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  1. #46
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    Quote Originally Posted by .RC. View Post
    U see someone working more then 2m off the ground without a 100 page safe work statement, full safety harness, safety net and stand by ambulance.. I would never do anything risky like that
    Funny you should mention that. Tommorow I'm going onto the roof of my factory to clean the skylights, so I get some more natural light for the scraping classes.

    I still have that little scissor lift on hire, for this job. It hit four days, thats the cut off for a weekly hire. So I have it until Tuesday. It has its own trailer. I'm going to drag it back to Tommytown in the morning. (It's 1.6m at places like Ford). P.S Isn't a scissor lift just a tool to get you up to the level you want to walk on? Like an elevator.

    Quote Originally Posted by RayG View Post
    Has it sailed yet?

    My faith in the sea transport, freight forwarders etc hasn't improved. Its still in Nunawadding. They couldn't supply a flat rack last week. When they finally came good Tuesday after lunch, they put me on notice to have it ready for pick up Friday for the cut off. I was specifically told the boat floats Saturday. They mentioned the "Cut off", being Friday. I that time I have to get it loaded, approved, bagged and boxed, plus I have tp skate it outside.

    They purpusly lie, so they can gather up all the containers on the dock 24 -48 hours away from load.

    7.30 pm Thursday night I got the call. (We were head down ,axxx up getting finished for Friday noon). Would it be O.K to pick the flat rack up on next Tuesday. Simple matter of fact. Both boats move Wednesday early. I got a qoute for this 3 1/2 months ago.

    Its finaly occured to them, that they dont want this over width, over height rack tangeled up with general freight sitting down on the docks.

    I have a pick up time from 7.00 am through 11 p.m next Tuesday, so its the last thing on the boat.

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  3. #47
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    Oct 2007
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    I think it's a power trip for them Phil, I deal with people like that all the time and it's very frustrating. The latest is I have to demonstrate to some 12 buck 50 an hour "security" person that I am carrying my foam ear plugs before they will remotely unlock the door and allow me on to the Tarmac. Hang on, you're a security person not OHS, WFT is whether I have ear plugs any of your concern, if I want to dance around the aircraft naked that's nothing to do with security. But no, that's what they've been instructed by some FW in an office. Why? Because they can and it makes them feel important in their otherwise pathetic life if the get the chance to tell other people how to do their job.

    .... And we wonder why Australia is circling the porcelain bowl!

  4. #48
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    If you think it's bad from your side of the docks, it's worse from the other side. Wasn't too bad before 9/11 but after that, all downhill. Then the growth of the OH&S business so everyone had to wear hi vis clothing etc etc. It used to cost us $80K/day what with chater fees etc to have a ship alongside so any delays due to preventable stupidity used to hit me really badly. All this crap makes me very grateful I am no longer involved. Now some of it is a source of income to me, so I'm happy. I just keep in mind the old saying that if you are not part of the solution, there is good money to be made in prolonging the problem..... PDW

  5. #49
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    Though you bloke's might like to see the Sea Bag. This is first thing up on Thursday morning.

    They (The packing company) gave me the base sheet a couple of weeks ago. That has to go under the machine. I layed that out Tuesday night, because the crane was coming first thing Wednesday. I put a sheet of 12mm ply down, because the timber on the deck of a flat rack is pretty rough. Then the sheet, then another sheet of 12mm ply, with dressed corners and carpet protectors stapled on.
    P1000986.JPG

    Then I make surgical incisions in it to get my chains and cross beams through. I think there were 16 cut outs in the bottom sheet.

    P1000978.JPG

    Then you seal them, best you can. I used that reinforced tape on the inside to stop any of the cuts tearing out, and grey duct tape on the out side.
    P1000975.JPG

    This timber beam, one of several, the end face of that is the inside of the side of the crate. Because its over width, the side panels 4.5m long, hang off in mid air. They are 166mm wider than the deck. I had to work a bit of magic to hold the side of the box.
    P1000981.JPG

    This seems criminal to do to a brand new set of chains, we squirt silicon up into the patch, the tape on the inside sorts of holds it, it fills any void in there. You stop when it oozes out of the patch. Its the only way to seal chain. Then you finish the patch on the out side.
    P1000983.JPG

    Then the bag gets dropped over the top, that's why the scissor lift is on hire. With all the hoo-har about the machine going via Singapore earlier in the week, I went and got another box of desiccant bags and threw them into the machine, just before the bag went on. We are on our second 20l drum of rust veto.
    P1000993.JPG

    The packing company that supplies the bag and the crate come out and seal the bag. That just a heated clamp. 190degC for 3 seconds, and the sheet melts to each other.
    P1000996.JPG

    Vacuuming out the bag is very high-tech, it requires a little electric leaf blower. It takes a good 10 minutes or so. Its about 34 cubic meters of air space. Then we back fill it with nitrogen, until the bag puffs up, and leave it for 15 minutes. Then vacuum it out again until the bag sucks in.
    P1000997.JPG

    This is what it looks like when its finished. That access hole just gets heat sealed.
    P1010013.JPG

    We are starting to put the crate panels up in that picture. I put M12 eye nuts in the panels, backed up with 12mm plate. I've left them in every panel, so how ever gets to unpack it has a walk up start.

    Regards Phil.

  6. #50
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    Oct 2008
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    N.W.Tasmania
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    Default And the load doesn't have to move to be knackered either.

    Quote Originally Posted by Machtool View Post
    Lets time warp back to 19th Nov 2012, and Peter can tell me what I dont know about keeping a machine safe.


    Umm, Peter, I think you are just using the opportunity to tell one of your salty sea-dog story's. I saw that movie too, but your no George Clooney. You're far better looking.

    I'll show you the lashing that was rejected and you tell me, how much I don't know about this caper.

    Lets start here. Flat racks in this country, you get what you are given, it's like a box of chocolates. See the two blue beams, at the left of this next picture. They are the main structural element of the flat rack. Every thing of load carrying capacity is welded off them. They were a perfect width, see how the machine over laps them. In behind the red positioning plate, under the lifting lug, is the machine anchor point for affixing the levelator's. Thats the primary position for the machine to sit on its foundations.

    Under those two beam's, we cut and drilled a piece of 25 x 100mm flat bar, to the pitch of the anchors. With that plate under both beams. I tied the machine to it with 4 - M24 High Tensile all-thread studs of about 350mm length. Tightened with a 36mm AF flogging spanner, then double nutted as lock nuts. One plate across the rear, picking up the rear two anchors, same again but with a different pitch for the front. Its the strongest part of the machine, and that flat rack, 30mm plate weldment's into the machine base.

    I actually jacked the rack up a foot, and put it on red gum blocks to scoot underneath it to position / hold up the plates.

    Attachment 324328

    I'd have shipped it on that alone. That's how they come in as new, but on a fabricated metal skid. Not a chain, binder or webbing strap in sight. Just 4 M24 bolts.

    For two reasons.

    1/. To the untrained eye it would appear that the machine wasn't attached, and that was bound to be a problem somewhere in transit.

    2/. I'd quoted lashing in my quotation.

    So I decorated it. 2 x 2.5t webs. Notice how they are endless loops, two chords, up and back. You could make an argument that doubles their capacity.

    Attachment 324326

    10mm Grade 70 rated at 6,000kg for a single strand across the front Notice they are endless. Effectively doubling them. The first picture ( above) shows the rear, also 10mm and double stranded.
    Attachment 324325

    Captain Feathersword, according to his calculations, (Not that he had ever seen a lathe of any kind). The centre of gravity on this machine, is just below my knee's where it says MS32. That's the electrical cabinet up there, its 5 sheets of 2mm sheet metal, plus its electrical contents There would be lucky to be 750 kg's up there

    Attachment 324324

    We lift them from 600 mm off the ground, and they don't fall over. What does that tell you about the centre of gravity?


    Attachment 324331

    Guess what, He knocked me back.The captain says, you cant count those 4 - M24 studs, and the heavy plate under them. That's not an official lashing point. Good luck if you ever run into the Captain, and your welding to the deck. That's not official. It counts for nothing.

    (For others, you need some sort of certificate signed off by one of these marine surveyors, before you can get your stuff on a boat).

    That's machine was a miserable 6T. I had 23T of lashing on it, in its single stranded configuration. That's close enough to my 4:1 rule. Even if you ignore that fact that it was bolted to the deck. And double stringed.

    This prick had me triple the chains on that. I had to put shackles and Dee rings on the rack lashing points just to feed in enough chain. To his specific instructions, I had 3 sets of 6T (18T) rated lashing going to the same lashing point, that is rated to 5T.

    Can I ask a guestion? Have you ever dealt with one of these independant marine surveyor that deal's with commercial shippage? Or are just telling me about CSIRO when you can weld to your decks, on your own vessel's, untill your hearts content?

    If you cant tell all ready, I'm offended. Welding to decks. Wheres that in my world?

    The mention of welding is iralivant to this thread. No prick is welding anything to one of my machines. But your story of 4m of crashing solid water was a good one.

    How do I contact the captain of the large container ship thats just going from here to Hamburg? I'm starting to feel like those two useless pricks, with the binoculars on the Titanic than didn't see the iceburg, if they are to expect rolling wave's crashing 4m accoss the bow.

    Phil.
    I can certainly understand your frustration with your Captain Feathersword, some of his ideas would seem to lack engineering logic, (I'm thinking of the 18tonnes of lashing to a 5Tonne rated lashing point in particular) and it would be a pretty fair guess to say that he possibly isn't too much of a people person, but as PDW says, the oceans can be very unkind.
    Some years ago now, in fact 9 1/2 years ago to be precise, I had a job with Seimens on the BassLink project, the undersea cable linking Victoria's and Tasmania's electric grids together. This entailed having 6 high voltage transformers at each end of the cable as part of the equipment in the switchyard. These transformers weighed in at 250 tonnes each and were built in Germany by Seimens. On the way out the ship conveying the six destined for Tasmania, hit some rough weather as it crossed the Great Australian Bight, and was nearly rolled in heavy seas. while some cargo did come loose, the six big trannies must have been well lashed down, because the lashings held and they had not moved when the ship reached its berth. They were unloaded and delivered to site, and were about to be placed in their final position when someone took a hatch off and looked inside. Then the $hit was redirected by the fan. 4 of the six were written off because the windings of the transformer had bent their mountings and had moved a meter or so sideways, and was at that point only 100mm from touching the inside of the transformer shell. As it was a 250 KV transformer, that was a tad too close, and the whole transformer was written off, even a transformer cooling oil tank which had come in a separate crate, and didn't have a mark on it was scrapped, and it would have been over 1000 litres in capacity I would think from memory. Perhaps a good day for the scrappies, but not a good one for Lloyds of London I imagine.
    Incidentally the trailers which came from the N.T. IIRC were quite impressive too. A huge prime mover with very high power, and another known as the pig, because it had a reinforced snout like nose (hence the pig name) to push if necessary. Needless to say there were planetary reduction sets and locking diffs galore too, so this combination could just about shift the pyramids if you could find a strong enough rope, and the trailer was equally impressive. It could be widened or narrowed in width hydraulically, and it had from memory 32 individually steerable wheel-sets, 16 up each side, and each wheel-set at the time cost $125,000 and had 4 wheels making 128 wheels altogether. Not the sort of rig you come across too often in Tassie thank goodness.
    Rob.

  7. #51
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    Jul 2011
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    Melbourne Australia
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    Elvis has left the building.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RZoY...ature=youtu.be

    I hooked him up to the little orange caboose and sailed him out the door.

    Slight problem this morning with throwing the straps on, the ratchet handles would have ended up on the side of the crate, making it wider. I lost the short end hooks, and direct shackled them to the lugs.
    P1010034.JPG


    Bit of Enerpac and skate action.
    P1010039.JPG P1010040.JPG

    Here he is tonight, out the door and skated back across the car park, which is up hill.
    P1010049.JPG

    Freight is looking better, it has a 2.30 p.m slot on the dock, so they are anticipating a noon'ish pick up. Swing loader pick up, then we will find a place in the street to swing it over onto a step deck low trailer. Back there tomorrow for that, then its done.

    Regards Phil.

  8. #52
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    I finally got around to doing the invoice for this tonight. I've been putting it off for weeks as there has been a half inch thick manila folder sitting on the passenger seat of my van.

    I'd rather do a tax return than audit up that lot. I can tell you I spent $4.451.05 on odds and sod's. Lashing was the biggest part of it,approaching $2k. The other , 4 dozen dockets, rags,degreaser, coach bolts, eye nuts, all thread, nuts, washers, rustveto, ISPM-15 timber.

    I didn't even pay for the crate in that lot, I had the Germans handle that direct, another $2.75k

    427.5 hours all up. Only about half of those are mine. I had labour on it. And only about 100 hours over budget. I'll find out this week how much of that I have to wear for doing a decent job.

    Regards.

    Phil.

  9. #53
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    Lara
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    You have done well Phil. I'm sorry to see it go home. Enjoyed working on it.
    I still make sure that I cut the cable ties nice and flush. Makes them look nice and neat.


    Alan

  10. #54
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    Hey Alan.

    Alan was the application engineer on those machines since they were new. He & I have spent many a long hour working on them.

    The machine is just about there, and I'm still haggling a reasonable price with the Germans.

    I have the full costing's and estimates in front of me now. To work out were we made ground, saved on things, to amortise against the additional labour.

    In this Pic you can see that the crate hung 170mm over each side of the container.
    P1010045.JPG

    The 40ft container got shipped to Hamburg for $3,459.00

    A 20ft flat rack, was charged at $1,650.00 PLUS Out of Gauge Premium - $7,500.00

    Regards Phil.

  11. #55
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    Quote Originally Posted by Machtool View Post

    The 40ft container got shipped to Hamburg for $3,459.00
    Pretty astounding how cheap sea freight is... You can put I think 24 tonnes in a 20 or 40 foot container, that comes back at about $172 a tonne...
    Light red, the colour of choice for the discerning man.

  12. #56
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    Quote Originally Posted by .RC. View Post
    Pretty astounding how cheap sea freight is... You can put I think 24 tonnes in a 20 or 40 foot container, that comes back at about $172 a tonne...
    I thought it was even more than that, especially in a 40. But I'm getting my information from the spec plate on the container. Some of them say you can stack them 10 high, that must be an incredible load on the bottom one.

    Port Charges here were another $1,545 across both containers.

    Do you know what a "BAF" is. That was $737. $965 for the low loader to drag the 20ft flat rack from Nunawading to Port of Melbourne is 26.7 km's according to Google maps.But it did have a side loader involved as well.

    Regards Phil.

  13. #57
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    Sea freight is incredibly cheap at the moment as I understand there is excess capacity and companies are fighting it out for the available work. Sadly that doesn't translate to container handling in the ports, where there are virtual monopolies and they bend you over to extract whatever they can find ... And then some.

  14. #58
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    This friggen machine has been taking a world tour. It got stuck in Singapore, Currently its in Antwerp. Hamburg is scheduled "mid November" 17th sounds good.

    I'm yet to be paid for it. Mostly because I'm 113.5 hours over estimated budget. I'm playing the Russian rouloute game. If it gets there in one perfect piece. Which it will. I'll ping them for full fare.

    Mid November is getting the Euro punters excited. Nows the time they are asking about getting that box and container unloaded. I have one serious job next Wedensday, after Melbourne cup. I'll be offering to be on a plane that following weekend.

    Regard's Phil.

  15. #59
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    Thanks for posting this it's been quite interesting
    BETTER TO HAVE TOOLS YOU DON'T NEED THAN TO NEED TOOLS YOU DON'T HAVE

    Andre

  16. #60
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    Hey Phil. Don't forget me.


    Alan

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