Loadingā¦
11
An old hand on the 140 ton told me to stop riding the swing brake and it cut my cycle time by 20 percent
I was running a 140 ton on a tilt up job over in Garland when this guy with 30 years in the seat watched me work a pick and said I was fighting the machine, not running it. He said I was feathering the swing brake the whole way instead of letting the hydraulics do the work and squaring up early with the foot pedal. I blew him off for about 2 shifts because who likes being told they're doing it backwards. Then I timed myself, and my average pick was 4 minutes 40 seconds when it should have been under 4. So I quit riding the brake, started slowing the swing sooner and letting the load coast into place, and my cycle dropped to 3 minutes 45 by the end of that pour. Same load, same radius, same guy in the seat, just less fighting. Any of you run into an old timer who called out something you didn't want to hear but turned out right?
1 comments
Log in to join the discussion
Log In1 Comment
emmakim5d ago
Learned that lesson on a 60 ton years back, same deal. Was babying the swing with the brake because I thought smooth meant slow, guy told me I was dragging the load the whole way around. Stopped doing it, started bumping the swing up early and letting it coast, picks dropped from about 5 minutes to 4. The brake is for stopping, not for steering the load around the whole arc. Took me a week to trust it, but the math doesn't lie. Wish somebody had slapped me sooner.
1