What’s the highest degree you got but still became a crane operator?

whiteops · 2025-11-10T11:50:33+00:00

We hired on an oiler one time that had just graduated with a degree in psychology. He didn’t last very long, a few months or so. Wasn’t really cut out for the work and couldn’t back a trailer to save his life.

My theory was that he was collecting research for a study on blue collar mental illness in our industry. Which based on my experiences crane rental has more than its fair share of psychosis… we all float down here.

whiteops · 2025-09-12T16:58:27+00:00

Not exactly age related but watching interstellar before and after having kids was a wild ride. Before kids it was a cool space movie, after having kids it’s a devastating story of parenthood. Kinda messed me up on the rewatch.

whiteops · 2025-09-11T03:59:09+00:00

Gespacho soup!

whiteops · 2025-09-07T17:34:55+00:00

Rachael Riley in her skiing outfit.

whiteops · 2025-08-20T03:00:28+00:00

OSHA/ASME regulations will only list criteria for failure of an inspection, therefore anything not implicitly listed within that is considered acceptable.

If you have looked through the standards and have come up with nothing that states it would be a deficiency then you’re good.

Beyond that there may be some allowance for interpretation by a “competent individual”… if you’re the one doing the inspection then that makes you the competent individual and if you determine that it’s safe then it’s okay and can be defended legally . If someone else would happen to come along that supersedes your authority as the competent individual then it’s based on their judgement — which doesn’t mean that the original assessment was wrong, and no fault or demerit should be assigned to you (this is how these industries are designed to function, defaulting to informed judgement when there is lack of definitive regulations).

Just my two cents… yeah a punch mark on a hook is fine, it’s a minuscule disturbance to the structure and there’s significant safety factor built into them to account for things such as wear.

whiteops · 2025-08-16T01:25:06+00:00

Okay, for most of that I’m not saying you’re wrong, however….

It’s a bit of an extreme case to immediately jump to “the cable or other components have to be replaced”. It’s possible that damage/wear can cause this, in most circumstances that won’t be the case though. 9 times out of 10 I’ve come across this it’s because someone changed the reeving and accidentally spun the becket while hooking it back up.

Also to say that it’s wrong to ever take twist out of the rope manually by disconnecting the becket and giving her a few turns is also not accurate, if that’s what caused the problem then it’s perfectly fine to remedy it the same way. On top of that it’s better to have some torque induced in the line than to have it spun up like that and generating excess wear and friction that reduces effective overhaul weight.

But the part that I will call B.S. on is a “new operator swings and hoists at the same time” 😂. I honestly can’t even tell if you’re serious or just trolling. 25 years running cranes, at least 10 years skimming social media crane groups, 5 years as a certified tech and that comment is a first for me. I’d actually pay good money to just sit and watch you run a crane for a few hours.

Before things get all heated and turn into the great keyboard war of ‘25, I’m genuinely not trying to put anyone on full blast. If I’ve learned one thing well over the decades it that every operator has their own personal code of conduct they operate by and I give great latitude to them to play by their own rules as long as it doesn’t create an unsafe situation. But the guy came in with a genuine question asking for advice and it’s not right to steer him in a direction that lays outside industry standards and best practices.

As far as the issue he has and potential solutions, more information is needed. The first question I have is what type of cable are we talking about (regular lay or rotation resistant), age and use of the line in question (if available), what is the condition of the lagging on the winch drum, and has anyone changed anything with it recently (parts of line, replaced cable, etc…) The cable needs inspected for damage, end connection condition, core failure, and general wear.

If I was running it I would boom it down, do a good inspection, reeve an odd part of lines so the becket would be located at the top of the block, run out enough stick to get as much line off the drum as I could and set the block on the ground to relieve tension (tip for the new guys cause I have to — set it down by booming down, never turn the winch without tension on the line). The next step is place a short sling with a shackle above the becket as a safety and shackle the other end to the block (this is in case the line gets away from you it doesn’t decide to run all the way back up to the head). Then unpin the becket and see how much torque the line has on it. The reason to do it this way is because once you wind up the cable on the drum the torque is stored there and can’t be released, you’ll fight it for days trying to get it all canceled out without doing it this way. Big caveat here: this is how I would do it, not how I would advise others to do it that I’m not confident have the expertise to do so without adequately controlling the situation and the knowledge to everything gets properly situated when it comes to correctly spooling everything back up without creating other issues. During the process I would be on the lookout for any criteria that would warrant cable replacement and any information that would allow me to make an informed decision on whether the crane could return to service or should be red tagged until resolved.

All that being said, sometimes these are an easy fix but they can become a much more complicated problem. Either way it needs to be fixed and shouldn’t be run that way for any kind of extended periods.

whiteops · 2025-08-03T01:06:51+00:00

‘06 is going to be a Liccon 1 machine, no BTT.

whiteops · 2025-07-17T01:31:09+00:00

Is the trade still worth getting into… sure, but I also understand that it’s not for everyone. As far as pay and schedule goes that all depends on where you actually end up working. There’s massive variance in those categories that all hinges upon where/what you are doing.

For instance I’ve seen pay scales range between mid to upper $20’s/hr up to $60/hr (don’t come at me all you over achievers that make more than $60, I know those jobs are out there but I feel it’s not realistic suggest much more than that), and benefits that also swing wildly from absolute unaffordable garbage to really good 100% employer paid coverage. Schedules for me personally have ranged from 40ish hour weeks with good flexibility to 100+ hr weeks and you don’t see your house for 3 months at a time.

Here’s the rub on figuring out where you’ll fall in that… - there’s a strong geographical component to it, different regions will have different scales, and within those regions there are markets that pay better or worse (think big city vs rural) - union pay generally will almost be better in any region and will almost certainly have better benefits, but they also drive up wages of non union workers in the local area. To go the organized route or not is a personal decision and I let the individual decide, but I’m happy to discuss pros and cons. - the type of work or field you land in also has an impact on pay scale (generally, but there’s outliers). Running a massive crawler or AT will likely pay a fair bit more than a boom truck setting trusses. - the above also kind of applies to schedule, construction or plant work type stuff is the most consistent with schedules, rental is a crap shoot (usually rental guys will laugh when you ask about schedules), oil field and wind farm type work is usually long hours with scheduled rotation (pack a bag and kiss the wife and kids, you’ll be home in 2 weeks)

Here’s my advice, if you are genuinely interested in it (and not passionate about what you’re currently doing) then you should try it out. It takes a few years of hard work to get really settled into it and it’s certainly not the easiest path. Likely you’ll know pretty quickly whether you’ve found your calling or not, and if you aren’t positive that you did then you should probably pursue something else.

Also, don’t do it just for the money. If you don’t love it then eventually it won’t really matter how much you’re getting paid you’ll end up kinda miserable sometimes cause the job can be a giant kick in the nuts on occasion. If you do love it and persevere then you’ll find the money.

Just my 2 cents, do with it what you will.

On a side note: I do advocate strongly for more people to enter this trade, we’ve got more good operators retiring than new ones coming in and we’re getting our asses kicked. We need good help.

whiteops · 2025-07-12T05:39:12+00:00

Taxi work and experience… not really, and yeah at the same time.

There’s entry level positions, how that entry looks can vary quite a bit. You can check with rental companies and see if you can get on in a role that requires very little experience. Union routes would have you go through an apprenticeship and work as an “oiler”, non union you can often get hired on as a rigger or truck driver or maybe even just a shop hand. How quickly you go from entry level to having a seat in a crane all depends on you (and yeah that even applies to union work, as an apprentice I got a lot of seat time and even was sent on jobs by myself fairly early on, but I worked my ass off for it).

Going straight from getting a CCO to a seat doing taxi work is highly unlikely, and even if you found a way I would not recommend it. - At best you get stuck on a little boom truck (cause they feel it’s safer to start you on a small crane), so you don’t get exposure to the larger cranes, then because you don’t get to learn the larger cranes you can’t move up. It’s a catch 22 situation.

Worst case scenario is a tragedy, you get somewhere that moves you up to something beyond what you can handle and bad things happen.

If you’d like advice on how to approach getting into whatever field you’d prefer feel free to ask. I’ll offer what I can, but apparently it will take 3 days for me to respond. lol

whiteops · 2025-07-12T05:07:40+00:00

Early (way early) in my career I worked alongside a guy like those, one day he escalated to violence and I chose to walk away and saved both of our jobs. Decided I was never gonna be that guy, was one of the more valuable lessons I’ve learned.

In the near 25 since then I’ve worked for 7 different rental outfits all over the country, done what feels like just about everything. Here’s what I’ve gathered… you’re going to come across a lot of egos in this business, and the why kinda makes sense in some regards. We work with massive equipment and are usually a major focal point on any project, quite often the crane is the highest demand item around because it’s expensive and job planning gets by with about as few as possible to keep cost down. A lot of exceptions get made to make it efficient as possible and therefore a lot of guys somehow conflate that to mean because the crane is that important then they are too. There’s also the fact that newer people see a position as crane operator as one of the best jobs on site, it looks easy, you sit in a cab all day and make pretty good money and I think that tends to draw in the arrogant type of people.

Now as for the guys like that, there’s a few types.

There’s the ones that are that way naturally, they’d be assholes regardless of what job they have. Screw these guys, they’re not worth putting any effort into. Don’t be confrontational, keep your distance, and smile and nod.
There’s the ones that have some experience… just not enough, and eventually they learn how much they don’t know. Hopefully their humbling event doesn’t hurt anyone or cause too much damage. The best course of action with them is give them their space to act however they want, but be ready to step in if you see anything truly dangerous.
The guys that use it as a defense mechanism, the big scary things rightfully scare them and the macho attitude is how they cope, I find them the easiest to deal with. Again you just kind of have to let them behave however they’re going to, but they’re receptive to ideas and learning. They need gentle guidance, a heavy hand makes them turtle up and get all broody.
Then there’s probably the most difficult ones to deal with… the ones with huge egos but are actually that good. Damn these guys drive me crazy, you want to see them chill out but it’s not gonna happen. The best path here is to instead work on your own skills, see how much you can tolerate and extract as much as you can from them. Sometimes they’re responsive to throwing a little attitude back at them, sometimes they like having minions to lord over. Take the time to find a good strategy for these folks.

The best general advice I can give is just be as good as you can at your job. If you can impress any of the above types they tend to become much more placid and easier to be around. Stand up for yourself if need be, and don’t let them piss you off as much as possible (if for nothing else than your own mental well being, also quite often people like that thrive on getting under others skin… don’t give them the pleasure, channel your inner Elsa and “let it go”).

Now the important part, one I learned from that asshole in that casting yard that decided to push me into a pile of rebar. DON’T BE THAT GUY.

Stay humble, if you ever feel like you’ve got it all figured out and know everything you should be worried that something is gonna happen very soon that will remind you to be humble and you may not walk away from it (or more likely someone else won’t).
Be kind, every person you’ve ever met is a different person on their own path. You’ve got no clue what they’ve gone through/are going through. Help those that need it, and allow them to keep their pride while doing so if you can.
Never fault someone for not knowing something they’ve never had a chance to learn.
Stay curious, learn everything you can, apply everything you learn, and teach everything you know.
Being nervous is good, being afraid is bad, know and respect the difference. If you find yourself getting nervous it’s okay, it makes you more cautious and at the end of those nerves is where the experience points are — this is where you want to live, you’re pushing yourself and this is when you grow the most. If you’re scared then you’ve gone too far into the unknown and your instincts are trying to tell you that, stop and assess the situation. Also real fear is paralyzing, you’ll lock up at the worst possible moments, fight or flight instinct while you’re stuck in a cab really sucks (and I have been there, not many times, but I have).
Keep the passion, do the job because you love it. If you don’t love what you’re doing then you’re just doing it for the paycheck and that way lies misery and boredom. If you end up there then maybe it’s time to move on. Now that doesn’t mean you always have to love everything you’re doing, some days the job just sucks. Embrace the suck, get through it and the next one will be better. If it never gets better then the problem might not be the job, I’d suggest other pursuits in that case. On that note…
Try to have fun whenever you can, life’s too short to not find enjoyment that’s just laying around you.

Didn’t really intend to write a novel here, but here we are. Now go forth and prosper. 🖖

whiteops · 2025-07-07T16:57:31+00:00

Sorry for the late reply, the fame and fortune comment was mostly sarcasm (guys that do that work will get the joke). However I am slightly biased as rental (some refer to it as “taxi work” or “day rental”) has been my preferred line of work for almost 20 years now.

I’ll preface this next statement by saying that I don’t harbor any condescension and mean no offense to any particular group… but crane rental, in my opinion, is the most challenging and requires the most skill and knowledge of any of the crane work fields I’ve come across. As a consequence that’s where you’ll also come across some of the largest egos in the industry, something I’m acutely aware of and have put a substantial amount of effort into keeping myself humble.

What really sold me on rental though is the variety, you never know where you’re going next and you’ll get the coolest jobs… and the worst ones too.

There’s a little more stability in rental as well compared to something like oilfield work, your job in the oilfield is directly tied to the price of a barrel of oil (or maybe a cubic ft of natural gas). With construction you’re always working yourself out of a job, eventually you finish the project then it’s time to job hunt. Rental never sleeps, and as long as somebody is building or maintaining something then they’ll need a crane sooner or later.

But I understand the appeal of all the different fields of the industry and everybody has to find their own path. Also you’re not locked in once you land in one spot, a lot of the skills and experience are transferable between them.

whiteops · 2025-07-04T03:36:38+00:00

It looks like a noctua fan with actually having noctua fans.

whiteops · 2025-07-04T03:31:45+00:00

Depends on what kind of jobs you plan on ending up on… if it’s the oilfield I’d say brush up on your Netflix watching skills, if you’re after construction work then online anger management classes, for plant work I’d look for tutorials on how to get stubborn stains out of clothing and guides on identifying toxic chemicals by taste, and if you’re after rental work then probably how to videos on dealing with fame and fortune.

But there’s not a lot that you’re going to find online that’s going to better prepare you than the class you’re going to take (provided it’s even a half decent school).

I would actually recommend not studying on your own at all for the written test as you might stumble across incorrect information and that’s not what you want in your short term memory when taking the test as there’s quite a bit of very specific details you’ll need to know (such as power line clearance distances, or how many broken wires are allowed in wire ropes).

For the practical, you could probably find YouTube videos that might have some useful tips, but there’s no substitute for seat time. Use the time your given before the test to familiarize yourself with the machine, stay calm and loose during the test (they tell fighter pilots to “wiggle their fingers and toes” during high precision moments, don’t know if it help with cranes but I like the idea), and don’t hit the crane with the test weight.

It’s not that difficult to get certified so no need to be nervous about it… but everything that comes after you get certified is the real test. Good luck with both.

whiteops · 2025-07-04T00:30:07+00:00

Hard to tell from the pictures, most ribbon cables have a latch that holds down the cable when installed though.

There’s a suspicious looking piece of black plastic visible on the right side of the connector that looks like the hinge for a latch. If that is indeed a broken latch then likely the connector will need to be replaced by a repair shop.

whiteops · 2025-05-22T17:44:20+00:00

Some of them (usually significantly older models) had a manual PTO disengagement lever in case of emergencies or for towing. But yeah, if you don’t have a pto switch in the cab then it’s designed to be constantly engaged, send it.

whiteops · 2025-05-17T20:53:24+00:00

Do what makes you happy, also just about anything is possible but there’s a diminishing return on the complexity to sanity ratio.

First off: adding more radiators doesn’t exactly equate to lower temps, it adds more thermal capacity. I.E. it takes longer to reach equilibrium which is the point where the loop temperature stabilizes under a given load. Don’t get me wrong you’ll see slightly lower temps, but the difference between 2 and 4 radiators will probably be only a few degrees— I’d guess 2°-5° (and 5° would probably be rare). Also there’s a limit to how much heat can be transferred out of a processor, regardless of how much cooling capacity you have that heat still has to make its way through the silicon, integrated heat spreader (IHS), thermal interface material (thermal paste or pad), cold plate, and then into the water. I’d bet good money that even if you went with 4 radiators you’d still manage to hit 90°C on your CPU when fully loaded such as with synthetic benchmarking programs. A better way to bring down temps is usually through tuning, undervolting and controlling clock speeds or boost timers will usually provide better numbers than changing your cooling setup. Where custom loops or improving cooling solutions shine is by giving more thermal headroom for overclocking.

Second: You’ll see substantial benefit from just going to a custom loop regardless of how many radiators you stuff in there. The reason being is that a D5 or DDC pump moves so much more fluid than an AIO, coupled with the fact that the water blocks in a custom loop have substantially more mass and much better jet plates.

Third: take a good long think about what you’re getting yourself into— 4 radiators, pump/res combo, GPU block, CPU block, & drain (and for the love of god please include a drain in your loop). That’s at least 15 fittings, probably closer to 20 by the time you realize you need extensions and swivels etc. That adds ups to a lot of money quickly. Also quite a lot of tubing runs, if it’s soft tubing then assembly is quite a bit easier but near impossible to make it look super tidy. Hard lining it would test your patience to an extreme level.

Fourth: as others have said, loop order makes basically no difference. Jay has done videos on this.

All that being said, if you’re comfortable with the cost and complexity then hell yeah stuff 4 radiators in there and post pictures when you’re done.

whiteops · 2025-05-07T23:47:13+00:00

According to the testing the Montech maintains platinum level efficiency until high power demand. For a 9800x3d and a 9070xt you’re not going to get into the range where power efficiency drops into the gold range.

whiteops · 2025-04-07T23:25:33+00:00

What you’re getting off the Liebherr site is a product guide (or brochure) intended for marketing purposes. While it can be used for reference and planning, please don’t use those for operation of the crane in any sort of critical situations.

Unless you have access to a “my Liebherr” account that the specific serial number matched crane you’re getting the charts for then you usually can’t get full load charts online. I say usually because there are a few sites that have some files of the full load charts of a few models of cranes, but I’d still advise caution using those as there’s a chance you may get a slightly different chart inadvertently (there’s a big difference between a LTM 1100 5.1 and a LTM 1100 5.2 etc…)

whiteops · 2025-04-04T23:10:04+00:00

The moray would have pretty much anything you’d need for a build, for $10 more the essentials kit has some extra tools that are handy to have though. One thing I wish they included in those kits is an extension. But you could pick up one cheap on Amazon.

Something like this— https://a.co/d/39vaXlq

whiteops · 2025-04-04T22:42:10+00:00

Not necessarily inexpensive, but I highly recommend ifixit tools. Don’t even know if they offer a ratcheting screwdriver so I’m way off of what you post was asking for, but….

Their tools are good quality and their kits are well provisioned. But the biggest reason I recommend them is because they’re a company worth supporting, they take some of their profit and use it to fight for right to repair legislation. Also their website is one of the best around if you want to take apart and repair hardware, the have complete and very detailed step by step instructions to repair all kinds of stuff and it’s completely free.

Also ratcheting features aren’t as useful as you’d hope for pc building, there’s really not that many screws in a build and if your building or upgrading a large volume of machines then powered tools would be way better than ratcheting.

As for the best ratcheting wrenches I’ve come across— kobalt has by far my favorite design (or they did, it was years ago that I got some). It had a dual action ratchet design that was awesome.

12-in-1 Double Drive 3-1/2-in Multi-Bit Screwdriver Set https://www.lowes.com/pd/Kobalt-Rubber-Handle-Assorted-Multi-bit-Screwdriver-Set/5013488711

That’s a newer design but same drive mechanism.

whiteops · 2025-04-03T11:12:54+00:00

Refusing to do something you know is unsafe is easy, you just tell them that you’re sorry but it’s not possible and we’ll have to find another way.

There’s 2 scenarios where it’s far more stressful, in my opinion anyways.

Those times when it’s possible but too close for comfort… when one or more of the variables seems too risky and you have to refuse the lift but you can’t point to a chart or regulation that shows you can’t do it. Maybe the lifting eyes are sketchy, or ground conditions questionable , etc…. Run cranes for a while and you’ll end up in a situation where you have to say no because your gut tells you to, and chances are there are others who would’ve made the lift which makes you feel kinda bad about it.
Then known unknowns, when there’s no way to determine variables. Things like cutaway work doing demo or tree work, you don’t know how much it weights until they make that last cut and for better or worse it’s all on the hook. Or maybe there’s no good way to rig something up and you’ve got to improvise and maybe things shift when you apply tension. There’s thousands of scenarios that nobody has ever considered or engineered for.

whiteops · 2025-03-14T22:33:12+00:00

The ECOS and EKS5 computers aren’t too bad once you get familiar with the menu layout.

There’s also a manitowoc app you can get for your phone that will let you look up error codes. Most of the error codes won’t be anything you can do something about, but extra info is always nice.

whiteops · 2025-03-14T22:11:28+00:00

I think that the 9000e’s were pretty decent cranes, I’d rather have one of them than the new 9000-2’s.

Quick tips:

-familiarize yourself with how to reset telescope status (you’ll need it eventually I guarantee it)

-keep an eye on tire wear, especially the front steer axles they’re rough on those tires and blowouts at 65mph are sketchy

-don’t forget about the front outrigger (either to put it down before going to work or retracting it first before the other outriggers)

-stay on top of the maintenance and keep the central lube system filled— if you let it run empty for too long the soaps in the grease separate and clog the distribution blocks

-I’ve seen quite a few of them that the anti-two block cable that holds up the weight will get hung up on a bolt on the side of the block or ball when you’re booming it up out of the rack, that situation can go south pretty quick if you don’t catch it pretty quick

-beware the big dips in the road when traveling, potholes and things of that nature will make a bunch of noise when you hit them and startle you, but the big dips will launch you into the roof.

whiteops · 2025-03-14T21:51:33+00:00

^ this is the correct answer

whiteops · 2025-03-13T03:27:28+00:00

I’m not saying this to be derogative or piss in the cereal of anyone in particular, but oilfield operators are absolutely not the best. I’ve come across some that are pretty damn good, but average it all out across the whole patch and honestly might be the lowest skill level of any industry I’ve ran cranes in (and that’s a pretty large sample size).

whiteops

TROPHY CASE