A new guy on a site in Dallas said he learned his best rigging trick from a retired ironworker at a truck stop.

He told me, 'If you can't see the hook, you shouldn't be pulling the lever,' and that simple line about line of sight has stuck with me ever since, so what's the one piece of advice that's stuck with you from an unexpected source?

3 comments

3 Comments

miles_burns6d ago

Forget that old line of sight rule, it's way too basic. Sometimes you have to operate blind because the load is behind a wall or up in steel. The real skill is knowing your rigging math and trusting your spotter's voice over the radio. That truck stop advice would get you fired on a complex lift.

knight.dylan6d ago

Blind lifts are how people get killed. The line of sight rule exists for a reason.

the_simon6d ago

Okay but the one time I tried to do the math in my head I almost put a pallet of shingles through a client's kitchen window. Sometimes the old rules exist because guys like me can't be trusted with a calculator.