That time a rigger argued with me about the load chart on a 90 degree pick

I was running a 50 ton Grove on a site in Portland last spring, and this older rigger kept insisting we could swing a 12,000 pound precast panel with the boom at 75 feet, even though the chart clearly said 10,400 was our limit... he said he'd done it a hundred times and my tape was wrong because the outriggers were on fresh gravel. I held my ground and made him walk the radius with me, then we set up a shorter pick that took an extra 20 minutes, and the crew was pissed but the panel landed clean... he admitted later that his old boss used to fudge the numbers on a different machine, not this one. Has anyone else had a veteran rigger or foreman try to override your chart with gut feeling, and how do you handle it without losing the whole day?

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phoenixw1123d agoProlific Poster

I've done it a hundred times" is pretty much the oldest line in the book. I get that some old guys have legit stories, but the chart doesn't care about your gut or the gravel. You did the right thing walking the radius, even if the crew moaned for 20 minutes. My only question is why the panel couldn't wait an extra few minutes for a proper setup anyway. Most of the time when someone fights the numbers this hard, they're just trying to save face or they're used to a machine that was rigged differently. If the tape says 10,400, then that's what you trust, no matter who's yelling.