Take a Load Off – IOTW Report

Take a Load Off

h/t Groucho Marxist.

12 Comments on Take a Load Off

  1. About 20 years ago…I Jumped on an unfamiliar (brand spankin new)

    Caterpillar All Terrain Forklift …and Boomed up a pallet of

    Roofing Materials to the top of Sunset Marina’s first Condo…

    It was about a 50′ reach…I forgot to set the Parking Brake (switch)

    and as I relaxed a bit..The Tractor slid backwards about 4 inches…

    and I hit the brakes …which caused the Boom to swing violently

    back and forth about 6-10 feet at the top..The idiots on the roof

    were still trying to unload the pallet every time it came near Them..

    I dropped 8 pounds of flop sweat in 30 seconds…

    Never, ever, ever, ever, ever, try to bail off of the Machine,,

    You’ll be crushed by it. I’ve tipped over two since then..Luckily

    forward, and recovered by bringing the Boom back SLOOOOOWLY…

    (Live and don’t learn…That’s My Motto)

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  2. @Bobcat ~ reminds me of the time we were pulling new feeder cables from a 13.2kV station to a 4160V substation.
    we had the cable reels (the kind they make yard tables out of) set up on a makeshift pulling rig on the back of a flatbed lowboy truck, in the shop. we had to drive it across the Treatment Plant to the manhole we set up to pull from. I followed the driver of the flatbed in my truck as he drove across the plant. when he came to a hairpin 90 degree turn, he took it way too fast & all the cable reels went shooting off, one at a time, into the field, cartwheeling & shattering across the top of the plant. it was like watching a slo-mo train wreck.
    the only thing we could do was to manually un-reel the 500′ 750 MCM copper cables. it took another day’s labor to get the cables straightened out, hauled to the manhole & set up to pull.
    the superintendent cussed me out (not the driver!) because I was the tech in charge. all I could do was accept blame & laugh (which he didn’t find funny. I learned later that he had a good laugh too when he got back to his office … one of the best bosses I ever had)

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  3. Most are caused by a profound lack of knowledge of physics.
    VW did make a front wheel drive PU truck, Rabbit derivative, didn’t catch on, with a load it was impossible to steer in the rain.

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