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The ship carrying the first 8 deck sections arrived on Saturday, January 25th. The ship is moored in San Pablo Bay (part of San Francisco Bay) while the strand unreelers are completed and mounted to the deck for hoisting. There are pictures on the Carquinez Bridge Picture Page.
Last week I did something I have never done before. My gang and I unloaded and assembled 8 anchors! Here is a picture of the size of these things. Bigger than anything I have ever seen. Each anchor weighs 30,000 lbs when assembled. The fluke is the biggest part with the classic shape. The stem is what the fluke hangs on from the ship, and the bar is what holds them together.
Now for the unreelers. This is a strand jack, mounted upside down with the strands coiled in the unreeler. Actually you can't see the strand jack as it is behind the unreeler. The unreeler is the big round assembly designed to keep the strands in order as they pay through the jack. The idea is to attach the whole assembly to the deck section in sets of four and pay out the strands and pull them up and attach the becket to a temporary cable band on the main cable of the bridge. Then the jacks basically climbs up the strands bringing the deck with them. It is all controlled by computers and should work well. This is the first time this has been tried, so of course, there have been problems. It all seems to be working out now and the first pick should be this Saturday. This will be the section just south of the center of the bridge which will have to be trapezed into place because of the center pier of the old bridge. On Sunday the center piece will be lifted and will also have to be trapezed into place. The next 6 decks will take a while to install because of all the complicatedmaneuveringg that has to take place.
The sections are numbered 1 through 24. Unit 1 goes at P1 at the south end of the bridge and unit 24 goes at the north anchorage. Unit 12 is the piece in the center where the cables come down to the roadway. It has a huge cable band that is mounted about 8 feet off the street level like this. The first seven units go in the middle.
Thursday night the ship tried to move under the bridge to raise the decks. It was so foggy they had to return to the mooring in the bay that we set up off of Richmond. But they couldn't find the mooringbuoyss in the fog so they had to go the middle of San Francisco Bay off of Oakland for the night. Some of us rode the ship back to the straits.
Unit 11 went up on Feb 2 and is hanging on the strands. There are a couple of problems (like there usually are the first time something as complicated as this is tried). I am not sure what the situation is, but it did not stop us from raising unit 12 today. It is an awesome thing to watch 600 tons raise into the air on what appears to be skinny little wires. Especially when there is a 100 ton crane sitting on the deck being raised! There are several pictures on the picture page. The two decks appear to be floating over the straits. The main cables came down 20 feet from the weight. It is also hard work.
OK, so I haven't written for a while. We have been working a lot, but not near as much as the guys (and Daphne Brown) up on the footbridge doing the trapeze of the decks. Deck 10 went up on Thursday and 14 went up on Saturday. The next 2 decks will go upfairlyy quickly. The only thing is the underslungs. These are the same jacks as are used on the top of the decks, but they are mounted underneath. The middle decks too close to the main cable for the standard jacks fit. So the weight is transfered to the jacks mounted underneath and the upper jacks are removed. Then the decks are raised to the final position.
Everyone is under a lot of pressure right now because the trapeze act is taking longer than expected. Swinging 650 tons 120 feet in the air is no easy feat. I worked 35 days straight, but only worked 9 or 10 hours some of those days. Randy Chin and his trapeze crew is working 12 to 14 seven day a week.
The cable bands all have to be tensioned again within 24 hours of the deck going up. The permanent ones and the temporary ones used for lifting. Alan Sykes has a crew up there doing that. They have been getting a ton of hours too. I have been working on the ship preparing the decks for lifting, but Thursday my gang and I were sent back to building the stairs at T2 so there will be access to the road deck when it gets to the tower. This will mean we can go to the Nantucket Restaurant for lunch once in a while. They can get you a huge bowl of clam chowder andFrenchh bread and out the door in less than a half hour. Excellent chowder too! Still it's too spendy (9 bucks with tip) to do too often.
Yeah, Yeah, Yeah it has been a while (again). Here's what has been happening lately. Unit 15 was lifted straight up to the suspenders without trapezing. Unit 24 was lifted off the ship and set on a barge to be taken to the channel between T3 and the Solano County shore. I was involved with the trapeze act for a couple of days. The North sidespan we were working on is STEEP. You have to walk from one temporary cable band to another over and over. And when you get there you get to run a 3 ton comalong (lever hoist). Each strand head that comes up from the deck has to be picked up the last 3 feet with four 3 ton comalongs. A lot like work only harder. Unit 24 had to be trapezed 9 times to get it in position as the farthest north deck section. It was then put on the walkers to be skidded into it's final spot.
The next four decks went into the main span. All were lifted straight up. They were units 8, 9, 16 and 17. Next came unit 23. Like 24 it was lifted up, the ship was moved out from under it and then it was lowered onto a waiting barge and pushed over in between T3 and Solano. It is now in the process of being trapezed into position next to 24. Yesterday we lifted unit 1 off the ship and moved the ship out from under it. Units 1, 2 and 3 will be set down on walkers at the end of the tressel under T2. But to get there they have to be pulled to the south to get into position. This is accomplished by four 60 ton strand jacks mounted about 40 ft up on P1 on the Contra Costa County side. The strands were laid out on the tressel and attached to brackets that were mounted to the end of unit 1. There is only 20mm (3/4 inch) clearance on each side for the unit. That is CLOSE. It is hanging on the four strand jacks and will be pulled until the front end is over the walkers. It is then lowered onto the walkers on one end and still hanging by the strand jacks over the water on the other end. The front strand jacks are then removed and it is then pulled again as fast as the walkers can travel until the whole thing is over the tressel. Now it is lowered on to the second set of walkers and the last strand jacks are removed. The strand jacks on P1 will pull it all the way down the tressel to the end next to P1. The process will be repeated for units 2 and 3.
I've been looking at those walkers and my description of the way they work is all wrong. Sorry. I kinda guessed how they worked from the picture. The part I thought was a U shaped plate is actually a cover. The lifting system is under it. It works similarly to what I described. The strand jacks on P1 do not pull the unit through. The travel is done by the walkers themselves. Very ingenious.
Units 2 and 3 are on the tressel and waiting with unit 1 to be raised into position. The decks are only about 3 foot off of the ground so it made it a pain in the butt to get to the end of the tressel before they put in temporary stairsat the ends of 1 and 3.
I am back to working on the ship getting the decks ready to be lifted. My ship crew is Scott Bremer (who was in the first class I taught as an apprentice instructor), Devin Scott and Brian Gabba. Alan Sykes and his crew (Dewey Foster, Big Al Gonzolez, Shane Robinson and Tyron Nolcott are also working on the ship. Rob the operator and two laborers, Aaron Brown and "Mouse" wind out the crew. We are finishing on the third and last ship. Units 4, 6, 18 and 20 are already up and 22 goes up tommorrow
All the deck sections have been unloaded and the ship is on it's way back to China. All the sections in main span have been raised as well as the ones in the north side span. You can now walk from T2 to Vallejo. (or preferably ride one of the 10 boardwalk style bicycles the company has supplied) There is also a "Gator". It's one of those 6 wheeled utility vehicles modeled after a Quad. Actually a kick to drive. Sections 1 and 2 that were setting on the tressel are up and the last deck section of the bridge went up today. 1, 2 and 3 are not in place yet but are hanging on the strand jacks.
The deck splice welding has been going on for some time and at least 3 splices have been completed. FCI/CBC has subbed out the welding to California Erectors, one of our local contractors. I have not worked for "Cal" in quite a few years, but I always liked working for them because they were so organized and work-wise. They are a "blow and go" structural outfit and demand 8 hours work for 8 hours pay. Seems reasonable to me. Anyway they are doing their usual first class job on the deck welding. The flat welding on the top of the decks is being done with submerged arc welding.
UPDATE: The bicycles have all been given to the welding inspectors so that they don't strain themselves doing physical labor like walking. Some of the ironworkers were not told that the inspectors had exclusive rights to the bikes (due to their afore mentioned physical limitations) which caused a lot of friction and one very good ironworker to lose her job!
That brings up another subject important to me. The job we do is hard physical labor and sometimes very dangerous. It can be done by anyone who is willing to give it a try - man or woman. Every one of us has our strengths and weaknesses and some of those traits are more suited to the iron trade than others. Physical strength is, of course, a plus. But that does not mean lack of muscles eliminates a person from the class of "JIW" (journeyman iron worker). We can't all be aces. There are bigger men and smaller men and we don't expect the same lifting power from both of them. When a hand comes out of the hall onto the job we expect them to give 100% of what they have to give. No one who has been doing this for any length of time is going to be fooled by someone not giving 100%. If that hand is not carrying their weight on the job someone else is having to pick up the slack. Man or woman, big or small, black or white, 100% is 100%. Now that I am done preaching, back to the point: Daphne Brown is one of the best ironworkers I know and she can work in my gang any time. I hope she would have me in her gang as well.
THE LAST DECK IS RAISED!! Unit 3, the last deck to be raised, is in place finishing off the entire deck. The job of raising the decks was one of the most amazing things I have seen as an ironworker. The fact that that much weight can be lifted off of a ship straight up 120 feet is hard to believe. The strand jack system was overseen by Jack Singh. Jack is one of the Dorman/Long technicians brought in to keep the lifting on track. He put in long hard hours and was instrumental to the success of the whole project. When problems surfaced with the unreelers, Jack got assistance from Lawrence (I can't remember your last name Lawrence--Sorry!) and Tom Duffy. Lawrence came in from Hong Kong and Tom from England. Kind of an international company, huh?
With all the deck sections in place things have settled down a bit around here. The wrapping of the main cable is ongoing as is the welding. The wrapping is complete on both cables from T2 to T3 and the welding is over 50% done.
Time for a little on the main cable wrapping. The cables have to be wrapped with 5mm galvanized wire in between each cable band all the way from Vallejo to Crockett. That's a lot of wrapping!! Before the wrapping wire can be put on, the main cable has to be covered with an additional protective coating of zinc oxide paste. This stuff has powdered zinc mixed into a thick paint. After the paste is applied, (Boy, I'm soooo sorry I missed that job) the wire is wrapped around cable by a custom made machine that has 3 spools of wire that rotate around the cable. It's unbelievable how tight the machine gets the wire. The paste is put on just before the wire is applied so the paste gets slung everywhere in the process. What a mess! I've always hated silver work boots. The machines used for wrapping are being moved to the side spans to start the work there.
We are experiencing a bit of a problem now. The bolts used to connect the deck sections together have been rejected by CalTrans. When they were testing them after installation there was way too high a failure rate. I don't know the numbers but I get the impression it was a high percentage. From what I here they are blaming the galvanizing process for the failures. I've used a lot of galvanized A325 bolt in my day and I have never seen this problem before. Unfortunatly we can't blame one of the foreign companies for this problem. When I know for sure what happened I'll post it. At this time it's hard to tell with all the finger pointing going on. I guess of the 52,000 bolts needed, 30,000 were installed before CalTrans rejected the whole lot. From what I see the problem now is getting the old bolts out of the deck sections and the new bolts in. If you have never picked up a keg of bolts let me assure you it is heavier than you want to pick up. They run from 150 pounds to 200 pounds apiece. To make it worse, the only access now is through the manways. You can't see in the picture, but right under the hatch door the floor is not flat. The manways are at the edge of the decks where the side is only 2 to 3 feet high.
The new bolts are here and are being installed. It slowed things down abit, but there are lots of other things happening. There was a layoff last week and my entire crew was laid off. It might be nice to have a little input on these things, But you know how it goes. My new crew is: Paul Zarn, Norris Carter, Brad Fisher, and Sam Lauvoa. The welding is coming along. In fact they are at the point where it is time to make the final cut on the last 2 decks to be welded. They knew the decks would have to be cut but waited until everything was welded before deciding how much to cut off. Of course the cut is the bevel side of a "single bevel groove weld" so it has to be cut at 22 1/2 degree bevel. Makes it a bit harder.
