranes means that they don’t need to have outriggers. With just its own strength and support crawler cranes with lattice booms can po-tentially lift over 3500 tons.

Different jobs require differ-ent tools and the crawler crane is better in some situations than others. Ideally crawler cranes with lattice booms should be used on construction jobs that have a lot of heavy lifting and will take a

long time to complete. Crawler cranes can move around sites without a lot of extra effort from the operators and no additional setup is required to use it in different areas of the work site. It can also move from point A to point B while carrying something without risk


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of injury to the workers or damage to the machine.

Though such a crane probably isn’t the best choice for shorter jobs, they can still get the job done. The amount of effort it takes to transport crawler cranes with lattice booms is exception-al. They are very heavy machines that actually need to be disassembled each time it needs to be transported from one location to another. This not only take unnecessary time out of a small job but it also costs a lot of money. These parts will need to be transported by either a series of trucks or by boat. This is why using this machine for a job that doesn’t need to have that much power could be a waste of time and money.

The term “lattice boom” may throw people off when looking into cranes because it is a technical term and part of the machinery. Crawler cranes with lattice booms are actually quite com-mon. Every type of crane has a “boom”, which is just a part of the crane. Lat-tice is the type of boom and is the most common type found on all cranes. Over-all crawler cranes are excellent for big jobs and no matter what type of booms they use they are durable machines that can take any heavy lifting.

Early mobile cranes were affixed to train cars and moved along short rail lines constructed for the project. With turn of the twentieth century came the crawler tractor and the introduc-tion of crawler tracks to the construc-tion and agricultural industries. In time the crawler tracks were adopted by excavators, which further show-cased their versatility. Eventually crane manufacturers jumped on the crawler track market.

The U.S. crane manufacturer North-west Engineering mounted its first crane on crawler tracks around the 1920s. The new machine was described as a “locomotive crane, moveable un-der its own power and independent of tracks.” By the mid-1920s crawler tracks were “the preferred means of traction for heavy cranes.”

One of the first attempts to repli-cate the rails for cranes was the Moore Speedcrane developed by Ray and Charles Moore of Chicago, Illinois. The Speedcrane, manufactured in Fort Wayne, Indiana, was a steam-powered, wheel-mounted, 15-ton crane. The Manitowoc Shipbuilding Company of Manitowoc, Wisconsin, recognized the marketability of a tracked crane and in 1925 it teamed with the Moores to

continued from page 28 manufacture it. The first Speedcrane built by Mani-

towoc was a success, but further ad-justments needed to be made. Roy Moore, who had been hired by Mani-towoc as a crane designer, understood the industry was moving from steam power to internal combustion engines. His crane has to change with the in-dustry. He redesigned the Speedcrane for a gasoline-powered engine and strengthened its frame by using cast steel car body, replacing its original riveted construction.

This new machine was extremely ver-satile. The Model 125 could be used as a crane, shovel, dragline or trench hoe. Manitowoc continued development in the crane industry, always adopting the latest advancement into its machines. After witnessing the Speedcrane’s ver-satility and success, other manufactur-ers began producing crawler cranes. In 1935, Ruston-Bucyrus introduced the 22-RB crawler crane, which remained popular for decades.

In 1941 Manitowoc designed the M3900 heavy crawler crane, capable of lifting 103.5 tons. It introduced the first integral torque converter. With the end of the 1960s came the introduction of


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a new boom mounting system: the Ringer. The ring consisted of several sections, fitted together, encircling the crane. The boom was no longer fixed to the crawler’s frame, but was instead supported by the ring. It allowed for unrestricted slewing. The first crane instituting the Ringer was the Mani-towoc M4000 Vicon. The new system reduced crane mobility, but increased lift capabilities.

In 1976, the British com-pany Ransomes & Rapier introduced fully hydraulic systems for crawler cranes. The Olympus HC150 im-proved crawler crane opera-tion immensely. Still, me-chanical cranes continued to be manufactured to sat-isfy the need for a simple, sturdy crane.

Even as telescopic crane development exploded in Europe, many U.S. compa-nies continued to manufac-ture long lattice booms. Ap-parently, construction sites in the U.S. were much larg-er, making lattice booms much easier to use. Also, road regulations within the U.S. varied from state to state making it difficult to transport the telescoping mobile cranes.

According to an October 2006 issue of Cranes & Access magazine, a pub-lication originating in the UK, the wind power industry created a resur-gence in crawler crane manufacturing.

Crane manufacturer Li-ebherr was the first to in-troduce a crawler crane specially designed for wind farm construction. These first cranes were less than 5.5 yards (5 m) wide capable of traveling on narrow wind farm roads. So, the crane could travel from turbine to turbine in about two hours because they didn’t require rigging and re-rigging, which could take an entire day or two.

Liebherr also attached outriggers to provide increased stability and aid in maneuverability. The outriggers lift-ed the crawler tracks entirely off the ground and then rotated them to face the direction of travel. Kobelco entered the wind farm crawler development too. They designed retractable crawler

tracks that could extend to 8.3 yards (7.62 m) for stability and retract to less than 5.5 yards (5 m) for travel.

The project in Rock Hill involving the Manitowoc 999 lattice boom crane when completed should be a boost for downtown Rock Hill and may get some things started, according to Jack Leit-ner with Leitner Construction. Leit-

ner has been on board with the project since September, 2012, going through a design build type pre-construction services. “We finally got permitted by about July 2013,” explains Leitner. “We got foundations in, ran the stair towers up and then started erecting in earnest in October 2013.

“The site had a lot of unsuitable soils underfoot to excavate and then good material had to be brought in to replace the poorer material. The earth there was basically fill but it was not good.”

Quite an array of hardware is attached to this lattice boom to get the job done.

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Leitner excavated all of the insub-stantial material out and brought in pit gravel. They built up the foundation pad onsite and had a geotechnical engi-neer involved in the evaluation. They did a proof roll on the site and there was a large area which simply wasn’t fastened, according to Leitner.

They had to dig all of this material out and bring in better quality soil. In another area of Rock Hill, during the construction of a new Cook Out Restau-rant, soil at that site also had to be re-placed. This soil replacement has been the only problem the workers on this site have encountered so far.

“We ran into some soil issues up un-der the building pad,” explains Cary Cooke, superintendent for Leitner Con-struction on this job. “This whole site had bad soil on it just from over the years and with the weight of all the building to be completed soon and the parking deck to be constructed as well, there has to be an adequate substrate up under the structure. This is an un-foreseen facet on such a job as this; you never know how much of this type of work is going to have to be done once you start on the work.”

Cooke sees this from time to time on

many of the projects that he’s involved with. They knew some poor soil was un-der this site going into the work. Pre-liminary test holes are done and they mark the site every fifty to seventy-five feet so that when the digging starts workers will know where the bad soil is located. “The bad soil may look almost like the waves of the ocean with good areas and then areas where you need to go deeper or higher up; everything depends on what is under the ground.

It is difficult to estimate the depth of the poor or good soil. Testing doesn’t usually go any deeper than ten feet. By the time that testing is accomplished it will still cost the companies on the job more money because the soil is still bad. Some engineers were testing the soil directly as the digging on the site was being done. When the bottom of the footings are reached, testing most likely takes place every five to ten feet, according to Cooke.

Because this structure will be fairly large it will have very large footings on it. “Not only the width and length of these footings, but the thickness of their structure will be substantial,” adds Cary. “The parking garage is de-signed to have the strength to support all the wheel loads, vehicle loads – as

if the garage was at full capacity with vehicles.”

At this writing the main structure of the office building is completed. The building has four stories with a fifth floor for the mechanical equip-ment and maintenance involved with the elevator itself. The elevator and stairwell shaft is going up to a height of 68 feet. For a time this shaft seemed very tall as the building was constructed around it.

As with other sites involving a long history of a structure such as a home or business in place, an old heating oil tank was found beneath the ground here. The tank still contained heating oil inside from years past. That fuel had to be pumped out and the tank re-moved from the ground.

This is a cost plus project. The build-ing and the site work have a cost of from four to five million dollars. Leit-ner Construction did the shell – not including all the interior up-fits. The entire building will be handicap acces-sible as per the ADA. There are handi-cap accessible doors and from either the street, whether people about to enter the building from the sidewalk, coming down Main Street or coming

Tested. Tough.

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continued from page 34down Elizabeth Street, they’ll be able to access the building. There will also be plenty of handicap parking.

All the handicapped parking spaces will be located on the first level of the parking garage where the crane is now involved with construction in concrete segments being lifted into place. Some seven to nine spaces will be on that first floor of the parking garage. Two additional handicapped parking spaces will be found in front of the building. This brings the total number of handi-

capped parking spaces for this facility to 10 or 12 spots for vehicles.

The parking garage will have a ca-pacity of 35 vehicles per level. The en-tire garage will hold about 140 vehicles. Summer of 2013 was one of the rainiest summers on record in Rock Hill. Not much work took place during the main months of the summer due to the wet soils that had to be dealt with and the fact that equipment could easily get bogged down in the mud and clay soil found in the area. Several days of rain early in the start of this project held

things up for a short period of time.“But during the last days of August

and nearly all of September, 2013 the weather had been perfect for construc-tion work,” adds Cooke. “We’ve really had some good luck weather-wise on this site. We actually finished the foot-ings for the structure about one week ahead of schedule. Right at the mo-ment, close to the end of September 2013. We lost a week for rain but then made up a week on the footing, so we’re actually right on schedule now.”

The cranes remain on-site for the construction of the entire parking deck. Work involves precast concrete, actual-ly concrete panels made by Metromont. The cranes were brought in on tractor trailer trucks and then picked up.

Completion of the building should be accomplished by June 2014. The num-ber of workers on site has varied from 15 to 20 each day. Two hand-dug wells were uncovered by workers at this loca-tion in addition to the oil tank already mentioned. The wells had stone laid around the inside of wall. One of the wells was underneath the former site of the home/funeral home. A concrete lid had to be poured over that old well.

That hand-dug well may have exist-ed before the home was built atop it. This is very close to where the lattice crane now does its work. The new four-story building now covers this whole area and with time few will recall the house or the funeral home on this spot.

Time marches on and area con-struction in downtown Rock Hill con-tinues to keep up with that. It’s hoped that this new office complex, the new park across the street diagonally and the hotel possibly under planning for the site of the current TD Bank will give this attractive downtown area even more of a boost. The parking ga-rage structure rapidly taking shape could not have been constructed with-out the help of the Mantinowoc 999 lattice boom crawler crane and the wire rope that lets this amazing piece of machinery do its work, using the same lifting principles first used in ancient times. WRN



Attitude CheckHow To Turn Negative Workers Into

Positive PerformersBy Phillip M. Perry

Do your employees play well with customers? Do they engage with the public in ways that spark sales and

promote loyalty? In the best of worlds you would always answer “yes.” Fact is, though, every business has some

employees who have a tendency to look on the dark side of things—a habit that can create negative interactions with customers. And even the sunniest workers have bad days.

The cause might be a perceived snub from a supervisor.Or maybe it’s a marital crisis or a financial issue.

Whatever the reason, the re-sult is the same: a grumpy employee who alienates cus-

tomers. And that means lost sales and lower profits.

Negativity can take many forms. Here are three examples:

• James is speaking to another

employee, bad-mouthing a customer who just left the shop. (Worse still, another customer is overhearing his remarks.)

• You overhear Margareta tell-ing a customer “Management really stinks here.”

• Andre says “It’s not my job” when

asked to help out when a customer needs a special service.Act quickly

All of those events—and others like them—can alienate customers and dent your bottom line. That’s why it’s important to take action before matters get worse.

“Quick attention is essential in deal-ing with negative behavior,” says Ian Jacobsen, a management consultant based in Morgan Hill, CA (jacobsencon-sulting.com). “Issues that are allowed to fester can grow out of proportion and become the impetus for still more nega-tive behavior.”

An employee who is not confronted about undesirable workplace activity will assume the practice is acceptable, notes Jacobsen. Moreover, because “one bad apple spoils the bunch” de-structive behavior can spread to other workers. Soon your high-performing employees will start to get frustrated because they have to pick up the work left by the slackers. Finally, as destruc-tive attitudes spread you may start to be viewed as a manager who cannot handle challenging employees. Gather data

Acting fast is one thing. But just what should you do? Start by engaging with the employee involved. “Take the employee aside and describe exactly what you have seen or heard,” says Ja-cobsen.

Here’s an example of such a descrip-tion, based on a supervisory response to the first of this article’s opening scenarios:

“James, I heard you talking with

Going PositiveSmart supervisors work quickly to address negative employee behavior.

Smarter ones create workplaces where negative behavior doesn’t occur in the first place.

“Most employees start the day with good intentions,” says Richard Av-doian, an employee development consultant in Metropolitan St. Louis. (rich-ardavdoian.com). “They don’t get out of bed asking ‘How am I going to be abusive with customers?’” Too often something happens to change that: Your job is to find out what it is, then take steps to resolve the issue so employees become effective agents.

If you take time to communicate with them, your best employees will in-form you about any workplace issue that is affecting performance. Some-times it’s a new policy. Other times it’s inaction on a chronic problem. Or maybe a miscommunication about an important topic.

Supervisory sessions are critical. “Meet regularly with employees to touch base,” says Avdoian. Ask questions such as these: “What is working in the workplace for you? What isn’t? Are you struggling with anything? Do you need additional training?” These questions communicate that you are here to guide and mentor the employee—not just to discipline. “You can be a par-ent, mentor, or just a wise person who can shed light on problems.”

Some supervisors resist such meetings because they think they take up too much time. Not so, says Avdoian. “The session can be as short as 15 minutes.”

Avdoian also suggests holding periodic ‘best practices’ meetings, during which employees share with others what works and what doesn’t in their daily interaction with customers.

In all cases, value employees who speak up. “Courageous employees will express what is bothering them in an effort to make life better,” says Ian Ja-cobsen. “Others are afraid to say anything. They just stew and express their frustrations to anyone they don’t consider a threat. So treasure those who express their concerns in a spirit of problem-solving.”

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Amy about one of our customers who had just left the shop. You stated that the customer was ‘a pain in the neck.’ This is inconsistent with what I would expect from you. What was that about?”

Notice that the words reflect the position of an observer who is simply gathering data. Avoid using terms that suggest a value judgment or cast a bad light on the employee’s intentions or motivation. Terms such as “bad-mouthing” or “rudeness” or “negative behavior” can quickly backfire by put-ting the employee on the defensive. And an employee who is trying to de-fend actions is not in the right mindset to work with you to resolve behavior is-sues. “Think of yourself as being like a newspaper reporter just reporting the facts,” advises Jacobsen.

Once you have stated what you observed, listen to the employee’s response. “Don’t interrupt,” says Ja-cobsen. “Instead, wait for a break in the answer and then ask any further questions you need to understand the situation.”

To continue our example, James might offer the information that a few days earlier the customer had

changed his mind several times in stating what he wanted from a ser-vice the shop was offering. The frus-tration in dealing with the customer had angered James. As a result he found himself letting off steam when dealing with that customer again.

With this information you have al-ready gone a long way toward resolving the problem. Your data gathering has uncovered what is affecting James’s behavior: A short fuse when it comes to difficult customers.

Once the employee has explained what happened, summarize what you have heard to demonstrate that you understand. Then ask if your summa-ry is accurate. If not, ask for further clarification.

The next step is to get the employee invested in a self-generated solution so the behavior does not recur. “Once the employee affirms that your sum-mary is accurate, ask how the situa-tion could have been handled better,” advises Jacobsen.

Using the last example, you might say something like this:

“James, I realize that some of our customers can be demanding in terms of service and time. It’s not okay to say something like what you said about

them, and the matter was made worse because another customer overheard what you said. How could you have handled this better?”

James might come up with a solution like “count to ten (or take a quick walk around the shop) when feeling the urge to blow off steam.”

“If the employee suggests a better way, and it is acceptable, go for it,” says Jacobsen. “He has come up with a way to solve the problem.” And that’s good—compliance will be better if the employee agrees to a self-generated solution rather than one imposed by the boss.

If the employee can’t think of a bet-ter way, then explain how you would like the situation handled in the fu-ture and ask if he or she can do that. In our example, you might suggest that the individual speak with you or a supervisor after dealing with a dif-ficult customer, because talking about bad experiences can reduce their neg-ative effects.

If a behavior has been serious enough you may wish to confirm what has transpired in writing and provide a copy to the employee.

And don’t forget your follow-through. “There is an old adage: ‘If you expect, you’ve got to inspect,’” says Jacobsen. “Check back from time to time to see if the employee has adopted the desired behavior. If so, commendation is in order. If not, take the person aside again and re-peat the above process.” You might










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continued from page 40also agree with the employee on a day to follow up, and mark your calendar so it doesn’t fall through the cracks.Coach, not dictator

Notice an important characteristic about the above approach: It represents the work of a coach, not a dictator.

“Do not be heavy handed; do not use more muscle than necessary,” says Dr. Lois P. Frankel, a partner at Corporate Coaching International, Los Angeles (corporatecoachingintl.com). “In the old days managers would say something like this: ‘I have to tell you that if I hear of this be-havior again your employment may be jeopardized.’ That was considered progressive. But not anymore. Today you want to turn around the situation with the least disruption.”

Helping people improve their per-formance can also make the correc-tive process more palatable for the boss. “Too many bosses don’t have these difficult conversations because they are seen as confrontational” says Frankel. “Replace that confrontation-al cap with a coach cap. Tell yourself this: ‘My job is to bring out the best in people and make a company that is well functioning.’”

Improve conditionsYour data gathering activity may un-

cover a surprising fact: an underlying problem in the workplace needs to be addressed. This issue may be causing negative feelings on the part of other employees as well. “When the perfor-mance or attitude of a good employee starts to deteriorate, that can be a sign that something is going wrong in the workplace,” says Richard Avdoian, an employee development consultant in Metropolitan St. Louis (richardav-doian.com). “You want to find out what it is—and nip it in the bud.”

Let’s take our second scenario from this article’s opening. Why did Marga-reta tell a customer “Management re-ally stinks here?”

During your data-gathering discus-sion described earlier, Margareta may tell you something like this: “We used to have flextime and they took that away last month.”

Your response should acknowledge both the issue and your desire to meet the employee’s needs. You might say something like this:

“I kind of feel the same; I wish that had not gone away. But let’s talk about how your needs can be met.”

While your workplace might not be

able to offer flextime, it might be able to offer individuals a little more lee-way in adjusting schedules to meet family needs. Changes that arise from coaching sessions can modify the workplace in ways that benefit all employees and result in great cus-tomer satisfaction.Tougher action

Of course, this article has been talk-ing about the occasional negative ac-tions of good employees. Persistent negative behavior requires tougher action. “If the behavior is persistent, then there must be accountability,” says Avdoian.

Consider the third entry in this ar-ticle’s opening scenarios. Andre, who said that a requested service was “not my job,” needs to be reminded that “we’re all in this together” and that every employee has to be ready to pitch in with duties that may well be outside of the parameters outlined in a job description.

The coaching procedure outlined in this article should help Andre come around to a better attitude. If not, then the only remaining option is to refer to your organization’s progres-sive disciplinary measures that lead to termination. WRN

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Preliminary steel imports increase 15% in April Import market share 27% in April

Based on preliminary Census Bu-reau data, the American Iron and Steel Institute (AISI) reported that the U.S. imported a total of 3,726,000 net tons (NT) of steel in April, includ-ing 2,738,000 net tons (NT) of finished steel (up 15.2% and 12.2%, respective-ly, vs. March final data). Year-to-date (YTD) total and finished steel imports are 13,451,000 and 9,894,000 net tons (NT), respectively, up 29% and 20% respectively, vs. 2013. Annualized to-tal and finished steel imports in 2014 would be 40.4 and 29.7 million NT, up 26% and 20% respectively vs. 2013. Finished steel import market share was an estimated 27% in April and is estimated at 26% YTD.

Key finished steel products with a significant import increase in April compared to March are wire rods (up 71%), heavy structural shapes (up 43%), line pipe (up 34%), cold rolled sheets (up 27%), standard pipe (up 24%), hot rolled bars (up 21%) and plates in coils (up 14%). Major products with significant YTD import increases vs. the same period last year include wire rods (up 113%), plates in coils (up 68%), cold rolled sheets (up 52%), rein-forcing bars (up 47%), sheets and strip all other metallic coatings (up 41%), sheets and strip galvanized hot dipped (up 35%), hot rolled sheets (35%), me-chanical tubing (31%), oil country goods (up 15%) and cut lengths plates (up 13%).

In April, the largest volumes of fin-ished steel imports from offshore were all from Asia and Europe. They were from China (416,000 NT, up 108% vs. March final), South Korea (401,000 NT, up 16%), Japan (210,000 NT, up 23%), Turkey (138,000 NT, down 19%) and Russia (106,000 NT, up 6%). For four months of 2014, the largest offshore suppliers were South Korea (1,567,000 NT, up 27%), China (983,000 NT, up 76%), Japan (707,000 NT, up 8%), Tur-key (607,000 NT, up 30%) and Rus-sia (393,000 NT, up 295%). Below are charts on estimated steel import market share in recent months and on finished steel imports from offshore by country.

Steel institute hails letter from Senators on OCTG trade case

The American Iron and Steel Insti-tute (AISI) said that a letter sent by 57 U.S. Senators expressing concern with the Department of Commerce’s

preliminary determination in an on-going trade case on certain steel pipe imports used in oil and gas exploration (OCTG) “sends a tremendous message to the Administration that the major-ity of the U.S. Senate will not tolerate anything but the strictest enforcement of our trade laws against unfair trade practices.”

Thomas J. Gibson, President and CEO of AISI, said, “In the case brought by the pipe and tube makers, the Department of Commerce failed to recognize and ad-dress the injurious dumping of OCTG by Korea and other producers. In part, this appears to be due to the govern-ment’s failure to take into account all of the information supplied by the domes-tic industry prior to issuing the prelimi-nary determination. The steel industry applauds the action by the majority of senators to urge the president and his administration to stand up and take no-tice, and to fully consider the industry’s allegations and the facts in the case. The U.S. government must aggressively and strictly enforce our trade laws to en-sure that relief is provided to steelmak-ers and the nearly one million workers directly or indirectly supported by the steel industry.”

AISI announces 2014 Institute Medal Winners, SSAB Americas Wins Top Honor

The American Iron and Steel Insti-tute (AISI) awarded its highest techni-cal award, the 2014 Institute Medal, to three industry authors for their win-ning paper, “Development of an Inclu-sion Characterization Methodology for Improving Steel Product Cleanliness.” Author Justin Raines, research engi-neer, SSAB Americas, was presented the Institute Medal by AISI Chairman Michael Rippey, who is also President and Chief Executive Officer of Arce-lorMittal USA. Raines accepted the award on behalf of himself and Sun-day Abraham and Rick Bodnar, also of SSAB Americas.

“The Institute Medal highlights the essential technical work being done for the advancement and future prosperity of our industry,” said Thomas J. Gib-son, President and CEO of AISI. “We congratulate the Institute Medal win-ners and finalists on their dedication and successful research that earned them this distinguished recognition.” Established in 1927, the Institute Med-al and two Finalist Medals are award-ed for technical papers having special

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merit and importance in connection with the activities and interests of the iron and steel industry. Papers are judged on the potential value to future prosperity of the industry, technical ex-cellence and originality, effective com-munication and breadth of interest to AISI members.

The inscription on the medal reads: “American Iron and Steel Institute Medal, established by American Iron and Steel Institute, October 28, 1927, to perpetuate the memory of Elbert H. Gary, founder and first president, and to stimulate improvement in the iron and steel and allied industries.”

The Finalist medals were awarded to:“Development and Application of a

Remelt Method for Rapid Collection and Observations of Inclusions,” au-thored by Howard M. Pielet, principal research engineer; and Scott Schuldt, process manager – quality assurance, both of ArcelorMittal USA.

“Tensile Properties Obtained by Q&P Processing of Mn-Ni Steels With Room Temperature Quench Temperatures,” authored by G.A. Thomas, engineer, AK Steel Research; and E. De Moor and J.G. Speer, both of the Colorado School of Mines.

Recognition of the Institute Medal

Winners and Finalists took place on Tuesday, May 6, 2014 during the AISI’s 122nd General Meeting at The Fairmont Scottsdale Princess in Scottsdale, AZ.

March steel shipments up 9.4 percent from February, up 5.2 percent from prior year

The American Iron and Steel Insti-tute (AISI) reported that for the month of March 2014, U.S. steel mills shipped 8,337,578 net tons, a 9.4 percent in-crease from the 7,618,380 net tons shipped in the previous month, Febru-ary 2014, and a 5.2 percent increase from the 7,922,265 net tons shipped in March 2013. Shipments year-to-date in 2014 are 23,851,251 net tons, a 1.2 percent increase vs. 2013 shipments of 23,569,379 net tons for three months.

A comparison of March shipments to the previous month of February shows the following changes: hot rolled sheet, up 13 percent, cold rolled sheet, up 7 percent and hot dipped galvanized sheets and strip, up 6 percent.

AISI releases April SIMA imports data Import market share 28 % in April

Based on the Commerce Depart-ment’s most recent Steel Import Moni-

toring and Analysis (SIMA) data, the American Iron and Steel Institute (AISI) reported that steel import per-mit applications for the month of April total ≈3,682,000 net tons (NT). This was a 4% increase from the 3,551,000 permit tons recorded in March and 14% increase from the March final imports total of 3,234,000 NT. Import permit tonnage for finished steel in April was 2,658,000, up 9% from the final im-ports total of 2,439,000 in March. For the first 4 months of 2014 (including April SIMA and March final), total and finished steel imports were 13,407,000 NT and 9,814,000 NT, respectively, up 29% and 19% from the same period in 2013. The estimated finished steel im-port market share in April was 28% and is 26% year-to-date (YTD).

Finished steel imports with large increases in April permits vs. the March final included standard rails (up 108%), wire rods (up 55%), standard pipe (up 52%), heavy structural shapes (up 41%), cold rolled sheets (up 34%), line pipe (up 29%) and hot rolled bars (up 19%). Products with significant year-to-date (YTD) increases vs. the same period in 2013 include wire rods (up 105%), plates in coils (up 63%), cold


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rolled sheets (up 54%), reinforcing bars (up 40%), sheets and strip hot dipped galvanized (up 36%), sheets and strip all other metallic coatings (up 35%), hot rolled sheets (32%), mechanical tubing (31%), oil country goods (up 16%) and cut lengths plates (up 12%).

In April, the largest finished steel import permit applications for off-shore countries were for South Ko-rea (402,000 NT, up 16% from March final), China (398,000 NT up 99%), Japan (195,000 NT, up 14%), Turkey (121,000 NT, down 29%) and Rus-sia (103,000 NT, up 3%). Through the first four months of 2014, the largest offshore suppliers were South Korea (1,568,000 NT, up 27% from the same period in 2013), China (965,000 NT, up 73%) and Japan (692,000, up 5%).

Steel institute comments on report on China as a non-market economy

The American Iron and Steel In-stitute (AISI) said a report released by the Center for American Progress (CAP) indicates that economic reforms announced by Chinese leadership last fall will do nothing to mitigate China’s stateownership and control over key

industrial sectors, including steel.“Government ownership and control

of key aspects of the Chinese economy lead to significant economic distortions, including a massive build-up in excess steelmaking capacity in China. The state-run economy prevents normal market forces from operating in China and produces harmful effects in global markets. Private companies in the United States and elsewhere can’t com-pete with foreign governments, and the impact has been seen across the steel industry. Despite the rhetoric from the Chinese government last fall, today’s report reaffirms that these announce-ments won’t move the needle toward a market economy in China,” said Thom-as J. Gibson, President at CEO of AISI.

The report from the Washington, D.C. think tank today examined the announced economic reforms under-way in China, which were proposed by Chinese leadership as part of the socalled “Third Plenum” meeting of the Communist Party last fall. The de-tailed analysis indicates that the basic economic institutions in China remain state-controlled and will continue to operate on non-market principles, even if the Third Plenum reforms are imple-mented as announced.

“China’s economy will still operate with broad government involvement in the ownership and control of key in-dustrial sectors and corporate finance, with the Communist Party and the Chinese state retaining authority over key economic decisions,” Gibson said. “We hope policymakers and others who can help change this course will take notice of this important research and analysis released today.”

The report can be found at www.americanprogress.org.

Steel Institute applauds House passage of water resources bill

The American Iron and Steel Insti-tute (AISI) applauded the U.S. House of Representatives’ passage, by a vote of 412-4, of a bill – known as the Water Resources Reform and Development ACT (WRRDA) – to fund port dredg-ing and improvements and repair and replace aging inland waterways locks and dams.

“The steel industry relies heavily on seaports and inland waterways to move raw materials necessary for steelmak-ing and bring finished steel products to market. However, a bill to improve water infrastructure is long overdue,” said Thomas J. Gibson, President and CEO of AISI. “Our nation’s seaports are heavily congested and not dredged to full capacity, while our inland wa-terways include obsolete and aging in-frastructure that often results in costly delays – threatening more than one million U.S. jobs in the next six years. This long- awaited compromise bill will help ensure our nation remains glob-ally competitive, and provide more ef-ficient and cost-effective navigation for our vital water infrastructure needs.”

WireCo WorldGroup acquires Netherlands based Endenburg B.V.Company will open new crane distribution center

WireCo WorldGroup, Inc. (WireCo), the world’s leading producer and marketer of specialty steel ropes and high synthetic ropes, announced that WireCo has acquired the assets of En-denburg B.V. (Gouda), a Netherlands based company. As part of the agree-ment, WireCo will establish a crane rope distribution center at the cur-rent Gouda location, called the WireCo Crane Center. Founded in 1855, En-denburg has been a trusted name in the shipping, towing, construction and transport industry. Headquartered in


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Gouda, Netherlands, Endenburg sup-plies high quality hoisting and lifting gear including steel wire ropes, shack-les, fiber ropes and custom-made tar-paulin covers.

“The new WireCo Crane Rope Dis-tribution Center in Gouda will allow WireCo to adjust to changing markets by reducing order to shipment turn-around time, while also providing new opportunities to improve services to our distributors,” said Blake Chandler, WireCo Senior Vice President. “This new facility establishes a key central stocking location with good inland transportation routes near the Rotter-dam Port, allowing WireCo to provide quicker response times to support both our European and international dis-tributors.”

Chandler has appointed Marc Altena to server as general manager of the WireCo Crane Center which will com-mence operations in mid-April. Altena has managed the distribution center of Ymuiden Fishing in the Netherlands.

Key points to this announcement:• The Gouda location will exclusive-

ly service WireCo’s distribution part-ners and select OEM’s, focusing on our Casar and Oliveira crane ropes.

• WireCo’s German fabrication and dis-

tribution center will continue to operate.• The new WireCo facility, located

near the Rotterdam port, will allow WireCo to be “close to the market” with turnaround times within 24 hours when needed.

• Endenburg’s current maritime, off-shore and heavy lifting departments will continue from Lankhorst Ropes located in Dordrecht, the Netherlands, under the Lankhorst Ropes name. • The En-denburg name will not be continued and all activities will be incorporated into current WireCo business units.

About WireCo WorldGroupWireCo® WorldGroup’s products

are recognized throughout the world and used in a wide range of market applications. WireCo® WorldGroup employs approximately 4,000 people and is headquartered in Kansas City, Missouri, with manufacturing plants, distribution facilities and research and development centers around the world. For more information: www.wireco-worldgroup.com.

Van Beest is ready for the future

Van Beest is pleased to announce that after one and a half years of intensive construction and renovation

our renewed and expanded housing is ready for use.

This investment allows Van Beest to further strengthen the pillars on which the company is built: reliability, qual-ity and customer oriented.

The solid growth of the international position and future plans of Van Beest, which currently has subsidiaries in four countries, gave cause to adapt the housing of our headquarters and production facility in Sliedrecht, The Netherlands.

We have realized this by:• Expanding the production hall

with 2500m2 to a total of 7400 m2.• Expanding the warehouse with

2500m2 to a total of 8600m2, contain-ing over 11,000 pallets of Green Pin®, Excel® and trade products.

• Renovating and expanding the office by adding a complete floor of 500m2.

Van Beest manufacturers high qual-ity lifting products such as shackles and hooks, under the registered trade names GREEN PIN® and EXCEL®. Van Beest currently has branches in The Nether-lands, Germany, France and USA, and stock holding distributors in more than 80 countries worldwide.



Van Beest partners with Lift-It

Netherlands based Van Beest B.V. a leading supplier of wire rope and chain fittings to the world market, with regis-tered trade marks Green Pin and Excel has added a new distributor to its global network, the California based company, Lift-It Manufacturing Company, Inc.

Chris Keffer, Van Beest’s General Manager USA and Canada states, “We are delighted to be working with Lift-It, as they are ideally placed in the west-ern sales region to service a large and growing market in which they are al-ready well established. Lift-It is able to offer complex rigging solutions for both individual customers and for the OEM market. The new partnership means that Van Beest will continue to develop their global reach to customers.”

Mr. Keffer also comments, “Michael J. Gelskey, Sr., Lift-It Chief Executive Officer, has been working in the indus-try for over forty-one years and with his son, Michael J. Gelskey, Jr. and their management team has built up a very professional company that is well re-spected throughout the industry.” Mike Gelskey, Sr. states, “We manufacture

the finest rigging available, but what we really offer is safety, service, techni-cal expertise and solutions that exceed our customer’s expectations. We look forward to working with Van Beest and are honored in our association.”

When asked about the strategic al-liance, Mike Gelskey, Jr. contributed, “The ability to ship 3-1/4 ton or 3,000 ton shackles at a moment’s notice will further assist our customers in de-manding situations and allow us to provide customer satisfaction.”

About Van Beest:Van Beest is a leading manufacturer

and supplier for a complete program of wire rope and chain fittings. Two brands: Green Pin® and EXCEL®.

The EXCEL® range covers a wide range of grade 8, grade 10 and stain-less steel hooks and chain components. These high quality products are made in France.

In Holland, Van Beest manufactures Green Pin® shackles in various shapes and sizes, suitable for many differ-ent applications. Green Pin® shackles comply with many internationally rec-ognized standards and can be supplied with various certificates.

Van Beest also offers a wide range of additional accessories like sockets,

turnbuckles etc. to complete your lift-ing assembly.

About Lift-It:Lift-It Manufacturing Company, Inc.

provides quality rigging products, stel-lar service and world class training in-ternationally. For additional informa-tion, contact Corporate Headquarters at 909-469-2251 or visit www.lift-it.com.

Strainstall supply load pins for the Shell Stones project in the Gulf of Mexico

Strainstall UK Limited are proud to have been selected to work alongside SBM offshore on the prestigious Shell Stones project, which is an ultra-deep Oil and Gas development in the Gulf of Mexico and is currently the deepest production facility in the world at approximately 2900 metres.

The project involves the use of an FPSO (Floating Production Storage and Offloading) which has a forward mounted turret with a disconnect-able buoy (Buoyant Turret Mooring or BTM) allowing it to weathervane in normal conditions and disconnect from the FPSO upon the approach of a hur-


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ricane so that the FPSO can sail to a safer area.

The unique BTM design required six specially designed load pins to mea-sure the forces between the Buoy and the FPSO as they are an integral com-ponent of the detachable buoy system, and a critical element to ensure the safety of the FPSO and BTM. A custom design was required to meet SBM’s requirements and to incorporate the unique features, and Strainstall, with over 40 years experience in designing special application load pins, were ide-ally placed to design and manufacture such a loadpin.

In addition to the design, manufac-ture and testing of the load pin a com-prehensive documentation package was specified by SBM, as is customary for offshore projects. Again Strainstall are ideally placed to provide such documen-tation, having over 30 years experience of providing specific packages for a wide variety of industries including offshore oil and gas, marine, industrial, aero-space and nuclear.

The challenging technical require-ments of the pin meant Strainstall were contracted to produce an unusual shaped design which was ATEX and IECEx certified with internal amplifiers to monitor the clamping forces between the vessel and the detachable buoy.

Apart from component loadcells and instrumentation, Strainstall also de-sign and manufacture turnkey instru-mentation packages for a wide variety of applications including Tendon and Riser Load Monitoring Systems, Winch and Mooring Chain Monitoring and Control, Environmental Monitoring, Integrated Marine Management Sys-tems for FPSOs and Offshore Struc-tures, and Berth Management Systems for onshore oil and gas terminals.

All mechanical, electrical and elec-tronic, and software design is performed in house to ensure best practice under Strainstall’s ISO EN900 accreditation, and the company also has in-house ac-credited personnel for the design, man-ufacture and installation of Hazardous Area equipment. The company also de-signs and manufactures a wide range of Quick Release Mooring Hooks for both onshore and offshore use.

Stones will be Shell’s first FPSO in the Gulf of Mexico but Shell is already field operator for seven producing FPSOs globally. This includes at the Parque das Conchas (BC-10) project in Brazil, in partnership with Petro-bras and ONGC. An FPSO design was selected to safely develop and produce the Stones ultra deep-water field. This

concept design can handle a relative lack of infrastructure, a complex sea-bed, and unique reservoir properties. Tankers will transport oil from the Stones FPSO to US refineries, and gas will be transported by pipeline.

SBM Offshore provides floating pro-duction solutions to the offshore energy industry, over the full product life-cycle. The Company is market leading in leased floating production systems with multi-ple units currently in operation, and has unrivalled operational experience in this field. The Company’s main activities are the design, supply, installation and op-eration of Floating Production, Storage and Offloading (FPSO) vessels. These are either owned and operated by SBM Offshore and leased to its clients or sup-plied on a turnkey sale basis.

Cleveland City Forge – Celebrating 150 years!

Cleveland City Forge is celebrating 150 years of partnering with some of the most notable companies around the world. Over these years, they have had the privilege to manufacture standard and custom forged steel structural hardware for various projects that have shaped our communities and strength-ened our nation’s infrastructure.

“From our humble beginnings back in 1864, our structural hardware was used to support the Lake Erie marine industry. Since, we have evolved to co-ordinate on projects with Construction, Mining, Oil & Gas and Power Genera-tion industries, just to name a few”, said Shelly Fairchild, Marketing Busi-


ness Development Manager.“These industries that we serve re-

quire a quality commitment that we understand and accept. Quality has al-ways been our driving force. Recogniz-ing this in the early 1950’s, ASTM co-ordinated with us to develop industry wide quality standards for the Clevis and Turnbuckle product line. Those standards still remain in place today. To maintain these close controls, our products are domestically manufac-tured in our plant.”

Today, the Cleveland City Forge standard product line consists of Clev-ises, Pins, Turnbuckles, Eye Nuts, Eye Bolts, Yokes, Threaded Rods, Rod Ends, and Nuts. Most recently, Swage Sockets were added to the product line in both Open and Closed options rang-ing in sizes from 1/4” to 2”. In addition, Cleveland City Forge has the capabili-ties to manufacture custom parts from design to production. All products can be produced in Carbon, Stainless, S182 F11 and S182 F22 materials. “We un-derstand that very few companies get the honor and privilege to share in this milestone,” continues Drew Maddock, General Manager. “Working together with our employees, customers, in-dustry partners and communities we look forward to a future that is strong and vital like we have been since 1864 when we started.”

Now that’s a Sesquicentennial worth celebrating!

For more information, go to their web-site at www.ClevelandCityForge.com.

Terex Material Handling wins order to provide two Demag DH Rope Hoists and DFW Endtrucks to Hi-Tech Mold & Eng., Inc.

Terex Material Handling announced an order for two Demag DH Hoists (30-ton and 15-ton) with DFW Endtrucks from Hi-Tech Mold & Eng., Inc.

“Hi-Tech Mold has 42 hoist units at its Rochester Michigan Headquarters, ranging from 1-tons to 50-tons capaci-ty,” said Don Finch, Maintenance Man-ger of Hi-Tech Mold & Eng., Inc. “With over half of these units being Demag, the uptime and performance has been proven on the Demag units versus com-petitive models we also have. Demag is the first choice when considering a new crane purchase.”

“Mt. Clemens Crane has supported Hi-Tech Mold’s new crane and field ser-vice needs since 1988,” said Charles Al-bright, President of Mt. Clemens Crane

& Service Co., Inc. “We are pleased Hi-Tech Mold has ordered another crane for their tool building operations. We continue to supply proven Demag DH hoists, drives, and travel wheel assem-blies for this demanding application. The customer benefits from smooth op-erating cranes with high reliability and safety features”.

“We are honored that Hi-Tech Mold continues to rely on Demag for safe and reliable hoists,” said John Paxton, Gen-eral Manager of Terex Material Han-dling North America. “This order is an excellent example of when manufactur-ers have an opportunity to work with our hoists and a competitor’s hoist, Demag is an obvious choice.”

About Hi-Tech Mold & Eng., Inc.Hi-Tech Mold & Eng., Inc. is a fam-

ily owned and operated company that specializes in the design and build of production and prototype molds, fixture and gauges for the plastics industry worldwide. Opening in 1982, we con-tinue a steadfast dedication to provid-ing our customers with the best possible Quality, Service, Innovation and Value.

About Mt. Clemens CraneSince 1973, Mt. Clemens Crane has

grown to become a leading overhead crane specialist by providing engineered material handling solutions for South-eastern Michigan and beyond. With decades of experience, a 30,000 sq. ft. self contained facility, and a highly re-garded reputation, Mt. Clemens Crane is ready to tackle any material handling requirement. Producing cranes that are capable of lifting a small die, 25 ton coil of steel, or driving a fully automated metal processing operation, Mt. Clem-ens Crane is ready to deliver the best material handling solution.

About Terex Material HandlingTerex Corporation is one of the

world’s leading suppliers of crane tech-nology with Demag industrial cranes and crane components. The core com-petence of the Terex Material Handling

business group lies in the development, design and production of technically sophisticated cranes, hoists and com-ponents and the provision of sales and services for these products. The busi-ness group manufactures in 16 coun-tries on five continents and is present in more than 60 countries, reaching customers in more than 100 countries.

Terex Corporation is a diversified global manufacturer of a broad range of equipment. A core activity of Terex Corporation is the provision of reliable, customer-driven solutions for many ap-plications, including the construction, infrastructure, shipping, transport, quarrying, mining, refining, energy, util-ity and manufacturing industries. Terex reports in five business segments: Aerial Work Platforms; Construction; Cranes; Material Handling & Port Solutions; and Materials Processing Terex Financial Services offers a wide range of products and services to assist in the acquisition of Terex equipment. Please visit our websites at www.demag-us.com and www.terex.com for further information.

Chant acquires Cumberland Equipment Line

New Britain, PA based, Chant Engi-neering is proud to announce the acqui-sition of the Cumberland Equipment Line, a division of Cumberland Sales Company (CSC), Nashville, TN.

The Cumberland Equipment Line started in 1992 specializes in a variety of products from take-up and payout equipment to turntables and meter stands with their specialty in the Cum-berland Gantry Style Take Up Machine rated at 5,000 to 60,000 lbs reeling ca-pacity. The Cumberland Gantry Style Take Up Machine is well known for the heavy duty capabilities required for big rigging shops as well as provides the perfect amount of back tension needed for proper wire rope spooling.

“This is a fantastic acquisition for Chant Engineering and we are very ex-cited,” says Philip Chant, President of Chant Engineering. “This was the one machinery line we did not make or dis-tribute and will now enable us to be a ‘one-stop shop’ if you will.”

Started in 1976, Chant Engineering has steadily developed their brand as a diversified engineering company that designs, manufactures, services and calibrates testing machines, systems and related accessories for worldwide industrial and military customers. With the addition of the Cumberland Equipment Line, Chant is primed for


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growth, offering the complete equip-ment needs for rigging shops. “Chant Engineering is the pinnacle in equip-ment manufacturing, we couldn’t be happier about Cumberland Equipment becoming a part of their product line,” said Pat Poe, President of Cumberland Sales Company. Cumberland Sales Company will continue in the wire rope and industrial sales business.

The recent acquisition comes on the heels of Chant’s facility expansion (January 2014) and partnership with Talurit AB (2012). Chant Engineering’s main objective is to keep customer ser-vice at the forefront of their business model. “Chant Engineering has had phenomenal growth and this acquisi-tion will only enhance our position as the premier machinery supplier to the rigging industry,” said Philip Chant.

Green Pin® ROV shacklesFinalist at “Woelfel Best Mechanical Engineering Achievement” Awards

The Woelfel Best Mechanical Engi-neering Achievement is an initiative of ASME Petroleum Division and is held every year at the Offshore Technology Conference (OTC) in Houston, USA.

This prestigious award recognizes a product, device or system, which best

reflects innovation and/or practical use of mechanical engineering in solving problems, improving design or maxi-mizing performance.

Green Pin® ROV shackles have a specially designed quick release that can be manipulated easily by an ROV’s hydraulically operated arm, without

compromising safety, according to a company release. Developed specifical-ly for sub-sea applications, these prod-ucts overcome the limitations of solu-tions based on standard products. They can significantly reduce the time taken to disassemble shackles underwater.




Petersen Stainless, a leader in stainless steel lifting component manufacture, extends its service to the US Market

Petersen manufactures in the UK under a certified ISO9001:2008 and AS9100:C quality management system that allows for full materials traceability from the field back to the steel mill. Pe-tersen is unique in their ability to glob-ally deliver full traceability as standard through their offices in UK, Sweden, Ma-laysia, and now the USA on a wide range of stainless steel shackles, 316 turnbuck-les and swaged wire fittings.

Shipwright Technical Services will be operating the North American office acting on behalf of Petersen Stainless. Andy Colloton, a 30-year Marine Indus-try veteran is President of Shipwright, and has a long-standing relationship with Petersen. Located in Essex, CT. “Andy has the unique combination of technical skills, market know-how and excellent customer relations to fit the Petersen philosophy of good customer support through good technical back-

up.” says Kevin Bell, CEO of Petersen Stainless. Petersen Stainless manufac-tures in England high tensile (high re-sistance) stainless steel shackles, 316L stainless steel shackles and turnbuck-les, super-duplex shackles, NSN shack-les, Tufnol (phenolic) blocks and other equipment for the lifting and offshore industries. All Petersen lifting prod-ucts are individually proof tested to double the WLL before being marked with a test number and the CE mark in accordance with Machine Directive 2006/EC/42. All parts are manufac-tured from high-quality European ma-terials – Petersen never re-badge far-eastern imports.

For more information visit their website at www.liftingshackles.com or contact [email protected].

Columbus McKinnon creates new Global Services Position and expands leadership rolesNew assignments support global growth initiatives

Columbus McKinnon Corporation, a leading designer, manufacturer and marketer of material handling prod-

ucts, announced a newly created Glob-al Services Group and the expansion of roles for certain global leaders. Gene Buer will now serve as Vice President, Global Services and Vertical Markets, while Kurt Wozniak will assume the role of Vice President, Americas. In addition, Benjamin AuYeung has been appointed Managing Director for Co-lumbus McKinnon Asia-Pacific replac-ing Eric Woon. Mr. Woon, who served as Vice President -- Asia-Pacific the past four years, planned his retirement for March 2014.

Timothy T. Tevens, President and Chief Executive Officer, commented, “The development of our leadership team is an important component of our growth strategy. Gene’s new role as the leader of the newly formed Global Services Group will focus on developing key customer relationships much more deeply. Certain key customers are de-manding a more holistic and global ap-proach for their lifting needs and can benefit from more cohesive offerings of our products, services and solutions. Also, this position will focus additional attention on our vertical market strat-egy. In addition, Kurt and Ben will expand their roles in these important regions of the world, the Americas and Asia. Both are critically important for the future of our Company.”

Mr. Buer joined Columbus McKinnon in 2005 as President of the Company’s Crane Equipment and Service division and most recently served as Vice Presi-dent Hoist & Rigging Products – North America and Global Vertical Markets. Mr. Wozniak joined the Company in 1999 and has held a variety of positions, most recently as Vice President, Latin America. As Vice President, Americas, his leadership responsibilities will ex-pand to include the North America Hoist & Rigging business in addition to the responsibilities previously held as Vice President, Latin America.

Mr. AuYeung joined Columbus McK-innon in 2012 to manage the Compa-ny’s China Operations. As Managing Director for Columbus McKinnon Asia-Pacific, he will assume Eric Woon’s previous responsibilities for the Asia Pacific business.

Mr. Tevens added, “Eric was instru-mental in the development of our Asia-Pacific business including the expansion of our sales team in China. We wish him all the best in his retirement and look for-ward to this management team develop-ing and expanding our global business.”

About Columbus McKinnonColumbus McKinnon is a leading

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On the Move!Alps Wire Rope realignment

It’s a time of celebration as Alps Wire Rope Corporation completes is realignment of facilities. Our Columbus Ohio warehouse moved to our new location in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.

The new warehouse in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania is now open for business! The new address for Harrisburg is as follows:

Alps Wire Rope Corporation1549 Bobali DriveSuite C Harrisburg, PA 17104(800) 424-9986(717) 939-5757www.alpswirerope.comColumbus, Ohio warehouse has been

part of Alps Wire Rope Corporation for over 21 years. We thank all of our em-ployees who have made Columbus one of Alps most successful warehouses. Rocky Chapman has been the heart and soul of this warehouse, succes-sively managing the warehouse and working with our customers. “Rocky is one of the key people who has made Columbus successful and we are grate-ful for all of his dedication and hard work,” says Brad Benner, President of Alps Wire Rope Corporation. Rocky has been given the opportunity to move with the company and he is part of the team who is opening the new ware-house in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.

Rocky was one of the many long term employees at the Columbus warehouse. Travis Zelvik and Eric Strawser are also long term employees of Alps Wire Rope Corporation. We have come to rely on our Columbus team for their devoted skills and expertise. Thank you to our Columbus Ohio team for all of the con-tributions throughout the years.

This is the final move for Alps Wire Rope Corporation’s strategic realign-ment process. Alps warehouses are stra-tegically positioned around the United States to provide fast delivery of our diverse line of quality wire rope. Alps’

strives to meet and exceed expectations and better perform by consistently sup-plying superior service to meet the de-mands of our customers and the needs of the wire rope industry.

Thank you to all of our customers who have continued to trust in the Alps Pinnacle brand and who have support-ed our efforts to bring quality, depend-able wire rope people can rely on.

We look forward to a new era in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Here’s to continued dedication to the wire rope industry, all the new challenges and many more years of continued success. Hello Harrisburg! To contact Alps, email [email protected].

Investing in America: pewag opens first North American chain manufacturing plant in Pueblo, Colorado

On May 3, 2014, pewag officially opened its first North American chain plant in Pueblo, Colorado with a rib-bon cutting ceremony. The plant is located in the Minnequa Industrial Park on Greenhorn Drive adjacent to I-25. pewag is the world’s leading




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manufacturer and technological inno-vator of round-link steel chain prod-ucts. The Austrian company, with U.S. headquarters in Bolingbrook, Illinois, leads the industry in chain innovation, including Grade 120 Chain - The World’s Strongest Chain. They manufacturer three main prod-uct lines including: traction or snow chains, industrial chains and tire pro-tection chains. Distributing chains in the United States since 1975, pewag is proud of its 535 year history, dat-ing back to 1479 – before Columbus discovered America!

The new state-of-the-art Pueblo plant will manufacture snow chains for the North American market. When ful-ly built out, the plant will reach a size of 55,000 sq. ft. and employ 55 people from the Pueblo area. The plant is be-ing financed by the Pueblo Develop-ment Foundation.

Pewag chose to locate in Pueblo, Colorado, because of its proximity to the traction chain market in the Rocky Mountains. Additional considerations included excellent access to steel, a highly qualified workforce, training facilities with the Pueblo Community College and financial incentives offered by the City of Pueblo. With the addi-tion of the new Pueblo plant, pewag is pleased to contribute to the manufac-turing renaissance currently taking place in America.

wire 2014 and Tube 2014: Collectively strong for future markets

At the recent concurrent staging of wire 2014, International Wire and Cable Trade Fair, and Tube 2014, In-ternational Tube and Pipe Trade Fair, in Düsseldorf, Germany, more than 2,500 international exhibitors present-ed their product innovations to 72,000 trade visitors from 104 countries. The exhibitors at the two leading interna-tional trade fairs for the wire and tube industry were inspired by the upswing of the steel market.

“The trade fairs took place at ex-actly the right time. Currently, many

companies are planning to invest in order to position themselves for con-tinued competition. Once again, wire and Tube recorded exhibitor growth as well as a significant increase in booked exhibition space,” explained Joachim Schäfer, Managing Director of Messe Düsseldorf.

Overall, about 98% of the exhibitors gave the two trade fairs top marks. International contacts, strong buy-ing interest, plenty of conversations and deals closed onsite as well as the anticipation of busy post-show busi-ness characterized the mood at wire and Tube 2014. The steel and NE metal industry has long been consid-ered to be a reliable early indicator for all other industries. The entire economy benefits when this market is strong. The companies exhibiting at wire and Tube 2014 occupied more than 1.1 million square feet of net exhibition space.

“As world market leader in the steel tube industry with two plants in Düs-

seldorf, we believe it was the right de-cision to participate at Tube 2014 – for the second time after a long break,” summarized Norbert Keusen, CEO of Vallourec Deutschland GmbH. “Our customers were especially interested in the offshore foundation system PREON marine, with which wind turbines can be anchored in the ocean much quicker, more cost-effectively and more environ-mentally-friendly than with the meth-ods commonly used today,” continued Norbert Kreusen.

wire 2014More than 1,300 companies from 54

countries participated in wire 2014. They occupied approximately 639,680 square feet of space – a 2% increase compared with the the 2012 figures. From the U.S., 78 companies exhibited at wire 2014, including 33 exhibitors (from the U.S., Canada and Mexico) within the North American Pavilion, organized by Messe Düsseldorf North America and with the Wire and Cable Industry Suppliers Association (WCI-


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SA) as the sponsor. The wire 2014 exhibitors particularly

appreciated the professional compe-tence of the visitors and the high level of conversations at the stands. Almost all of the companies surveyed expect good post-event business.

This year WAFIOS presented no less than 30 innovations at its two trade fair stands in halls 5 and 10. “That in-cludes 15 new machines alone,” stated Dr. Cristoph Müller-Mederer, Senior Executive President, Sales and Mar-keting for WAFIOS AG Reutlingen. “Leading the way are the new-genera-tion FMU 15 and 26, which represent more power and ease of operation, and – at the same time – an improved price-performance ratio,” added Dr. Cristoph Müller-Mederer. The company is ex-tremely pleased with the strong partic-ipation of trade visitors from all parts of the world.

The percentage of international visi-tors at wire 2014 was traditionally high: 66% of the attendees travelled to Düsseldorf from outside of Germany, representing 70 countries. The major-ity of all wire 2014 visitors came from Belgium, France, Great Britain, India, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey and

the U.S. The visitors were primarily from industry (75%), trade (11%) and skilled crafts (4%). Of major interest to the attendees were machinery for the processing of wire, steel bars and steel band (35%), end products (22%), aux-iliary equipment (machinery, devices, tools, consumables; 21%), forming tech-nology (15%) and spring making tech-nology (11%).

Tube 2014At Tube 2014, more than 1,200 exhib-

itors from 47 nations showcased their innovations on about 538,190 square feet of total exhibition space. This rep-resents a 3.1% increase in exhibiting companies and close to a 4% increase in booked space compared with the previ-ous event in 2012. Exhibitors included 50 companies from the U.S., with 12 companies participating in the North American Pavilion also organized by Messe Düsseldorf North America and the Fabricators & Manufacturers As-sociation, International (FMA) and the Society of Manufacturing Engineers (SME) as co-sponsors.

Salzgitter AG took part in Tube 2014 with the motto “Mannesmann – the Pipe”. “The positive feedback and the strong interest from the visitors show us that Mannesmann is a syn-

onym for steel tubing of the highest quality worldwide. We are upholding this long-standing success story at the Salzgitter enterprise,” remarked Ber-nhard Kleinermann, Director of Com-munication and Investor Relations at Salzgitter AG.

Participation at Tube is also es-sential for STAPPERT Deutschland GmbH, an exhibitor from the very beginning. “Tube is the most impor-tant trade fair for us in the stain-less steel sector. Already on the first trade fair day our stand was heav-ily visited and we were able to have high-level conversations,” confirmed STAPPERT Brand Communication Manager Silke Löser.

The internationality of the Tube 2014 visitors reached 55%. The attendees came from 62 countries, with the ma-jority arriving from Austria, the Czech Republic, France, Great Britain, India, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Spain, Sweden, Turkey and the U.S. A total of 64% of all visitors were from industry, 18% from trade and 6% from skilled crafts. They were primarily interested in tubes (54%), machinery for tube pro-cessing (24%), machinery for tube re-processing (23%), raw materials (21%)










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and machinery for tube manufacturing (20%). 14% listed accessories, 12% pro-files, and 6% machinery for profile pro-duction as primary reasons for visiting Tube 2014. Overall, the visitors gave high scores for the exhibitor product quality and considered their trade fair visit as completely successful.

The next concurrent staging of wire and Tube will place from April 4 - 8, 2016 in Düsseldorf, Germany. For fur-ther information on visiting or exhibit-ing at wire or Tube 2016, contact Messe Düsseldorf North America, 150 North Michigan Avenue, Suite 2920, Chicago, IL 60601. Telephone: (312) 781-5180; Fax: (312) 781-5188; E-mail: [email protected]; Visit our web site http://www.mdna.com; Subscribe to our blog at http://blog.mdna.com; Follow us on twitter at http://twitter.com/Wire-Tube_MDNA

For hotel and travel information, con-tact TTI Travel, Inc. at (866) 674-3476; Fax: (212) 674-3477; E-mail: [email protected]; www.traveltradeint.com.

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er, easier, and faster handling; and, be-cause the ropes are pliable, they don’t cause damage to the lifting package. Samson’s technical sales and engineer-ing teams will work collaboratively with the UOS sales staff to support customers in Europe. UOS will be ex-panding their fabrication department to facilitate the addition of synthetic rope assemblies.

“Synthetic rope slings fill a special need in the market that can’t be met with steel-wire rope. Bringing Sam-son into our product offering allows us to compete in a larger portion of the market,” according to Edwin Jefferies, Commercial Manager for United Off-shore Services. “Samson is known for its fiber technology and development which complements how we approach the future market.”

Wire & Cable India 2014: Ideal platform to enter growing market

The next staging of Wire & Cable India, 5th International Exhibition for the Wire and Cable Industry, will take place from October 28 - 30, 2014 at the Bombay Convention & Exhibi-tion Center in Mumbai. Wire & Cable India 2014 will be jointly organized by Messe Düsseldorf and its subsidiary Messe Düsseldorf India, with the sup-port of International Wire and Cable Exhibitors’ Association (IWCEA), the International Wire & Machinery As-sociation (IWMA), the Italian Wire Machinery Manufacturers’ Association (ACIMAF), the Wire and Cable Indus-try Suppliers’ Association (WCISA) and the Steel Wire Manufacturers As-sociation of India (SWMAI).

The exhibitors at Wire & Cable India 2014 will present the latest advance-ments in wire manufacturing and finishing machinery, process technol-ogy tools, auxiliary process technology materials, special wires, cables and materials as well as measuring and control technology. The visitor target groups are decision makers from the wire, cable and spring sector, from the iron, steel and non-ferrous industry as well as from the automotive, aerospace, electrical engineering, telecommunica-tion, computer, chemical and construc-tion industry.

Wire & Cable India 2014 will be held at an opportune time. The main cus-tomers for the wire and cable industry are the automotive, telecommunication and construction industries. In the past few years, these sectors have experi-enced a rapid expansion in India, with

app, search [Spider Staging] in the iPhone app store.

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For more information contact Spider at 877-774-3370, or email: [email protected].

United Offshore Services and Samson uniteThe technical leader in wire meets the technical leader in synthetic

Samson and United Offshore Ser-vices (UOS) are pleased to announce their recent partnership to supply Samson high-performance synthetic ropes to Europe. This expansion of the UOS product offering is driven by the increasing demand from their custom-ers who recognize and value the ad-vantages of heavylift slings made with synthetic rope.

Samson manufactures high-perfor-mance synthetic rope from its produc-tion facilities in the United States. With a history reaching over 130 years, Samson has more experience replac-ing steel-wire rope than any other syn-thetic rope producer in the world. Cus-tom-engineered solutions for unique applications are Samson’s focus in in-dustries as diverse as vessel mooring, tug assist/escort, mining, cranes, and offshore oil and gas.

“When we set out to find a partner to bring into our product offering, UOS was the perfect fit for us. Our business strategies and commitment to quality mirror one another,” according to Craig Kelly, Director of international sales for Samson. “UOS is known in the in-dustry for their expertise in fabrica-tion and unique design. This is exactly what we were looking for to service the needs of our customers in the offshore oil and gas industry.”

Headquartered in Moerdijk, The Netherlands, UOS represents Samson in all of Europe, focusing on heavylift slings for the energy markets. Heavy-lift slings made with Samson synthetic lines are size-for-size the same strength and 85% lighter than steel-wire rope. The reduction in weight results in saf-

an annual growth of about 25%. For major infrastructure projects, the Indi-an government has begun to focus pri-marily on public private partnerships. With an investment need of about $450 billion, these infrastructure projects are the driving growth factor for the construction industry, especially in the transportation sector. According to the Automotive Mission Plan 2006-2016, the Indian government is geared up to double the automotive industry’s con-tribution to the country’s GDP by 2016 and furthermore intends to create 25 million new jobs in the industry. The telecommunications market in India is the third largest in the world and the fastest growing, particularly in the wireless and telephone sectors. Con-cerning the Internet sector, the govern-ment plans to provide the rural regions of India with broadband connections.

With 291 exhibitors from 25 coun-tries on 59,800 square feet of net ex-hibit space, the last staging of Wire & Cable India in 2012 was the largest ever. The event featured country group exhibits from Austria, China, France, Germany, Italy and the U.S.

Wire & Cable India 2014 will be held concurrently with three themati-cally related trade shows: Tube India 2014 (6th All-Indian Exhibition and Conference for the Tube and Pipe In-dustries), Metallurgy India 2014 (5th International Exhibition & Conference on Metallurgical Technology, Material Handling and Services) and Welding & Cutting India 2014. Tube India and Metallurgy India will also be organized by Messe Düsseldorf and its Indian subsidiary while Welding & Cutting India is an event of Messe Essen.

For further information on visiting or exhibiting at Wire & Cable India, Tube India or Metallurgy India 2014, contact Messe Düsseldorf North America, 150 North Michigan Avenue, Suite 2920, Chicago, IL 60601. Telephone: (312) 781-5180; Fax: (312) 781-5188; E-mail: [email protected]; Visit our web site www.mdna.com; Subscribe to our blog at blog.mdna.com; Follow us on twitter at twitter.com/WireTube_MDNA.


Lifting apparatus with compensation meansPat. 7,878,347 U.S. class 212/223 Int. class B66C 23/02Inventor: James J. Alday, Honeoye Falls, NY.Assignee: Gorbel, Inc., Fishers, NY.

This patent presents a lifting assembly such as a jib crane or similar apparatus having an articulated arm assembly and a flexible means for connecting a load to an actuator. The lift arm assembly forms an articulated cantilever boom, which is extensible so as to traverse a suspended load within a work cell area. The lift arm assembly further includes a

first and second member pivotally connected to one another whereby an inclined plane (e.g., a cam) at the pivot point of the articulating arms provides a vertical displacement of the secondary arms thereby moving the distal end of the second-ary arm to counterbalance inherent forces acting on it.

Referring to figure 1, depicted in a perspective view therein is an exemplary articulated arm lift 20, a Gorbel EasyArm.TM. lift, having a support column 20 and primary and sec-ondary articulated arms 24 and 28, respectively, connected via pivots. The actuator or winching device 30 is located on the proximal end of primary arm 24, and controls the line or wire rope 36 that is connected to a user control 40 and load 50 suspended from a hook or other end-effector associated with the control.

There are at least two forces that produce the aforemen-tioned objectionable circumstances as a result of the use of a cable guide pulley 32 adjacent to the pivot point 34 between the arms. One such force is the result of “droop” that occurs when a load is applied to the end of the rope 36, thereby creating a moment relative to the column and the position it is attached to the floor. This obviously varies with the lo-cation of the load relative to the column, and the height of the column. While moving the secondary (outermost) arm 28 from an in-line position relative to arm 24, the cable moves toward and contacts the pulley, thereby producing a radial force having a tendency to move the secondary arm toward an in-line position with the primary (innermost) arm. Such forces may prevent the secondary arm from remaining in a stationary position.

As the secondary arm is pivoted further relative to the pri-mary arm, the cable 36 increasingly becomes wrapped about or engages a pulley 32. Consequently, as the cable wraps about the circumference of the pulley, the moment force in-creases thereby producing a radial torque between the two arms. In addition, the load 50 is lifted slightly as direct func-tion of the cable being wrapped about the pulley, thereby causing additional work as the suspended load is moved. The combination of the various forces results in a potentially

Inventor’sCorner

By William Fischer

Figure 1: Perspective view of an articulated arm lift device.

As always, we greatly appreciate our readers and their interest in this column and in our publication. With a sluggish economy, we seek to inspire innovation at every turn. This is what is needed to invigorate the stagnent economy. American entrepreneurship has always come to the rescue in difficult times, and I have no doubt that it is the answer to these difficult times. We wish all of our readers a happy and prosperous summer.

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imbalanced condition.In order to enable a free-swinging, articulated arm lift,

where the various interactive forces are reduced or otherwise controlled, the disclosed embodiment contemplate means to counteract or negate the forces that act to prevent move-ment of the load and/or preclude put-n-stay functionality. The various embodiment disclosed are intended to mitigate or reduce adverse forces that compromise a uniform and sus-tained effort by the operator to initiate the motion of arm/load, to sustain the arm in motion, and to assure the arm remains in a put-n-stay position when an operator-applied horizontal force to the load 50, or controller 40, is removed. The embodiments contemplate the use of mechanical cam or similar means to adjust or compensate for such forces.

Controlled and uniform motion of the articulated arms is compromised by a combination of forces. One force results from the cable 110 consistently pulling the secondary arm 104 towards an equilibrium position, this force results from the tension on the lifting cable, particularly when a load is suspended from it, and the offset of the cable from the center-line of the pivot point. Referring for example to figures 2 and 3 the clevis or pivot pin 106 defines the center of the pivot and any offset of the cable from such a position, as shown in figure 3, produces a moment between a cable tangent point on pulley 108 and pin 106. Another force is the result of the load being vertically displaced as a function of arm pivoting and wrapping of the cable about the pulley when the arms are moved relative to one another. Yet another force is de-rived from the bending moment of the articulated arms and an associated column or support structure.


Figure 2: Partial top-view of the articulated arm pivot embodiment.


The offset, denoted as distance “r” in both figures 3 and 4 represents the distance measured between the cable and the pivot point. This radial moment, in conjunction with wrap-ping of the cable 110 about pulley 108 tends to resist piv-oting of the secondary arm relative to the primary arm, as well as, potentially causing the secondary arm to move after being released by the operator. Reference is now made to fig-ures 2-4, where various positions of primary and secondary arms 102 and 104 are illustrated according to the following stages of movement:

Stage 1–(aligned) In figure 2 cable 110 passes substan-tially over the centerline of arms 104 and 102, therefore there is no offset and accordingly no force moment or cable wrapping about pulley 108 is evident. However, a moment

caused by the load 116 (figure 5) suspended at the distal end of secondary arm 104 is at a maximum, therefore the arms are deflected downward. In some embodiments, due to the cable tension caused by the load, the arms are not inclined to freely articulate from the generally aligned configuration of figure 2 without a considerable sidewise force to “snap” them off their respective centerline.

Stage 2–(arms @ ≈45 degrees) As seen in figure 3, a minor moment force develops as the cable moves off-center and be-gins to make contact with the outer circumference of pulley 108. Additionally, as the angle between the arms decreased (from a maximum of 180° when aligned), the load is moved closer to the column or support, thereby reducing the bend-ing moment.

Stage 3–(arms @ ≈90 degrees) At this point, shown in fig-ure 4, cable 110 has now completely moved across the open space between arm 104 centerline and the circumferential surface of the pulley 108. Notably cable 110 is increasingly

wrapped about the radius of pulley 108, thereby progres-sively raising the vertical position of the load.

Stage 4–(arms @ ≈120 degrees) As represented in figure 5, cable 110 continues to cause a larger moment (deflection from the center of the arms) as it wraps about the circumfer-ence of the pulley. Additionally, the wrapping about pulley 108 further causes cable 110 to shorten thereby further rais-ing load 116 –resulting in additional work=(force)(distance).

Stage 5–(fully retracted) The cable is now substantially wrapped about approximately one-half of the pulley circum-ference and the maximum radial torque is present, as well as the maximum amount of work expended to attain the load position. However, the moment caused by the load is at a minimum, therefore the arm deflection or droop is also near a minimum.

Figure 4: Partial top-views of the articulated arm pivot, positioned at about a 90 degree angle.





Clamp, self-advancing climbing device, and method of coupling same to a tubularPat. 8,201,787 U.S. class 248/218.4 Int. class F16L 3/08Inventor: James Ingram, Aberdeen, GB., Stewart Kenyon Willis, Glasgow, GB.Assignee: ITI Scotland Limited, Glasgow, GB.

This patent discloses a self-advancing climbing device including two such clamps, and a method of coupling such clamps to a tubular. In one embodiment of the invention, there is disclosed a clamp for a tubular, in particular a thin-walled tubular such as the tower of a wind-turbine. The clamp comprises at least one clamp member in the form of a friction pad adapted to grip the tower, and at least one flexible elongate energizing element in the form of a tendon adapted to exert a force on the friction pad to urge the pad to grip the tower, whereby the pad and the tendon are adapted to exert a substantially uniform radial clamp load on the tower.

Referring to figure 6, there is shown a clamp/apparatus 1 for a tubular, which in the illustrated embodiment takes the form of a thin-walled, tapered wind-turbine tower 3. The clamp 1

comprises at least one clamp member or friction pad 9 which is adapted to grip the tower 3, and which is shown in more detail in the enlarged view of figure 7. The clamp 1 also comprises at least one flexible elongate energizing element in the form of a tendon 16, which is shown in more detail in the view of figure 8. The tendon 16 is adapted to exert a force on the friction pad 9 to urge the pad 9 to grip the tower 3, such that the friction pad 3 and the tendon 16 exert a substantially uniform radial clamp load on the tubular. The friction pad 9 thereby restrains the clamp 1 against movement relative to the tower 3 in a di-rection along a length thereof, enabling an external load to be supported from the tower 3 using the clamp 1.

Using the clamp 1 to exert a substantially uniform radial clamp load on the tower 3 facilitates generation of a substan-tially uniform hoop stress in the tower. This overcomes prob-lems associated with prior clamps and other mechanisms by avoiding or at least minimizing variations in the loading around the circumference of the tubular, thereby avoiding or reducing the likelihood of varied point-loads leading to local buckling. It will also be understood that the method herein described dramatically improves the performance of a clamp by applying the maximum possible radial loads to friction pads through the application of uniform radial load,

so that circularity of a thin-walled tubular structure is re-tained. These loads are far beyond the capability of discrete loaded pads, as currently used.

In more detail, the clamp/apparatus 1 comprises a support structure 22 having a substantially rectangular lower ring beam 2, which is assembled round the base of the tower 3, a plurality of vertical columns, uprights or corner posts 4 and a substantially rectangular upper ring beam 5. Typically the upper ring beam 5 is attached to the top of the verti-cal columns 4 at each corner so as to provide a rigid cuboid framework 6 that encompasses the tower 3. Each of the ver-tical columns 4 is connected at its top end to a first support member or rigid load arm 7, which is moved by a hydraulic cylinder 8 connected between the vertical column 4 and the arm 7, as shown in figure 7.

In the preferred embodiment illustrated in the drawings, the clamp 1 includes four friction pads 9 which are located spaced equidistantly around a circumference of the tower 3. The friction pads 9 are made of a compliant natural or elas-tomeric friction material, such as neoprene rubber or poly-urethane, bonded to a stiff but flexible sheet of metallic or composite material to which load may be applied, such as a sheet of steel, and have vertical rigid spines 10 at their center. The spines 10 are each pivotably connected at their upper ends to the lower end of a respective arm 7, via a pin joint or ball-joint 24. A ball-joint is preferred over a pin-joint, as the ball joint facilitates transmission of a load on the clamp members in a direction parallel to a main axis of the tubular, but substantially prevents transmission of radial loads to the clamp members due to the external load.

The arms 7 are in-turn pivotably attached to the vertical columns 4, in a manner that allows them to pivot with re-spect to the tower 3. By this arrangement, the load arms 7 are coupled relative to the friction pads 9 so as to facilitate application of a positioning force on the pads 9, whereby movement of the load arm 7 brings the respective friction


Figure 6: Perspective view of a clamp illustrated following coupling to a tubular in the form of a wind-turbine tower.

Figure 7: Enlarged view of a clamp member and a section of a support structure, forming part of the clamp.


pad 9 adjacent to and/or into contact with the surface of the tower 3. This allows the pads 9 to contact the surface of the tower 3 and to take up the taper angle, or to be vertically oriented, as appropriate.

The support structure 22 also includes a second support member or alignment arm 11 associated with each friction pad 9, each alignment arm 11 being pivotably connected to the respective vertical column 4 through a link 13, via

a pivot pin 26. The arm 11 is also pivotably coupled to the pad 9 at the lower end of the spine 10 (i.e. at the end of the spine 10 opposite to the end that the load arm 7 is connected to). A second hydraulic cylinder 12 is connected between the vertical column 4 and the pivot pin 26 and thus acts to move the link 13. Accordingly, by extending or retracting the link cylinder 12, the angle between the vertical column 4 and the pad 9 can be changed to suit differing tower taper angles. The position of the pads 9 relative to the tower 3 can there-fore be adjusted using a combination of the load arm 7 and the alignment arm 11, so that the clamp 1 can be adjusted to accommodate variations in the circumference/diameter and taper angle of the tower 3. This therefore facilitates use of the clamp 1 with towers of different diameters, and indeed with towers that taper along their length.

As shown in figure 8, the clamp includes a plurality of tendons, and in the illustrated embodiment, includes eight tendons 16, two tendons 16 associated with each load arm

7 of the clamp 1. The tendons 16 are each tensioned by a respective winch 15, and two such winches 15 are mounted on each load arm 7. This arrangement allows the tendons 16 to compensate for the change in circumference of the tower 3. Each tendon 16 is passed from an anchor point on the load arm 7 or winch 15, and extends through ports 14 in the spine 10 of each pad 9 and back to the winch 15 on the same load arm 7. Accordingly, two tendons 16 originate and end at each load arm 7.

The tendons 16 each encircle the circumference of the tower 3 and cross over and thus overlap in a direction along a length of the tower 3, at an overlap location 38. As shown in more detail in the further enlarged view of figure 9, the pads 9 are each located between the surface of the tower 3 and the ten-dons 16, and the tendons overlap or cross at the spine 10 of the pad 9 attached to the respective load arm 7, so that the tendon 16 is in contact with the tower 3 or pad 9 as it passes around the full circumference of the tower 3. The tendons are typically manufactured of low friction, high performance wire rope. Sheaves 17 are provided to turn the tendon 16 from its circumferential passage to the anchor point and winch 15.

Grommet shacklePat. 8,205,922 U.S. class 294/82.11 Int. class B66C 1/34Inventor: Roger Arthur Ohman, Jr., Parrish, FL.Assignee: The Crosby Group LLC., Tulsa, OK.

This patent presents a grommet shackle having a pair of opposed parallel legs. Each of the legs includes an


Figure 10: Perspective view of a grommet shackle.Figure 9: Further enlarged view of the clamp member and energising element.

Figure 8: Enlarged view of the clamp member and a energising element, forming part of the clamp.

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opening to receive a pin or bolt. A central bow extends between the pair of legs to form a jaw to receive a rope or cable. The central bow has a cylindrical cross-sec-tion including an inner cylindrical load surface toward the eye to receive the rope or cable thereon. An outer cylindrical surface of the central bow forms a hollow recess. A central brace or rib extends across the hollow recess.

Referring to the drawings in detail, figure 10 illustrates a perspective view of a grommet shackle 10 constructed in accordance with the present invention in use with and suspended from a wire rope sling 12 having a swage sleeve 18. Figure 11 illustrates a perspective view of the grommet shackle 10 in use with and suspended from a wire rope or cable grommet 14 having a sleeve connector 16. Figure 12 illustrates a perspective view of the grom-met shackle 10 in use with and suspended from a braided grommet 6 with a sleeve connector 8. The wire rope sling 12, the wire rope or cable grommet 14 are used in various types of known lifting applications (not shown). Figure 13 illustrates a perspective view of the grommet shackle 10 shown in figure 10 cut away with the cable grommet 14 also cut away to illustrate the interface between the grommet shackle 10 and the cable grommet 14. As read-ily seen in figure 13, the circumferential inner cylindri-cal load surface 42 has a diameter D illustrated by arrow


Figure 11: Perspective view of the grommet shackle in use with a wire rope or cable grommet.


Wire rope tension grid improvementsPat. 8,672,092 U.S. class 182/150 Int. class E04G 3/30Mark T. Black, Sanford, FL.Assignee: InterAmerica Stage, Inc., Sanford, FL.

A wire rope tension grid is a walking surface comprised of interwoven wire rope. The wire rope is supported by a framework of steel angle and tubing. The framework is sup-ported by mounts that are hung from the support beams in the ceiling of a structure, often a performing art center, a television studio, a black box theater, museum dioramas, theme park scenes, live animal pens, or other entertainment venues. These grids are not intended for public usage, but rather are intended for operation staff. New improvements to these grids are listed in this document.

Modularity: A wire rope tension grid is installed as a mod-ular item, able to be removed for service and transported easily for erection. The connections to the modular attach-ments have been improved. Through-bolts connect hanger points to the grid. This provides a hard connection as op-posed to a floating clamped connection. This is a further im-provement over the pieces in the past that are non-modular, being welded to their respective support hangers.

Reducing the lateral stress on the wire rope within the wire rope tension grid was a major priority. Rolled edges and chamfered through holes have aided in this regard. Even the position of the hole itself has been reconsidered, and posi-

tioned accordingly. The cable is supported over the frame support tube increasing the area of impact and lessening the stress at any particular point in the cable. This allows for a horizontal load to be applied to the wire rope.

Figures 14-16 display a complete wire rope tension grid

panel 10. These wire rope tension grid panels 10 are con-structed of mild steel tubing 12 and mild steel angle 14. The dimensions of the said steel vary per application, but are most often constructed of 3/16’’ thick 1.5’’ times 1.5’’ mild steel tubing 12 with a piece of mild steel angle 14 measuring 1.5’’ times 1.75’’

Holes 16 are predrilled into the mild steel angle 14 at increments of 2’’ center. See figure 15. These holes 16 are

Figure 14: Top view of one embodiment of a wire rope tension grid.

Figure 15: Front view of the wire rope tension grid.

Figure 13: Perspective view of the grommet shackle cut away with the wire rope grommet also cut away.

Figure 12: Perspective view of the grommet shackle in use with a braided grommet.


50. Likewise, the cable grommet 14 has a diameter d of the individual ropes represented by arrows 52. The cable grommet 14 bends around and mates with the cylindrical load surface 42 of the central bow 40.

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5/32’’ in diameter. Holes 18, 20 are also predrilled into spe-cific points on the mild steel tubing 12 for modular through-holes 18 and for hanger plate bolts 20. See figures 17 and 18.

The through-holes 18 are used by bolts 22 with nuts 24 and spacers 26 to join and maintain the spacing of two adjacent wire rope tension grid panels 10. The mild steel angle 14 is welded onto the mild steel tubing 12 making the basic frame structure 28. This basic frame structure 28 is reinforced by supports 30 welded above the locations of the through-holes 18 used for modular attachments. Figures 17 and 18 display these supports 30 as hidden lines.

Figures 19 and 20 display the use of the wire rope turn pin continued on next pageFigure 16: Side view of the wire rope tension grid.

Figure 17: Top view of the wire rope tension grid; displays thru holes for mounting brackets, a lack of spacers at the termination points of the wire rope, and new support bar locations.


32. If the design calls for the use of this device then a hole will be drilled into the mild steel angle 14 and mild steel tubing 12. The wire rope turn pin will then be inserted into the frame and will be plug welded from the top side of the

angle. Basic frame structure 28 is often powder coated or painted, often flat black, so that is not visually intrusive to the general public.

The wire rope 36 is then weaved into the frame by hand. The ends 38 of the wire rope 36 are inserted into the 5/32’’

holes. A copper stop sleeve 40 is slid over the ends of the cable. A modified torque wrench is used to apply an accurate amount of tension within the wire rope 36 as the copper stop sleeve 40 is swaged onto the wire rope 36. This is done on both sides of the wire rope 36 resulting in an evenly distrib-uted amount of tension along the entire wire rope tension grid panel 10.

Crane with boom raising assist structurePat. 8,684,197 U.S. class 212/260 Int. class B66C 23/82Inventor: David J. Pech, Manitowoc, WI., Joseph R. Rucin-ski, Manitowoc, WI.Assignee: Manitowoc Crane Companies, LLC., Manitowoc, WI.

A lift crane includes a carbody; ground engaging members elevating the carbody off the ground; a rotating bed rotat-ably connected to the carbody; a boom pivotally mounted at a first end to the rotating bed with a load hoist line extending adjacent a second end of the boom; a boom hoist mechanism that can be used to change the angle of the boom relative to the rotating bed during crane operation; and a boom rais-ing assist structure connected to the boom. The boom rais-ing assist structure preferably includes at least one ground engaging member in contact with the ground; and a boom elevating member extending between the assist structure ground engaging member and the boom. The boom elevating member supports at least a part of the weight of the boom.

While the invention will have applicability to many types of cranes, it will be described in connection with mobile lift crane 10, shown in an operational configuration in figure 21. The mobile lift crane 10 includes lower works, also referred to as a carbody, and moveable ground engaging members in the form of crawlers 14. There are of course two crawlers 14, though only one of the crawlers can be seen in the side views of crane 10. In the crane 10, the ground engaging members could be two sets of crawlers, a front and a rear crawler on each side. Of course additional crawlers than those shown can be used, as well as other types of ground engaging mem-bers, such as tires.

The rotating bed 20 is mounted to the carbody with a slew-ing ring, such that the rotating bed can swing about an axis with respect to the ground engaging members 14. The rotat-ing bed supports a boom 22 pivotally mounted on a front portion of the rotating bed and a boom hoist mechanism that can be used to change the angle of the boom relative to the rotating bed during crane operation. In the crane 10, the boom hoist mechanism comprises a boom hoist drum 50 con-nected to the rotating bed and boom hoist rigging connected between the boom hoist drum and the second end of the boom. The boom hoist mechanism also includes a live mast 28 mounted at its first end on the rotating bed, with an up-per sheave set 38 connected to the mast adjacent the second end of the mast, and a lower sheave set 37 mounted on the rear of the rotating bed. The crane 10 also includes a coun-terweight unit 34. The counterweight may be in the form of multiple stacks of individual counterweight members on a support member.

During normal crane operation, a load hoist line 24 is reeved over at least one pulley on the boom 22 and will sup-port a hook block 26. More typically, the boom top and hook block with each include multiple sheaves through which the load hoist line is reeved, providing a block and tackle effect. At the other end, the load hoist line is wound on a load hoist drum 70 connected to the rotating bed. The boom hoist drum may be connected to the rotating bed by being located on another member that in turn is connected to the rotating bed. The rotating bed 20 includes other elements commonly found on a mobile lift crane, such as an operator’s cab and the boom hoist drum 50 for the boom hoist rigging. A second hoist drum 80 for a whip line may be mounted on the boom butt.

Boom hoist rigging between the rotating bed 20, top of mast 28 and boom 22 is used to control the boom angle and transfer load so that the counterweight can be used to bal-ance a load lifted by the crane. The boom hoist rigging in-


Figure 18: Side view of the wire rope tension grid; displays lowered cable thru holes for cable support, and thru bolt holes for mounting adjacent panels.

Figure 19: Top view of wire rope tension grid where wire rope is not perpendicular and parallel to the frame, displays wire rope turn pin.

Figure 20: Cross section of the frame with a wire rope turn pin.


in a reasonable range, one would also like to minimize the force, both because of design aspects of the cylinder itself, and because the boom must carry the load that the cylinder applies to it.

To minimize the force one would like to move further away from the boom hinge, but this increases the stroke required. To minimize the stroke one would like to stay as close to the fulcrum as possible, but this increases the total force of the cylinder. So, there is a balance between the two that will vary for each system the boom raising assist structure is used on. In addition, because the boom is typically con-structed from boom sections, if the boom raising assist struc-ture is provided as a separate unit that fits between already designed boom sections, the location of the boom raising as-sist structure will have to be at one of the junctures between boom sections. In that regard, it may preferably be connected where the boom butt 27 or first short boom segment connects to the remaining boom sections. Of course the boom raising assist structure could be designed to connect to an existing boom segment, providing more flexibility in its location.

System and method for testing ropesPat. 8,718,352 U.S. class 382/141 Int. class G06K 9/00Inventor: Sven Winter, Burgstall, DE., Dirk Moll, Dettingen unter Teck, DE., Ralf Eisinger, Ulm, DE., Konstantine Kueh-ner, Stuttgart, DE., Egon Guttengeber, Obergriesbach, DE., An-dreas Proehl, Munich, DE., Markus Eichinger, Turkfield. DE.Assignee: Winspect GmbH, DE.

A computer-aided method, system and computer program product are provided for optical testing of a rope. Such

cludes a boom hoist line in the form of wire rope 25 wound on boom hoist drum 50, and reeved through sheaves on a lower sheave set 37 and an upper sheave set 38. The boom hoist drum 50 is mounted in a frame connected to the ro-tating bed. The rigging also includes fixed length straps 21 connected between the boom top and the shaft at the top of the mast 28 on which the pulleys of the upper sheave set 38 are mounted. This arrangement allows rotation of the boom hoist drum 50 to change the amount of boom hoist line 25 between the lower sheave set 37 and the upper sheave set 38, thereby changing the angle between the rotating bed 20 and the mast 28, which in turn changes the angle between the boom 22 and the rotating bed 20.

A boom stop 15 is connected to the boom and travels with the boom. However, at steep boom angles the boom stop 15 contacts the rotating bed and stops the boom from tipping over backward. If the boom 22 were to recoil backward be-yond its maximum designed nearly-vertical position, com-pressive loads would be transmitted through the boom stop 15 to the rotating bed.

The boom 22 is constructed by connecting multiple boom sections together. The boom section pivotally connected to the rotating bed constitutes a boom butt 27. As noted above, the boom is supported during crane operation by a pair of boom straps 21 each made from sections.

The crane 10 differs from a conventional crane in several respects. First, the weight and length of the boom generate a moment that would tip the crane 10 if the crane boom hoist mechanism were to attempt to lift the boom off the ground by itself while the boom was extending out from the rotating bed parallel to the ground. Second, the crane 10 includes a boom raising assist structure 40 interposed between the boom and the ground at low boom angles. The boom raising assist structure 40 is used to help raise the boom to an angle at which the moment generated by the boom will no longer tip the crane even if the boom raising assist structure is no longer in contact with the ground.

The boom raising assist structure 40 is connected to the boom 22, preferably between the first end of the boom, which is pivotally connected to the rotating bed 20, and the center of gravity of the boom. Preferably the boom raising assist structure is relatively close to the rotating bed connection, so that the distance that the structure has to rise is small compared to the increase in boom angle generated by that rise, but far enough away from the rotating bed connection so as to minimize the force required. The boom raising assist structure must be located forward of the machine tipping fulcrum. The connection location is dependent on two things: the stroke (travel distance) of the cylinder and the force of the cylinder. While one would like to keep the stroke with-


Figure 21: Side elevational view of a mobile lift crane.

Figure 22: Stranded rope as an exemplary rope.


method includes: providing an image data set for at least one portion of the rope; providing target values of a pictorial longitudinal extension of the representation of wires relative

to a pictorial longitudinal extension of the rope in the im-age data set; determining a pictorial longitudinal extension of the wires in the image data set, including adapting an estimated longitudinal extension to the image data set; de-termining at least one quality value using a quality norm as a function of the determined pictorial longitudinal extension of the wires and the target values of the pictorial longitudi-nal extension of the wires; discriminating pictorial positions within the image data set of the rope, where at least one quality value exceeds or falls below a predetermined, as-signed quality threshold value; and providing the discrimi-nated pictorial positions.

As a preferred rope 10, figure 22 shows a stranded rope 10 as an exemplary wire rope. Stranded ropes 10 comprise several strands 12, which are wound helically around a rope core 14. The strands 12 are comprised of one or more layers of wires 16, which are wound or stranded or laid helically around a strand core 18. The common term “lay” is used syn-onymously with the term “stranded” in the following. The strand core 18 can be comprised of a plastic fiber or a wire, for example. Preferably, the strands 12 are formed of wires and a strand core 18 having a similar, preferably with a sub-stantially same diameter. Further preferably, six wires 16 are arranged around the strand core 18 to form the strand 12. The rope strand 14 can be made of non-woven fabrics, in particular of plastics, or of at least one wire, or in turn be formed as a strand or rope. Preferably, the stranded rope 10 is formed of strands 12 and a rope core 14 having a simi-lar, preferably with a substantially same diameter. Further preferably, four to ten strands 12 are arranged around the rope core 14 to form the rope 10. In the illustrated, partic-ularly preferred embodiment, six strands 12 are arranged around the rope core 14.

Ropes or stranded ropes 10 of the type shown in figure 22 are used as moving ropes, stationary ropes, or track ropes in various fields of technology. “Moving ropes” are ropes that move over driving pulleys, rope pulleys, and drums, and in doing so adapt the curvature thereof, e.g. hoisting ropes, tie ropes, block lines of cranes, elevator ropes, scraper ropes, and hauling ropes for cableways. “Stationary ropes”, also called anchor cables or standing ropes, are understood to be ropes that do not move over rope pulleys and the ends of which are supported in fixed points, for example stay ropes for masts and jibs and guide ropes for elevators and winding appara-tuses as well as anchor moorings for dredgers with and with-out anchor windlasses. Track ropes are ropes on which roll-ers of conveying means move, for example, such as conveying means of cableways, cable cranes, and cable scrapers. Track ropes fulfill a similar function as guide rails. The radius of curvature of a track rope below the roller is larger than the roller radius. It is understood that the different ropes can be made of different materials depending on the application, for


Figure 23: Characteristic construction parameters of a stranded rope.

Figure 24: Schematic of an embodiment of a preferred image data capturing device.

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example of plastics such as aramid, Dyneema, polyamide, or steal, stainless steel, or galvanized steel.

All rope types have specific, unique construction patterns that can be recognized in a digital image analysis. Figure 23 illustrates the characteristic construction parameters of a stranded rope 10. The diameter D of the stranded rope 10 is measured perpendicularly to a longitudinal direction L

of the stranded rope 10. Preferably, the diameter D can be measured by optically capturing the stranded rope 10 and by a subsequent distance determination of the two envelopes 22a, 22b of the associated, captured stranded rope contour lines 20a, 20b, the envelopes extending along the longitudi-nal direction L. The envelopes 22a, 22b can be determined by a Hilbert transform of the captured stranded rope con-tour lines 20a, 20b, for example.

Further characteristic parameters of the stranded rope 10 are the lay length S and the lay angle a of the strands 12, 12a with respect to the longitudinal direction L. The lay length S describes in what distance along the longitudinal direction L of the rope 10 a strand 12 has wrapped the rope core 14 completely. The lay angle a can be defined as the angle that is enclosed between the longitudinal direction L of the rope 10 and the longitudinal direction K of the strand 12. For a defect-free rope, the longitudinal direction K of two adjacent strands 12, 12a is parallel to each other, so that the lay angle a can be used as a characteristic parameter for all strands 12, 12a.

A further characteristic variable of the stranded rope 10 is the wire angle b of the individual wires 16, 16a with respect to the longitudinal direction L of the rope 10. The wire angle b can be defined as the angle that is enclosed between the longitudinal direction L of the rope 10 and the longitudinal direction J of the wires 16, 16a. For a defect-free rope, the longitudinal direction J of two adjacent wires 16, 16a is sub-stantially parallel in sections. That is, the adjacent wires 16, 16a are wound around the strand core in an adjacent, in particular mechanically contacting way. The wire angle b can therefore be used as a characteristic variable for all

continued on next pageFigure 25: Embodiment of a preferred image data capturing device.


wires 16, 16a.Figure 24 shows a schematic image data capturing device

24 adapted to capture a rope 10 in an image data set. In a preferred embodiment 3 to 5, in particular 4, the image data capturing device 24 comprises cameras 26a-26d, which are arranged in a plane perpendicular to the longitudinal direction L of the rope 10. The cameras 26a-26d are pref-erably line scan cameras or CCD (charge-coupled device) cameras. Each of the cameras 26a-26d covers an associated quadrant of approximately 90 degrees of the outside surface of the rope, so that an image data set that fully includes the outside surface of the rope can be provided. The rope 10 can be shifted relative to the image data capturing de-vice 24 along or opposite to the longitudinal direction L. It is understood that in the case of a stationary rope, the im-age data capturing device 24 can be shifted as well. In this embodiment, preferably, the relative speed between the rope 10 and the cameras 26a-26d can be up to 5 m/s, in various embodiments.

In this embodiment, preferably, the cameras 26a-26d are displaceable within the image data capturing device 24 rela-tive to the rope in order to adapt the image data capturing device 24 to the diameter of the rope to be tested. The illu-mination of the rope 10 can preferably be accomplished with artificial light sources, which allow an improved contrast in the image data set. In particular, the image data capturing

device 24 can have high-performance LEDs (light emitting diodes) as a light source.

Figure 25 shows an image data capturing device 24 adapt-ed to capture a rope 10 in an image data set. In the pre-ferred embodiment 4, the image data capturing device 24 comprises cameras (not shown), which are arranged in a plane perpendicular to the longitudinal direction L of the rope 10 around a rope passage opening 62 of the image data capturing device 24. The rope 10 can be shifted through the rope passage opening 62 relative to the image data captur-ing device 24 along or opposite to the longitudinal direction L. It is understood that in the case of a stationary rope, the image data capturing device 24 can be shifted as well. Fur-ther preferably, the image data capturing device 24 has a rope feed measuring device 64, which can measure or detect the length of the rope 10 displaced along or opposite to the longitudinal direction L. In particular, a measuring wheel 64 can be provided as a preferred rope feed measuring device 64, which is in frictional contact with the rope and is there-fore rotated by the feed of the rope 10. A pulse generator

can be connected with the measuring wheel 64, for example, so that a rotation of the measuring wheel 64 by a predeter-mined angle generates are recordable pulse. The number of pulses can be recorded or counted during the feed of the rope 10 and be assigned to individual images of the image data set. Advantageously, it is possible by means of the rope feed measuring device 64 or the measuring wheel 64 to assign captured image data or part of the image data set to a geo-metric position along the rope 10.

Figure 26 shows a step of obtaining rope-specific target values by means of a data input mask 28. For example, the data input mask 28 comprises the lay length S0 indicated by manufacturer as well as the target value of the diameter

D0. The actual values of the diameter Dm and the lay length Sm, which are determined on the basis of a representative rope portion, can be input and used as a comparative value for the determination of deviations with respect to the local diameter and the lay length.

Figure 27 shows a further step of obtaining rope-specific target values by means of an image data set including a rope portion 30. The envelopes 22a, 22b of the rope portion 30 can be specified manually or automatically, with the help of which the longitudinal extension L of the rope portion 30 and the diameter Dm in the rope portion can be determined. Moreover, two support points can further be specified by a user, for example, by actuating an operating element of a display device representing the rope portion 30, wherein the support points define a straight connection line or lay line 32 such that the connection line corresponds to the border line between two adjacent strands 12, 12a. This step can be performed for several border lines between several strands. By means of at least a determined connection or lay line 32, which is parallel to the longitudinal direction K of the strand 12, the lay angle a can be determined relative to the lon-gitudinal direction or longitudinal extension L of the rope portion 30. Further, a reference point 38 can be determined, which is arranged substantially in a centered way between two lay lines 32 and can be used as a reference for the cen-ter of the strand 12, for example to determine the support points for the target values of the individual wires 16, 16a relative to this reference point, i.e. relative to the strand 12.

Further support points can be specified correspondingly, which define a substantially straight connection line or wire border line 34 such that the connection corresponds to the border line between two adjacent wires 16, 16a. Further, support points can be specified, preferably by a user, which define a substantially straight connection line or wire line 36 such that the connection line substantially corresponds to the center line of a wire 16a. The wire angle b relative to the longitudinal direction or longitudinal extension L of the rope portion 30 can be determined by means of the wire border line 34 and/or the wire line 36. WRN

Figure 26: Display screen generated by a preferred step of obtaining rope-specific target values.

Figure 27: Embodiment of a preferred step of obtaining rope-specific target values.



CAD drawings of Green Pin® Turnbuckles

Van Beest made CAD drawings of Green Pin® shackles available a few years ago. Now we are happy to inform you that we also have CAD drawings of Green Pin® Turnbuckles available.

Our Green Pin® products are used in a wide variety of applications; from a simple lift to move an item from A

to B in a workplace, to very complex lifting systems for offshore applica-tions. In the latter case, engineers use a number of different CAD programs to develop a 2D or 3D specification of the entire system according to a recent company release.

For the distribution of our CAD draw-ings, Van Beest joined TraceParts. The TraceParts 3D catalog platform supports nearly every CAD system in the world. Create a free account at tracepartson-line.net and start downloading!

Crosby® Clamp-Co offers a larger size of beam clamp

To meet the needs of larger and longer steel bridge designs, Crosby® CLAMP-CO has added a beam clamp with a 55 metric ton Working Load

Limit (WLL). The new clamp features a jaw opening for flange widths of 36” to 55” (914mm to 1397mm) , and flange thickness up to 4” (102mm). Utilizing this larger clamp, faster and easier erection of the larger beams currently used in bridge construction applications can be achieved, accord-ing to a company release. This clamp is available as special order and is made to the customer’s specifications. Beam clamps with 5 metric ton to 35 metric ton Working Load Limits and jaw openings from 4” to 36” (102mm to 914mm) are a standard offering available today.

Crosby® can supply a custom beam clamp design form to assist in ordering and quoting beam clamp application require-ments. Contact Crosby at (800) 777-1555.

The Crosby Group markets a line of premium accessories used in mate-rial handling and rigging applications. Based in the US, the company has the reputation around the world for provid-ing a broad range of products suitable for the most demanding of operating conditions with uncompromising qual-ity. Products include wire rope clips, hooks, and shackles, lifting clamps, hoist rings, overhaul balls, snatch blocks, crane blocks and sheaves. Cros-by also provides a “world class” train-ing program, focusing on the proper usage of Crosby Products.

Self locking hook now available from All Material Handling

All Material Handling is announcing

a new “L” option for 1t to 5t MA series hand chain hoist and ¾t to 6.3t LA se-ries lever hoist: Self Locking Hooks are also available as individual parts for update of existing hoist. According to a company release, self locking hooks


Green Pin®Turnbuckle

from Van Beest

are designed to be closed by the load being lifted. They are easily assembled into the standard bolted hook blocks allowing complete hook inspection per ASME B30 safety code.

AMH distributors may specify top and bottom Self Locking Hooks by add-ing a “L” code at the end of the model number as explained in the new price list made available to them.

Hoists, equipped with the “L” option or with previously announced USA load chain “U” option, are assembled and tested at one of AMH’s US service centers. A new inspection and test cer-tification, by individual serial number, will be packaged with each unit identi-fying the service center’s address and the technician responsible.

If equipped with “U” option the hoist bodies will also display “USA LOAD CHAIN” and “USA ASSEMBLED & TESTED” stickers.

Konecranes offers machine tool alignment, calibration and certification services

Konecranes Machine Tool Service offers machine calibration services to manufacturers for maintenance and

Self locking hook from

All Material Handling

877-LIFT AMHallmaterialhandling.com

HOISTSOne STOp SHOp

RIGGInG HARDWARe

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certification purposes.With its state of the art laser mea-

suring and calibration systems, Kone-cranes Machine Tool Service can in-crease machine performance and help manufacturers prepare for planned maintenance or satisfy requirements of qualifications and certifications like ISO, QS and ASME B5.54. Ac-cording to a company release, laser calibration from Konecranes Machine Tool Service optimizes machine per-formance, increasing accuracy and repeatability when producing close tolerance parts.

Konecranes Machine Tool Service’ laser inspection and calibration equip-ment is calibrated according to the manufacturer’s recommended inter-vals and traceable to NIST. Konecranes Machine Tool Service keeps certificates reflecting the calibration date and re-sults on file so copies can be provided to their customer upon request.

The highly skilled calibration spe-cialists at Konecranes Machine Tool Service will precision level and opti-mize the machine tool’s geometrical orientation and inspect its dynamic/interpolation performance. Linear positioning and repeatability will be compensated and verified. A computer-generated plot can be supplied in QS, B5.54, ISO, or any format of the cus-tomer’s choosing.

Automatic Cutting Machine – LKA 06 TALURIT™Automatic Cutting Machine from 1 to 6 mm wire rope

LKA 06 is a fully automatic wire rope cutting machine, featuring smooth start and advanced retardation of the feeding unit. Intended for cutting pre-formed wire ropes of max. grade 1960 in diameters between 1 to 6 mm.

Cutting length for a standard ma-

chine is 1 000 mm. As an option it is possible to extend the cutting length with one or two guiding tubes of 2 000 mm each, giving a maximum wire rope length up to 5 000 mm in total. Mini-mum cutting length is approx. 100 mm. The electronic measuring unit has an accuracy of ± 2 mm of the measured length, up to 5 000 mm.

This machine has a very low noise level and is environment friendly. The guiding tube and the shears are oper-ated pneumatically, while the feed-ing unit is electric. Feeding speed is variable. An external compressor is available as an option to provide com-pressed air.

As an option a marking unit can be added to enable marking of the wire rope for easier sling assembly. LKA 06 can also be fitted with an AVL-500M, which is an uncoiling unit for larger wire rope drums.

New Hook-Mounted Strap Hoists from Allied Power Products

Allied Power Products, Inc. (APPI) has announced the addition of a strap option to their Columbia line of Hook-Mounted Hoists.

According to a company release, each of the four hoist models, with capacities up to 750 lbs, is rated for vertical lifting and feature automatic, load suspend-ing brakes and a secondary ratchet and pawl brake.

Equipped with a 2” wide nylon strap, these units provide a unique solution for applications where spooling or cleanliness issues preclude the use of wire rope or chain units

Rated at 230, 450, 600, and 750 pounds with first layer line speeds up to 74 fpm these hoists feature hard-ened steel gears and oil bath lubrica-tion for all moving parts.

Standard features include upper


LKA 06 from Talurit

working file 2/2/06 8:59 PM Page 14


and lower limit stops, a latching swivel hook, a push-button pendant control with a 32-foot lead and de-pending on model a choice of 115 and 230 VAC 1Ø power.

APPI has been providing pulling, lifting, and positioning solutions for government, industrial, and commer-cial customers around the world since 1983. More information about their products and capabilities can be found at www.alliedpower.com.

Lift- All unveils its new Sling Shield™ Sling Protection DeviceLift-All, a mainstay in the national sling manufacturing industry, introduces its patent pending Sling Shield™ technology

The sling experts at Lift-All are pleased to announce the arrival of the Sling Shield™, an innovative system designed to combat the cutting and wearing that can occur with synthetic slings. Cutting is the leading culprit in damaged and compromised synthetic slings. Sling Shields work to prevent slings from being cut by increasing the radius of load edges. The Sling Shield affords riggers with characteristics which greatly improve safety, while saving time and money, according to a company release.

A sling that is cut can be catastrophic to both the load and the people near to the lift. Sling Shields are designed to prevent cutting, thereby making a saf-er work environment.

Time to rig a load is reduced by the


use magnets to hold the Sling Shield in place on steel loads during rigging, as well as the retaining straps which keep the sling positioned against the Sling Shield before tension is applied.

Prevent the cutting of slings and those slings may need to be replaced less often, saving you money.

“To be able to see an obstacle that af-fects our industry and create a product that addresses that obstacle is excit-ing and gratifying for us,” said Mar-keting Manager, Jeff Kauffman. “Our ultimate goal is to improve safety and performance standards in the lifting industry, and the Sling Shield is an achievement toward that goal,” added Kauffman.

Lift-All’s Sling Shield contains sever-al features which speak to its value and effectiveness, including polycarbonate end restraints that guard against the sling leaving the bar when lifted at an angle, and an aluminum bar that serves as a support for the slings that endure extreme tension under load. The recent innovation complements an already well-rounded suite of popu-lar sling products offered by the team at Lift-All, like the Tuff Edge® II web slings, Tuflex® roundslings and LiftAl-loy chain slings.

Since 1964, Lift-All has grown to become the largest and most well known sling manufacturer in North America. Offering only the finest in Slings, Tie Downs, Hoists and other accessories, Lift-All’s presence in the sling industry is second to none. With a focus on value and esteemed

customer service, Lift-All is not only known for quality products, but also dedication and integrity.

Miller Lifting Products announces the addition of one-piece cast balls for overhaul ball assemblies

Miller Lifting Products, a Massa-chusetts based world leader in lifting products, announces the introduction of new solid overhaul balls. Previously, overhaul ball weights were constructed of two halves. In response to customer feedback, Miller Lifting developed this improvement. The result is the new solid one-piece over haul ball weight.

Hook Mounted Strap Hoist from

Allied Power PRiductsSling Shield™ Protection Device from Lift-All


This new design is easier to disas-semble and reassemble, making main-tenance easier and improving reliabil-ity, according to a company release.

The new design also incorporates a recessed surface feature for better pro-tection of the all-important identifica-tion label.

Miller’s overhaul ball assemblies are available with the full complement of top swiveling end attachments: eye, clevis, thimble, wedge socket, as well as a non-swiveling eye end connec-tion and are available in capacities up to 35t. Miller overhaul assemblies are based on Miller’s patented Y-Link angular contact bearing swivel, the design which is often copied, but nev-er improved. An added plus is the 5:1 design factor afforded by the Y-Link swivel. Miller Lifting Products manu-factures crane blocks, balls, heavy duty swivels, forged shank and eye hooks and more and maintains inventory in both the factory location in Charlton, MA as well at its regional warehouse in Houston, TX. For more information on the new solid overhaul ball assembly, or for information on any Miller Lifting Product, please see www.millerprod-ucts.net or contact Marty Kloss, Di-rector of Sales at 774 266-4729 or our sales team at 800 733-7071.

Introducing the brand new CS-327 wire processing machine

With Components Company, Inc.’s newly acquired CS-327 cutting and stripping machine, they can process or-ders quickly and more efficiently while making seamless changeovers with material and parameters.

The machine is equipped with servo-

motors, which use preset parameters to process materials faster than other cut-ting and stripping machines, according to a company release. Parameters such as material type, acceleration, number of pieces, etc. can be programmed and saved to the Windows-based interface on the machine and brought up each time your product is produced, ensur-ing it is the same every time.

The CS-327 will process aircraft wire rope in both coated and bare formats. The sizes run from 1/16 to a 5/16 inch.

It is able to cut and strip the ends of the rope to accept a variety of fittings for lanyards in virtually any length. It is also capable of cutting and stripping electrical wire in sizes ranging from 18 gauge to 2/0.

Having this machine in-house at Components Company, Inc. will ensure that you receive your wire rope assem-bly, lanyard and electrical wire orders faster and more efficiently.

For more information, please email Dave Conell at [email protected] or call him at 262-432-9661.

SmartLoad®: A revolution in load measurement.

The latest innovative load cell de-velopment from Scotload SmartLoad® is the innovative intelligent load cell designed with load testing engineers in mind. Utilizing the latest technol-ogy, Scotload’s engineers have created a fully controllable and flexible load monitoring system.

The truly intelligent part of the SmartLoad® system is how it enables load data to be logged on board inside the load cell –eliminating the risk of losing load data because, for the first time, the user is not dependent on a wireless signal. After logging is insti-


Solid OverhaulBall from

Miller LiftingProducts

CS-327 cutting and stripping machine at Components Company, Inc.

Email: [email protected]

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gated from the handset or PC software no further intervention is needed, free-ing up time for the engineer and negat-ing the need for other equipment dur-ing the load test.

No specific training is required to use the advanced features within the SmartLoad® system as it is “plug-and-play”, so can be used with ease straight out of the box, according to a company release.

“At Scotload, we believe in develop-ing products which give our customers solutions that make their operations easier and more efficient,” commented

Simon Everett, Managing Director at Scotload. “Using our team’s extensive technical and application knowledge we’ve produced a product that brings load cell technology into the 21st centu-ry and goes well beyond being a simple load cell. So whether you have a com-plex lift requiring logging with mul-tiple load cells or just require a basic load cell, the simplicity and usability of the SmartLoad® system makes it the obvious choice.”

An intuitive graphical user menu, coupled with the fact that no pairing is required, gives freedom to use any handset with any load cell by select-ing the load cells you wish to view. The handset also controls the load data log-ging, removing the need for a laptop. In addition, it can display and control multiple load cells simultaneously, showing individual load weights, plus a sum and average of the load values.

Using the SmartLoad PC software, the software automatically generates ‘ready to share’ charts for all logging events, saving valuable time when compiling the data.

The SmartLoad® asset management software for hire companies and fleet owners automatically logs the event history of the load cell. This compre-hensive usage log shows when it was calibrated, used and if it has been over-loaded, allowing the owner to guard against using or hiring a load cell that could be out of calibration due to an overload event. This also gives con-fidence that readings from a Smart-Load® load cell are always accurate.

As well as improved usability and functionality over previous Scotload technology, SmartLoad also utilizes the latest wireless technology which, along with very low power consump-tion giving long battery life, also has much improved wireless range.

SmartLoad® can be retrofitted to any load cell, making it possible to upgrade all your load cells into intelligent load monitoring systems. The load cell and


Scotload SmartLoad®


handset firmware and software can be upgraded at any time via the internet as updates become available, making it an adaptable solution.

“Smartload is the result of over a year of intensive development work by our engineering team and we are de-lighted to be able to offer SmartLoad from stock around the world,” contin-ued Simon. “At Scotload we are con-tinually developing new and exciting ways to improve our products and an ATEX approved version of SmartLoad is in the pipeline to further strengthen our range of hazardous area products.”

The new SmartLoad® system could change how you use load cells for good. Dealers wanted.

Find out more about how Scotload can support you, by visiting us on stand U1760 at LiftEx, or make an enquiry at www.scotload.com/contact-us.

Now available: CMod50 Spreader Frames

Lifting Gear Hire (LGH) has CMOD 50 corner units available for immediate

Founded in 1990, Lifting Gear Hire (LGH) is the United States’ largest single organization devoted exclusive-ly to the provision of lifting and mov-ing equipment for rent and sale. LGH provides hoisting, pulling, jacking, rigging, material handling and safety equipment available for immediate and safe use. LGH’s mission is to of-fer expertise in the rental of the safest and most reliable hoisting and rigging equipment to build and support a bet-ter America.LGH – Puts Safety First. www.lgh-usa.com.

Caldwell promotes Tom Prokop

The Caldwell Group, Inc. is pleased to announce the appointment of Tom Prokop as Inside Sales Manager. Tom has been an integral part of the Caldwell sales team for 3 years, start-ing out as a customer service repre-sentative and then moving into the Univac Application Manager position

focusing on vacuum lifter sales and applications. Tom will be moving into this position, previously held by Dar-rin Noe, who is transitioning to his new role as Regional Sales Manager. Tom’s extensive experience in working with various customers over the years, will continue to make Tom a valuable contributor to our customers and to the Caldwell team.

Spider hires Greg Parker as District Sales Representative – Atlanta

Spider, a division of SafeWorks, LLC, announces Greg Parker has joined its Atlanta operation center as District Sales Representative. In this role, Greg is responsible for solving the sus-pended scaffolding and fall protection challenges of contractors and facility owners throughout Georgia, eastern Tennessee, and northern Alabama.

Greg boasts over thirty years of ex-perience in the scaffolding industry, holding various sales and manage-ment positions with companies like Sky Climber, Service Scaffold and Equipment, Inc., and United Rentals Scaffolding Division. He holds bach-elors degrees in business marketing and management from James Madi-son University.

“Greg’s extensive experience and

education in the southeast’s sus-pended scaffold market make him an ideal addition to our Atlanta operation center,” comments John Sotiroff, Vice President Spider Sales and Distribu-tion. “His expertise and commitment to customer satisfaction will ensure both new and existing customers in his territory receive the highest lev-el of products and service that have earned Spider seven decades of mar-ket leadership.”


Tom Prokop

Greg Parker

Lifting Gear Hire CMOD 50

rental. CMOD50 are the corner units for mod 50 spreader beams to make up a spreader frame.

Spreader Frames are useful for lifts with more than two lifting points. These are also ideal for lifts with low headroom, according to a company re-lease. The CMOD modular spreader frame was designed to expand the capabilities of the modular spreader beam. The struts from a traditional modular beam are combined with four corner units to make a square or rect-angular frame to achieve 4-point lifts.


Please turn to the pages indicated belowfor a detailed view of advertisers’ products or services.

Accutech .......................................................57

All Material Handling .................................74, 77

Allied Power Products ....................................18

Associated Wire Rope & Rigging, Inc. ... 21, 49, 76

Bleichert’s Wire Ropeways .............................26

Buffalo Lifting and Testing ..............................70

Caldwell Company, Inc. ......................14, 47, 84

Chant Engineering Co., Inc. ............................25

Chicago Hardware ..........................................12

Cleveland City Forge .......................................29

The Crosby Group ......................................2, 51

Distributor Computer Systems ........................67

Downs Crane & Hoist Co., Inc. .......................71

Elite ...............................................................45

Engineered Lifting Tech ..................................67

Esmet ............................................................37

Gaylin International Co. Pte. Ltd. .....................83

Harrington Hoists and Cranes ..........................65

Ken Forging, Inc. ............................................28

KWS, Inc. .......................................................55

Landmann ........................................................6

Lift-All ............................................................53

Lincoln Hoist ....................................................3

Loos & Co. ....................................................31

Morse-Starrett Products Co. ...........................40

Muncy Industries .....................................39, 50

Peerless Chain ...............................................17

Premier Wire Rope ...........................................4

Promec ..........................................................54

Sea Catch ......................................................81

Slingmax Rigging Products ...............................5

Slinguard Protectors .......................................48

Southern Wire ................................................34

SPS ...............................................................19

Scotload ........................................................57

Strider~Resource ..........................................13

Suncor Stainless, Inc. .............................. 42-43

Talurit .............................................................25

Taylor Chain Company ...................................75

Terrier Lifting Clamps .....................................33

Van Beest BV .................................................11

Vanguard .......................................................41

Weisner .........................................................36

Wichard, Inc. .................................................61

Windy Ridge Corporation ................................55

Wireco Worldgroup ........................................35

Wirop Industrial Co., Ltd. ................................23

Yale Cordage, Inc. ..........................................32

Yoke Industrial Corp. ................................15, 27

Advertisers Index

of Wire Rope NewsHELPING US IN


POSITION AVAILABLESouthern Weaving is recruiting for an

experienced sales professional to serve our sling web market. The Sales Manager posi-tion will be based at our location in Green-ville, SC; however, up to 70% travel is an-ticipated. Ideal candidate will have a college degree and at least seven years relevant in-dustry experience.

To learn more about our company, please visit www.southernweaving.com. Interested candidates should email resume and salary requirements to [email protected]. Please include SALES in the subject line.

Southern Weaving provides equal employ-ment opportunities to minorities, females, veterans, disabled individuals, as well as other protected groups.

Company: Southern Wire, a leading whole-saler/distributor of wire rope, slings, chain, and fittings is expanding its sales force.

We are seeking Inside Sales Representa-tives for the Memphis, TN area. We offer a competitive base salary and commission program. Our excellent benefits package in-cludes medical, dental, life, disability, paid vacation, and 401K. Please visit company website: www.houwire.com.

College degree preferred - Industry knowl-edge a must. Send resume in confidence to: [email protected] or Fax# 662-893-4732. *No calls please*

Muncy Industries, LLC, has been pro-viding quality wire rope fittings, lifting hardware, and machines for over 60 years. Originally based out of Pennsylvania, we have recently opened a second location in Lafayette, Louisiana. Muncy Industries is seeking an individual with experience in the wire rope industry to help lead the sales team in our Louisiana location.

Requirements include:• Knowledge of the wire rope industry or

related industry in the gulf area is a must.• Excellent written and verbal communi-

cation skills.• Team player, good with people.• Must be able to set and attain goals in a

timely manner.• Proficiency in Microsoft Word, Excel,

and Quick-Books.We offer competitive wages alongside an

excellent benefits package including 100% medical, life, disability, and 401K. Contact us via e-mail: [email protected] or fax: 570-649-5850.

Outside sales representative needed for a well established distributor of wire rope, rigging hardware, chain and related indus-try products, located in Central Arkansas. The qualified individual will possess indus-try knowledge and the ability to develop new accounts and grow existing accounts. Our company offers a competitive salary, bonus structure and benefits package. If you are qualified please e-mail your resume with salary history to: Reference Box12-01 on subject line, and reply to [email protected].

Wire Rope Industries, one of the leading manufacturers of premium ropes with more than 125 years of experience, is opening a regional sales rep position to support the

growing business in South/Central USA. We are looking for a dynamic candidate with ex-perience in the lifting industry and a proven ability to excel in competitive environments. Strong personality, focus, drive, and the abil-ity to develop accounts in a fast and sustain-able way are required. We offer competitive compensation, industry-leading training, and opportunities for growth. If you are in-terested in joining the leading innovators in the premium market, please e-mail your re-sume to [email protected].

Company: Southern Wire, a leading wholesaler/distributor of wire rope, slings, chain, and fittings is expanding sales force in other parts of the US.

We are seeking Outside Sales Territory Managers for the Northeastern and South Central areas of the US.

We offer a competitive base salary and commission program. Our excellent benefits package includes medical, dental, life, dis-ability, paid vacation, vehicle, and 401K. Please visit company website: www.hou-wire.com.

College degree preferred - Industry knowl-edge a must. Send resume in confidence to: [email protected] or Fax# 662-893-4732. *No calls please*

Company: Nelson Wire Rope CorporationDescription: Established in 1979 in Hat-

field, Pa, Nelson Wire Rope Corporation is a leader in wire rope fabrication and product distribution. We offer a wide array of prod-ucts for the lifting, towing, construction, traffic control and other industries.

Location: Hatfield, PAEmployee Type: FulltimeIndustry: Manufacturing, Wire Rope and

Sling IndustryJob Title: Outside-Inside SalesRequired Education: Industry experience,

degree preferred Required Travel: Frequent Day TripsOther: Local Candidates OnlyInterested candidates should e-mail re-

sume to: [email protected]. Job Duties and Responsibilities:• Aggressively identifies and contacts

prospective customers by phone and on-site visits. Ability to conduct sales presentations of company products or services while on site. Plans effective strategies to capture new business. Proven ability to generate new sales.

• Provide inside customer service and sales. Skills and Qualifications:• Excellent customer service skills; strong

written and verbal communication skills, outgoing personality, team player.

• Effective time management, organiza-tion and multi-tasking skills.

• Proficient in Microsoft Word, Excel, Outlook.

Education and Experience: • Minimum of three (3) years experience

in an Outside sales role, and five (5) years experience in Inside Sales/Customer Service experience.

• Knowledge of wire rope, crane cable, rigging, construction or related industry.

Inside wire rope sales representative:90+ year family owned business is looking

for an experienced inside Wire Rope repre-sentative, to replace retiring veteran sales-

man. Candidates must be reliable, honest, strong work ethic, and demonstrate good communication skills. Our company pro-vides excellent compensation and benefits to our team members, including Paid vacation, holiday, and sick leave, 401K Retirement plan with matching, excellent insurance benefits - Medical, Dental, Vision, RX, Short Term Disability, Life Insurance. M-F. office hours. Drug free workplace.

Please reply to: Attention: Cherise, Ras-mussen Wire Rope and Rigging Co. Inc. 415 south Cloverdale Street, P.O. Box 81206 Se-attle, WA 98108, Phone: 206-762-3700, Fax: 206-762-5003, e-mail: [email protected].

Certified Slings & Supply, Florida’s larg-est family owned rigging, contractor and industrial supply company is seeking expe-rienced sales representatives for our Florida territories.

The suitable candidate will be aggressive and detail-oriented with experience in sell-ing overhead lifting, load securement and fall protection equipment along with other contractor supplies and have a proven suc-cessful sales history.

Our 53-year family-owned company pro-vides excellent benefits to our team members including medical insurance, holiday and va-cation pay and 401(k) with company match.

If you share our core values and the ex-perience we are looking for we look forward to hearing from you. E-mail your resume and salary requirements to Attention Team Member Relations at [email protected] or fax to 407-260-9196.

Our Purpose: To grow through chal-lenge and opportunity ‘with passion’ while benefiting team members, customers and vendors. Our Core Values: Service, Qual-ity, Team, Commitment, Communication, Integrity, Respect. Our Mission: We will be the most trusted and respected company in rigging, overhead lifting, load securement and contractor supplies in the world. Please visit our website at www.certifiedslings.com. EOE/AA/MFDV. Drug Free Workplace – Drug testing required. Florida Locations include: Orlando, Miami, West Palm Beach, Fort Myers, Tampa and Ocala.

Fabrication manager/customer service. Work in a family oriented business with an opportunity to earn part ownership. Need someone 35-55+ years old who started at the bottom and looking to finish at the top. Need hands on splicing experience, lifting rigging experience, test bed knowledge, able to direct small growing crew. Basic comput-er knowledge. Willing to train and mentor young employees. Top wages and benefits for the right individual. Problem solver that our customers can depend on. Honesty and integrity a must. Call Chuck Farmer, Presi-dent, Rouster Wire Rope and Rigging, Inc., 304-228-3722, in confidence.

Philadelphia, PA Wire Rope & Fabrica-tion shop has inside customer sales/service position. Experience in rigging or crane in-dustries a plus. Contact us via e-mail: [email protected] or fax: 610-687-0912.

Looking for sales professional. Compre-hensive understanding of wire rope, chain,

continued


Accounting. Strong written and oral com-munication is a must. To be considered for this great opportunity please e-mail us at [email protected].

Outside sales professional with 20+ years experience seeking full time position. Willing to relocate. Reply to [email protected].

Experienced Wire Rope Sling (Flemish) fabricator needed. CWR Hawaii is seeking a worker with knowledge and hands-on abil-ity to fabricate wire rope and chain assem-blies. Full-time, 401k, vacation, insurance, and other benefits. Relocationg cost can be negotiated.

If you are interested in working for our company, please e-mail me at [email protected] or call me at 808-843-2020.

Loos & Co., Inc. manufactures stainless and nickel alloy wire and cable products. We are seeking an Engineer with experience in metallurgy, preferably with a wire drawing background. Must have a BS in metallurgy, or substantial industry experience in wire or

continued

nylon, and fall protection preferred. Sales experience required. Competitive salary plus commission. Benefit package included. E-mail resumes to [email protected].

Leading manufacturer of below the hook lifting devices seeks a mechanical engineer who has experience with designing below the hook lifters. Experience with motor-ized control systems is a plus. Excellent working environment, compensation and schedule all in a fantastic, southern coastal area! Please send resume to Tandemloc, 824 Highway 101, Havelock, NC 28532, [email protected] or call 252-463-8113.

Web and Round Sling Dept. Manager; Arctic Wire Rope and Supply in Anchor-

age Alaska is looking for an experienced person to run a small but active sewing and round sling department.

Must be accomplished at sewing and teaching others how to fabricate multiple ply and width web slings, working with a round sling machine and adapting to ours. Must be comfortable with non-standard / custom orders.

Pay is $18-22/hr DOE, major medical, 401k with 8% company match. Winters can be cold and long, should enjoy playing in the snow if possible, no city or state tax and you get a yearly permanent dividend from the State after one year of residency. E-mail re-sume to [email protected].

Sales manager needed for Chicago mar-ket. Must have strong understanding of wire rope, chain, hardware. Must be able to estab-lish goals and achieve desired results. Com-puter literate, minimal travel. Salesforce knowledge a plus. Competitive salary and benefits. Reply to box 11-4, care of Wire Rope News, 511 Colonia Blvd., Colonia, NJ 07067.

Texas Wire Rope Company expanding inside sales department. Individuals must have a strong technical, mechanical and ba-sic mathematical aptitude, including basic computer knowledge. Selected candidates must be quality conscious and able to handle multiple tasks. Previous experience in the in-dustrial supply market is necessary. We offer a drug-free, results-oriented work environ-ment with excellent wages and advancement opportunities. Resumes received confiden-tially at [email protected].

Established wire rope distributor in North America is expanding into crane/con-tainer rope and fabrication. We are looking for an experienced individual that can assist in formulating a marketing and business plan. This position will eventually evolve to a sales manager or general manager. Fax your resume in strict confidence to 330-452-2331 attention Kris Lee or e-mail to [email protected].

HELP WANTEDFast growing Billings Montana industrial

supply and rigging shop seeks experienced rigger and wire rope assembler. Must be familiar with all aspects of rigging shop op-erations. E-mail resume to [email protected].

POSITION WANTEDOur client requires a part-time Book-

keeper (1-2 days/week) to assist them with an ongoing temporary assignment. This po-sition could become permanent for the right candidate. You will be responsible for Book-keeping, Accounts Payable entering, setting up inventory, filing, organizing and some administrative duties. You must be able to thrive in a team environment and also work well alone.

The successful candidate for this role will have excellent knowledge of Simply

Fax: (1-732) 396-4215

[email protected]

It’s free!


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specialty metals industries. Medical grade alloys knowledge is a definite plus. We of-fer competitive wages with a comprehensive benefit program. An EEO/AA Company.

Visit our website at www.loosco.com. Forward resumes to [email protected].

Former Division-Product Manager, Re-gional Outside Sales Manager desires southeast territory to manage and solicit ac-counts in the wire rope, chain, fittings, and related industries. Over 25 years experience including District Manager, Bethlehem Wire Rope, Regional Manager, Wire Rope Ind Product Manager, Rud Chain, Inc. In-terested parties reply to M.E. (Mike) Givens [email protected], ph 256-476-7700.

West Coast Wire Rope and Rigging is looking to hire experienced riggers. Please send your resume to: 7777 7th Ave. South, Seattle, WA 98108, attention manager.

SEEKING MERGERRigging products company seeks merger:

A nationally-prominent rigging equipment manufacturer seeks to grow through merg-er with similar company. Strong brand rec-ognition and extensive cargo control, wire rope, chain and synthetic sling production capabilities have fueled our growth. We now seek a merger partner so that we may take advantage of economies of scale and get to the “next level”. The business is not for sale; merger inquiries only. Principals only please, no brokers. Respond in confidence to [email protected].

REPS WANTEDSouthern Weaving is seeking Independent

Sales Representatives. We prefer a sales pro-fessional who currently calls on sling makers and rigging companies and is familiar with the industry. Check us out at www.southern-weaving.com. For more information, contact Tommy Lee, Sales Director, at 864-240-9372 or [email protected].

Sunwood Inc., manufacturer of nets, slings, etc. since 1986, (formerly known as Fl. nets & slings supply) is expanding na-tionwide & looking for ambitious indepen-dent reps in US and Canada. Check our webiste: www.netsandslings.com before contacting us. We offer several protected territories without any restriction of house accounts. Generous commission paid when order is shipped (not when $ collected). Call 954-788-7144 or e-mail: [email protected].

Sales rep wanted for an established man-ufacturer of labels and sling tags. We are looking for a sales rep that currently calls on sling makers and rigging companies and is familiar with the business. Etiflex is a regis-tered trademark and manufactures custom sling tags for synthetic and wire rope slings and has an excellent reputation in the field. We advertise in trade journals and exhibit at industry shows to generate brand aware-ness. Please contact us at [email protected] or call 866-ETIFLEX for information.

Manufacturer Represtentatives for Lift-ing Equipment & Accessories wanted by ALL MATERIAL HANDLING, Inc. Terri-tories are now available and supported by our 4 USA Warehouses where our highly

competitive and top quality products are stocked to the roof. Partner with us as we continue to grow market share. Check us out at www.allmaterialhandling.com and reach us at 877 543-8264, or e-mail [email protected].

Well established manufacturer of wire rope assemblies seeks manufacturer repre-sentatives for most major U.S. and Cana-dian markets. Visit our web site at www.thecableconnection.com. Please contact [email protected] or call Ray at (800) 851-2961

PRODUCT LINES WANTEDMerit Sales, Inc. (Manufacturer Repre-

sentatives) is looking for rigging related lines to compliment the manufacturers we currently represent. If you need sales people in any of our states (AL, AR, FL, GA, LA, MS, NC, OK, SC, TN, TX, VA) please con-tact. We also have 2 regional warehouses available in the Atlanta area & Houston. e-mail: [email protected] or call Johnny at 713-664-7723.

PROFESSIONAL SERVICESDragline range & depth extended using

gravity return. Contact Nielsen by fax for details (fax) 904-342-0547

EQUIPMENT WANTEDWanted: Used test stand for manual

hoists static testing, up to 10-tons. Contact John Gideon at [email protected] or Phone 770-266-5700.

Wanted 600t wire rope swaging press com-plete with dies in good order, please contact [email protected], or Tele 0064 3 366 1528.

Wanted: used wire rope cable, sizes 1-1/8”, 1”, and 7/8”. Please call for pricing. (740) 452-5770.

PROPERTY FOR SALEIndustrial Warehouse Opportunity: At-

lanta area. 20,000 sq.ft. with 2 dock height bay. First floor 1600 sq.ft.; Offices, 2nd floor, 3 bedroom/1 bath apt. or office, 1600 sq.ft. Cen-tral AC/heat. Total land: 2.24 acres near I-85, sale/lease/option. Only $355,000 cash. E-mail: [email protected], tel. 706-599-3270.

FOR SALENEW WIRE ROPE FOR SALE: 400 ft.

2-1/4” 7-Flex IWRC Bright New/Used. $4.95/ft. = $1980.00. F.O.B. Longview, WA. Please contact Charlie Isaacson: ph. 360-754-6020.

“Nets & slings” equipment (used) are of-fered at bargain prices (best offer will take it): Singer- 6 Sewing machines H.D. w/benches. Kiwi- Web printing machine, com-plete set-up. Tinius Olsen- Testing machine 60K. Call us at 954-788-7144 or e-mail: [email protected].

3/16" Campbell Chain L3x51 Links- Zinc; 3200 pieces 48" with 5/16" S Hook; 1100 pieces 15" with 5/16"x2.5" O ring; In NC. Best Offer [email protected], 800-342-9130 x 124, Andy.

New wire rope 1-1/8” drill line 5000 ft. 6x195 BR RR IFWV $30,000 Aud & freight. Reply to Brayd Gross, Alpha Rigging SEr-vice, 11-13 Gerberte Court, Wurruk, Victoria, Australia, 3850. Phone 0011+61351461088. E-mail: [email protected].

Crosby 7/8” G213 LPA shackles. NEW! 205 pieces available. Contact Gary Lee @ 1-800-844-3517. Fax 251-456-8860.

Impacto Cable cutters and parts available from Windy Ridge Corp. Tamworth, NH, USA. 800-639-2021. Fax 603-323-2322.

New Wireco: 6 X 26 construction, 7/8” X 5,700’ - 1” X 1,000’ ¾” X 3,500 – 5/8” X 3,000’ – 1-3/8” X 1,350’ – 1-3/8” X 1,500” – 7/16” X 5,000’ – 1” X 300. All New.

Also available: new assorted Esco shack-les. Call Tom at 541-378-7006 for pricing and details.

HARDWARE FOR SALEOverstocked inventory for sale, 1-3/8”

Shackle, WLL 13½ ton, galvanized, round pin, import. Super savings. Sold in mini-mum lots of 50 at $9 each. Eric Parkerson, Certified Slings, 407-331-6677.

EQUIPMENT FOR SALEReel-o-matic cable reel model RS/2M11.

Capactiy 2500 lbs., 1.5 HP drive, 220V 3PH machine $1500 - Call Shlomo 973-523-7760.

National swage 1000 ton press. Excellent condition, including most dies up to two inch, $110,000. Barry, Bilco Wire Rope & Supply Corp., 908-351-7800 or [email protected].

1-800 ton Esco, 1-500 ton National, 1-500 ton Esco, 1-350 Esco. 713-641-1552.

150 ton, Wirop C-type hydraulic swaging ma-chine for sale. Brand new, with 4 sets of dies. $19,500 or B/O. Call Oscar at 909-548-2884.

Wire Rope Grips for proof test machines. Sizes: 1-1/2”, 2”, 2-1/2”. Load cells & digital read-outs also available. Call Joe Roberts (912) 964-9465.

Prooftesters for sale. Capacities from 20,000 lbs. to 3,000,000 lbs. Call Joe Roberts (912) 964-9465.

CLASSIFIEDcontinued from previous page

Caldwell quality. Guaranteed.Our expanded INSTOCK* program has many items available for same dayshipment. Call us at 800-628-4263 to place your order now. Orders placedafter 12:00 PM (CST) ship the next business day. *Not all sizes are available for same day shipment.

The Caldwell Group • 5055 26th Ave. Rockford, IL 61109 • 800.628.4263 • caldwellinc.com

SHIPS THE SAME DAYDesigned and manufactured to ASME B30.20 and BTH-1.

ORDER BY NOONNEW

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