Loading…
17
Appreciation post: a cheap laser level taught me 40 years of rigging in one afternoon
I was setting up a 30 ton crawler near a hospital addition in Des Moines and kept second guessing my block placement. An old ironworker walks over, pulls out this beat up $30 laser level, and shoots a line across the pad. He showed me how to square my outrigger footprint against the building corners without pulling tape a dozen times. I spent 4 hours on Friday doing it his way, and the load chart math lined up way cleaner. Why did nobody tell me to just use the existing structure as a reference point instead of my own stakes? Now I keep a cheap one in the gang box, and I want to know if anyone else uses a laser for spotting instead of just plumbing the boom.
2 comments
Log in to join the discussion
Log In2 Comments
price.tyler1d ago
Checking the structure against a plumb bob defeats the whole point of having a quick field reference.
7
annabennett1d ago
The part about using the building corners as a reference instead of your own stakes is solid, but be careful calling the load chart math "cleaner" because of it. The laser didn't change your chart, it just took out the error stacking up from re-taping and re-staking. I've seen guys square off a wall that was out of plumb by an inch and a half over forty feet, and their footprint looked great until the pad was poured. The structure is a good first check, but shoot two corners and a known offset before you trust it. Cheap laser is fine for spotting, just check it against a plumb bob on a calm morning now and then.
1