Old timer told me I was racking the boom backwards and it blew my mind

Got paired with a retired guy named Sal on a small job at a steel yard in Newark last month. I've been running a Grove RT530 for about 4 years now and thought I had my pick and carry stuff dialed. He watched me for like 10 minutes then just goes "you're fighting the swing every time you rack, kid." I didn't even know what that meant. Turns out I was pulling the boom up as I was rotating, which made the load pendulum on every swing. He showed me to drop the boom first, get the load settled, then rotate. It felt weird slow at first but after three picks I was way smoother. Have any of you changed a basic move like that after years of doing it the hard way?

2 comments

2 Comments

sullivan.spencer12d ago

Four years doing something the wrong way and one old guy fixes it in ten minutes" pretty much sums up this whole trade. I had a similar thing with leveling the crane before a lift. For like two years I'd just get it close and start picking. Then a old hand named Mike showed me to take the extra minute and level it dead flat first. Made a huge difference in how stable everything felt after that. That's the kind of stuff @nancythomas is talking about where the quick way works but the right way saves you down the road. You're right that Sal probably saved you some wear and tear. Those little fixes stick with you.

nancythomas12d ago

Four years doing something the wrong way and one old guy fixes it in ten minutes. That's pretty typical honestly. Most of us learn from some hack who showed us the fast way instead of the right way and we just stick with it because it works good enough. Sal probably saved you a lot of wear on your swing gear and your back though. Not saying it's life changing but yeah, little stuff like that adds up over a career. You'll probably pass that tip to some new kid in twenty years.