Old timer told me to trust my gut on lift angles, not the chart

Guy named Joe with 30 years on a Liebherr told me the load charts are a guide but your gut knows when the angle is off. I blew it off until last month setting steel on a job in Columbus. Chart said my radius was fine but I felt the boom start to wobble, so I reset and recalculated. Turned out the ground was softer than I thought and I woulda tipped for sure. Anybody else have a gut call save them from a bad lift?

2 comments

2 Comments

simonmoore22d ago

Are you sure the wobble wasn't just the wind or a shifting load? Sounds like you dodged a bad setup, but a little wobble happens sometimes without tipping.

the_robin22d ago

Exactly three years ago I saw a setup wobble way worse than this and assumed it was just the load shifting. But after watching that full video breakdown @simonmoore posted last week with the slow motion, I totally changed my mind. The way the legs kept lifting off the ground one at a time was way too rhythmic to be wind or cargo settling. That kind of pattern screams bad geometry or soft ground underneath, not a random gust.