R & J Crane Service of Vero Beach, FL, did not waste any time implementing the new 27-ton (24.3 t) capacity luffing attachment that it recently acquired for its LS-238H lattice-boom crawler crane. Wedged between existing structures and the Atlantic Ocean, R & J couldn’t complete the project without the new luffing attachment.
“What is the importance of the crane with a luffing attachment to us? It enables our operator to reach high up on a building in a confined working area. With the new luffing attachment we can work safely and still reach out a considerable distance with a significant load,” said Rick Wiebelt, president of R & J Crane Service.
Short of erecting a fixed location tower crane, there is little else that will get the job done, and give the flexibility of the conventional crane with the luffing attachment. In built-up urban areas, such as South Florida, this arrangement is imperative.
“Luffing attachments are often a more economical use of your resources over a tower crane. We can lower the luffing boom and obtain a greater radius than we can using a conventional crane. I should also point out the need for a highly-skilled operator to run this specialized piece of equipment. Not everyone is capable of this, and not all makes of cranes are as easy to use in this configuration as our Link-Belt machines,” continued Wiebelt.
“Real estate in south Florida is at a premium. The choice locations are already developed. It is now a matter of filling in the less desirable spaces between them, or rebuilding on a demolished, cleared area. That is where the specialized attachment of a luffing boom is vital,” said Wiebelt.
An illustration of this point is in Pompano Beach, where one of the company’s two Link-Belt LS-238H lattice boom crawler cranes with a luffing attachment is working. High-rise buildings bound the oceanfront location on the north and south. To the east is the Atlantic Ocean. Immediately to the west is North Ocean Boulevard. Working room is so limited that the counterweight of the crane barely clears the building when the crane is oriented in a north-south direction. To swing 180 degrees, the luffing boom must be raised to approximately 85 degrees. Once the machine has picked up its load and swung back 180 degrees, the operator can extend the luffing attachment out to 75 degrees to reach a 200-ft. (60.9 m) radius.
Seawood Builders Inc., is building an eight-story, poured-in-place, concrete condominium. The concrete is poured with a large mobile concrete pump fed continuously by a series of mixing trucks. The erection of the forms for the next floor must continue during this operation. The contractor’s completion schedule, the owner’s occupancy date and future income hang in the balance. Without the versatility of the R & J’s luffing attachment, it would be similar to asking two major pieces of construction equipment to occupy the same place at the same time.
The LS-238H is equipped with a 95-ft. (28.9 m) luffing boom and a 150-ft. (45.7 m) luffing jib. This allows the machine to reach the on-site laydown and storage area on the building’s ocean-side area where space is very limited. The second R & J Link-Belt crane with a luffing attachment is erecting a six-story concrete parking garage pouring concrete using the tried and true crane and bucket method. The structure has a combination of precast-pre-stressed joists and cast-in-place floors. The parking garage will complement an existing 14-story apartment building in Miami. This crane is outfitted with a 95-ft. (28.9 m) luffing boom and a 160-ft. (48.8 m) luffing jib.
The greatest reach planned for the Link-Belt crane is approximately 140 ft. (42.7 m). The precast concrete joists weigh approximately 12,500 lbs. (5,669 kg) each and measure 60 ft. by 28 in. by 8 in. (18 m by 71 cm by 20 cm). The concrete is being placed with two, 3-cu.-yd. (2.3 cu m) buckets to avoid any production slowdown while filling them. This is important to the superintendent who, so far, has been able to maintain a floor-a-week production schedule. He estimated they are pouring and finishing at a rate of 60 cu. yds. (45.9 cu m) an hour.
R & J has used its Link-Belt cranes with the maximum luffing configuration. One such operation was in Boca Raton. The machine had a 165-ft. (50.3 m) luffing boom, a 150-ft. (45.7 m) luffing jib and a 30-ft. (9.1 m) fixed jib working at a radius of 220 ft. (67.1 m). The crane was lifting building materials from the ground, and setting them up on the upper floors of the building. The company has also used the cranes on airport buildings where a short luffing boom (tower) with a long reach is desirable.
“It’s not enough just to have large cranes in your inventory. There are two other factors that a crane rental service must consider. First, is the ease of transportability with them from your yard to the job site and back. The second consideration is ease of erection and removal of the luffing crane from a job-site. These two factors go hand in hand,” said Wiebelt.
According to Wiebelt, these considerations are not a big concern for R & J with the Link-Belt LS-238H cranes.
“Today’s Link-Belt is much faster to erect than they were only a decade ago. The bottom line for owning two Link-Belt LS-238H II conventional lattice-boom cranes in the luffing configuration is simple,” concluded Wiebelt. C
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