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Yesterday we had a near miss accident on the job. The tram strands which are 1 5/8" diameter cables kinda like wire rope but with a lot less wires (most wire rope we use has 6 strands with 19 wires in each strand - these have one strand with about 20 thick wires in it), were being removed from the mainspan by pulling them over the top of T3. Another cable is pulled up from the anchorage by the jigback electric winch mounted on T3. The tram strand and the cable from the anchorasge are married together with clamps and then the cable is hooked to a forklift at the anchorage. The jigback on T2 is then attached to the two cables with clamps to act as a holdback. When the forklift drives away from the bridge the cable pulls the tram strand over the top of the tower. The jigback pays out at the same speed as the forklift is moving. This is necessary because as more and more of the strand goes over the tower top and onto the slope of the sidespan it starts to get heavier and heavier and wants to run down the sidespan. Well the clamps held when they did this the first two times, but failed the third time. When the clamps failed the tram strand ran down the sidespan. This would have been OK except there was a laborer cleaning the main cable on the sidespan. When the strand started running he grabbed hold of the handstrand which acts as a handrail on the footbridge. This turned out to be unfortunate. The strand started bunching up right in front of him and he got caught up in the mess. The jumbled strand knocked him down and piled around him. Thankfully he was able to get himself free and jump under the main cable. With him not there to hold the bunch together, it took off again and ran down the footbridge until it jumped over the handstrand and fell to the ground near the north anchorage. The laborer received only a few stitches and bruises, but because it was a slow new day we made at least 4 TV newscasts and of course print media as well. The incident is under investigation.
On to other things. The weld joint between decks 3 & 4 had to be partially cut out because of porosity. Porosity is basically bubbles in the weld. It is usually caused by impurities like paint or dirt in the weld joint. I have no idea what caused the problem here, but the welders say it has happened quite a bit on some of the welds.
We continue to build the stairs at T2, but it is slow going because of equipment needed to weld the joints has to be right where our material was placed. My crew now is Brad Fisher, Norris Carter and Devin Scott. Now that the main cable cleaning is done and some people laid off, it is quieter around here.
Our general foreman, Bobby Lux, was elected to the position of Business Agent at the union election and will be taking office at the July meeting. I don't know who will take his place as general foreman. As far as I know the foremen on the job now are: Allen Sykes, Joe Spinola, John Spinola, Chris Biskner, Randy Chinn, Paul Zarn, Justin Smith and myself. I am probably missing someone and will hear about it soon.
Of the Brits who were here from Cleveland Bridge some have gone home, and others will be leaving soon. Mark Rumble and Dave Gill have already left. Mark is going to the new Wembley Stadium (this link is to a live web cam) in London and Dave is going on a bridge retrofit on the M1 (the main highway in Britain). Colin Moore will be leaving in July and Griff Roberts in August.
The painting of the suspenders and the main cable is continuing. There must be a problem with the method because I am told that none of the painting so far has been accepted. There is a MEK bath and six coats to the process; 2 primer - 2 secondary - 2 final. I am definitly not the kind of guy who would mention that the painters are the only non-union craft on the job. The little white spray canister in the picture seems like a good idea. It uses jets to spray the paint on the suspender while a small winch attached to the top of the cable pulls it up and down. Now they are near the towers where the suspenders have separaters already installed to keep the 4 suspenders from slapping together in the wind. Of course these interupt the travel of the canister, so now they have to use a Spider basket to take the canister off and put it back on the suspender past the separators. Oh well!!
Lets see... There has been a lot going on lately and I have been negligent in my reporting. I'll try harder, boss. Shakin' the bush, boss!!!
There is one thing I have not told you about yet, and it is a big thing. The deck seams (called FS for field splice) at the towers, FS3, FS4, FS19 and FS20 all buckled after welding. The top of the deck sections gets hotter from the sun than the bottom or sides and of course expands from the heat. Because everything is rigid after welding there was no place for the extra length to go but to buckle the plate on top.
The method used to fix this looks like this on top and this underneath inside the decks. On top the two beams welded together form what we call a "dog". It is welded down to the part of the deck that is not buckled and green 50 ton hydraulic jacks are set between the buckled plate and the upper section of the dog. When the jack is raised up it pushes between dog and buckled plate. Underneath inside the deck the little beams on the ceiling have corrisponding little beams on the floor and comalongs are attached between them. As the jacks are activated on top the comalongs pull the top towards the floor. Once the deck is back down like it is supposed to be, heavy boxed "strongbacks" are welded in place to hold everything. Then the troughs are bolted up and welded inside and the dogs and comalongs and strongbacks can be taken off.
The footbridge on the east side starts coming down on Monday the 28th. The mesh panels will have to be taken down individually and it is expected to take 3 to 4 weeks to complete. There will be two crew working on the dismantling. On T2 there will be Randy Chin's gang: Joe Spinola, Darin Bessalo, Shane Kaniho, Brad Fisher & Roger Ruiz. Laborers Bobby Kirk and Minerva Valdes will be assisting. On T3 will be John Spinola's gang: Steve Maricich, Dave Davidson, Harry Gebauer, Anderson Charlie (yes, thats his name), and Jerimiah Johnson. The assisting laborers will be Fredrika Elone and Rubin Vallencia.
Me and my crew of Norris Carter and Devin Scott, are installing the Alimak manlift in the west leg of T2. It is a great job and the lift goes together like the manlift on the towers. We are working for Gil Savard, the Alimak mechanic for this area. Gil is a great guy to work for, so life is good. We have only just started last week so we are up about 50 ft with the rack, which is the structure the car climbs. With only 350 ft to go we should be done in no time.
The Brits are dropping like flies around here. Colin Moore and Alan Amis left last week for home. Colin is going to Wembley Stadium with Mark Rumbles and Alan is going to the M1 with Dave Gill. Dai Griffiths left a couple of weeks ago to go to a job in China. That only leaves Nigel Day, Roy Wilson and Mark Allison to do the mopping up.
Quick note: John Spinola was been made the new general foreman after Bobby Lux left. Just thought I'd throw that in. (you never know when a little sucking up might come in handy)
The footbridge on the east cable has been completly removed. This project took about half as long as estimated by Cleveland Bridge (because of the superior Union ironworkers). The mesh panels were removed section by section then lowered to the deck with either the tower crane or a hydraulic rig depending on how high up they were. After the footbridge came down the handstrands and footstrands came next. This is quite a process as they have to come down in one piece to they can be used again. Used again??? Of course they can be used again! The ones on this job have been used two times before. As long as the next bridge is shorter, they can all be used again. If the next one is longer, the main span strands on this one might be long enough for the side spans on the longer bridge. The strands have been rolled back up on reels, ready to be used again.
If you have driven by you might have noticed that the is a gap between the road deck we put up and the approach that CCMyers is building. This will be filled with tub girders starting next week. I, for one, have never heard of a tub girder till now, but I gather it is a rolled steel plate shape kinda like a "U". I don't know if they will have rebar and concrete on top or be more like the deck units we installed. We'll soon see. My understanding is that they will be trucked out onto the approach and picked with a crane setting on the approach and another setting near P1 on the other side of the railroad tracks. Seems to me those girders must be pretty heavy,(100 tons +) so these must be good sized rigs to do the job. Of course it doesn't help that the pick will be 130 feet in the air and the rig on the ground will have to reach over 3 tracks.
The painting seems to be complete or close to it, even though they ran out of paint for awhile. The crews started taking down the west footbridge today it appears to be going well. This job is really winding down.
There's one more thing I have never really mentioned. We have three apprentices on this job who came into the trade by way of a very special program of the International. Jerimiah Johnson, Anderson Charlie and Tyron Nolcott are Native Americans who were recruited by the International and given a chance for a better life. All three have proven themselves to be everything the ironworking trade could ask for. They are intelligent, hard workers, punctual (a real sticking point for me) and proud (but not too proud to do the work of a first period apprentice). I believe the ironworkers union got more out of this deal than did these fine young men. Welcome to Local 378!!
We had an eventful week on the job. When I arrived at the Nantucket parking lot on Monday morning there were pickets at the railroad crossing. I drove up to them and asked "Where have you been??" They were painters protesting the nonunion painters on the job. They have had picket sanction from the Building Trades Council for 3 months and waited until there were less people on the job to be impacted by a picket. I was asked by a few of the people arriving for work about what they should do. It is a shame that union people are not given the information they need to react properly during a labor action. I told them that every person had to make their own decision on whether or not to cross the picket. But I also explained that a good union person would not cross. I was very proud that no one crossed the sanctioned line. The company was caught off guard by the pickets and were in a bit of a turmoil as to what to do. It was finally decided to put up a two-gate system on the job. Of course this would take a while, so by 9:00 everybody had left the job site. No work today!
I arrived Tuesday to find pickets up again, but this time closer to the jobsite (near the Crockett Bass Club). There was indeed a "two gate" system in place, the "A" gate right next to the "B" gate. I have seen several two gate jobs and have never seen the gates this close. We decided that since we weren't sure if it was a legal two gate system that we err on the safe side and not cross the picket. Roy Wilson (personnel manager)and I talked about it and Frank Daams (project manager) went over and removed the "B" gate sign. The pickets did not leave. I asked them what their position was on this and they said the union had been properly legally notified that this was a "B" gate and until they were legally notified otherwise they were staying. I explained this to Roy and he to Frank. Frank went into the office and returned with signed letters which he gave to the picketers and John Spinola and posted on the old "B" gate. The picketers did not leave because the union had to be legally notified and this did not constitute legal notification. We went home. No work on Tuesday.
Everything is quiet now (9/13/03). The two gate is legal and the statement has been made. One of the picketers told me that the union had been contacted by some of the painters on the job who complained about not being paid the prevailing wage by Jeffco. As a union man I would love to see the painters on this job be represented by a union and I hope it still comes to pass
On Monday the painters showed up at the Nantucket parking lot with a little table and 6 dozen Krispy Kremes. They offered a donut as a little "thank you for honoring the picket" to all the crafts people as they came to work. I thought that was a nice gesture on their part. Dan and Sarah had handouts explaining their position and why they put up the picket. They also gave out "No on Recall" stickers. Unfortunately many union people do not understand that we are all brothers and sisters in the union movement and the little that we gave in the way of lost wages was just a small down payment towards the benefits and conditions we work under as union workers.
Back to the job. All the towertop platforms are down now and it is down to the nitty gritty. The expansion joint at the south end between Deck 1 and the tub girders was put in last week by Randy Chin and his gang. (Brad Fisher, Roger Ruiz and Darrin Besselo) Alan Sykes has a crew of guys at night finishing up the last of the bolting on the deck joints. What a mess that has turned into. Cal Erectors has had a lot of trouble with the joint seam welding, but they are finishing up now. I know some of the welders and from what they say there must be something that is coming from the backup bars that is contaminating the root of the welds. Cal has also been awarded the contract to put up the ornamental guard rail on top of the west "K" rail and also on the outside of the pedestrian walkway. - Rats!!! I was hoping that the joint venture would do that so I could get in on it. Another welding sub, AGH, has also had trouble with welding in the plugs that fill all the holes that are in the deck sections. Just the same it is winding down now.
What, you may ask, is Dick doing these days??? Well, I am back to working for the joint venture after my stint with Alimak. My return was a little more political than I wish to discuss here and all concerned will probably understand my silence. Anyway, upon my return I was given a gang to finish the 4" water line that extends from the North Anchorage to P1. Whattt???? A 4" water line!! That is not ironwork!! And I know that too. But the joint venture (for whatever reason) is not hiring pipe fitters to install it and wants the ironworkers to do it. Sorry 'bout that, fitters. But, in essence, they said if I didn't do it they would send me back to the hall and have some other ironworker do it. So here I am. It's pretty staight forward and we are about three quarters of the way done now.
There was a layoff on Friday and we are down to about 15 ironworkers. I made the cut thanks to John Spinola and I want to say thanks to him for that. It appears I am not as loved by the company as I thought. The night shift has ended and the ones that made the cut are working days. Let me see if I can name the remaining guys: me, John & Joe Spinola, Randy Chin, Brad Fisher, Brice Mauser, Justin Smith, Jeremiah Johnson, Anderson Charlie, Tyrone Nolcott, Kenny, Scott Seymour, Alan Sykes, Darrin Besselo, Sam Lauvo, Brian (welder from Cal Erectors) and the new apprentice Bob.
The deck paving has started. The paving is done in two layers on top of three layers of epoxy and one tar layer. The first layer has very little aggregate and the top is a normal mix (I think) I have heard that the maximum thickness or both layers is 38mm. (about 1 1/2 inches) Bay Cities Paving and Grading is doing the work and are making short work of it.
The epoxy coating was done by Venture Construction out of New Hampshire. Kind of specialty work I guess. They had a sand blasting machine that would blast the deck and vacuum up it's own mess.
I have not mentioned that the electrical work is being done by Morissoli Construction. They have several people on the job and or pulling wire now.
We've been loading out the job for a while and it continues. Randy and his crew started taking down the manlift at T3, but the tower crane broke down and they are waiting for it to be repaired. Cal has been given the job of finishing the stairs which means most of the work that I was counting on doing has been subbed out. (maybe they do love me and just couldn't bring themselves to break it to me - LOL)
THE GRAND OPENING IS NOVEMBER 15
Here is the flyer. Or get info on all the scheduled events at Alzbridge.comThe paving is complete. Cal Erectors has started the ornamental guard rail that sits on top of the K-rail on the west side between the roadway and the pedestrian path. It is the same color as the light posts that are also being installed. There will be a ornamental rail on the east side of the pedstrian path, which Cal will also install. I guess the company doesn't think the ironworkers they hired are good enough to do that work.
Randy Chin and his crew finished taking down the manlift at T3 and have the one at T2 to do. Soon it will be stair city to the top of T2 because the permanent elevator has not been certified yet. That is one heck of a climb!! Twenty-five stories straight up!! The tower cranes are slated to come down starting the 20th. That will take more than a week to complete.
Roy Wilson left the job yesterday to go to a cable stayed bridge in South Carolina. Roy likes it here in the USA and would like to stay permanently. Of course it is a lot harder to emigrate after 9/11, so I hope he is successful. That leaves Mark Allison, Bart Pontey and another engineer named Adam from Cleveland Bridge.
The tower crane at T2 has started it's decent to the water. The jacking frame has been moved to just under the boom and the counter weight has been added to the hook on the boom to start the process. Ever wonder how those huge cranes get so high and how the are take down? I'll give you a brief description of the process: The jacking frame is installed under the boom when the crane is first erected. It has hydraulic jacks that can lift the whole boom and counter weight up the height of a single section of tower, usually 20'. The frame is three sided with a ramp on the open side. When the crane needs to be jumped up a section (or more than one section), the frame raises itself up under the "house" (where the cab and machinery is located) and bolted in. Then the existing top section of tower is unbolted leaving the frame to support the house. Now the frame jacks up the house 20 feet and the operator sends the hook down to pick up a new section. It is raised up and set on the ramp. It is then slid into ti's place in the tower. It is bolted to the lower section and then to the house. The frame is then unbolted and the crane can go back to work, 20 higher than before. In our case the jacking frame was lowered to the highest tie-in strut to keep the weight of it as low as possible. Taking the crane down is basically the reverse of this process.
The manlifts have been taken down and the permanent platforms at the top of the T2 have been installed. With the manlifts down the crane operators have to climb the entire 460 feet up the tower. If it was stairs it would be bad, but since it is ladders, it must be a serious workout first thing in the morning. With all the major things done all that is left is the finish work. The lamp posts, handrails and misc ladders and platforms as well as a lot of touch up painting are about all that remain. They are also sandblasting the towers to get rid of the chemical cure stains that have been there since the towers were poured.
Well, they got me!! Today was my last day on the job, so I guess there will be very few updates after this. I might stop by and take some more pictures before the opening. Of course my family and I are going to the grand opening on the 8th. I wouldn't miss it for the world.
At this point I would like to thank all those people who have read my musings and streams of conciousness I presented here. I have never had any one listen to me before and it is unfamiliar yet exciting feeling. Thanks again from that little corner of my heart that I reserve for thank you's.
Now for the rough stuff. This is how the lay off happened. At 9:30 I was going across the bridge in my go-buggy when Frank Daams waved me down and said "I am going to lay off a few people today and you are one of them." I said OK (like I had a choice). He said it was nothing personal, but he couldn't finish the job with 6 ironworker foremen. I of course mentioned that I was no longer a foreman, but that didn't hold much weight. He said John Spinola was a bit upset about it. I was glad to hear that, as John has kept me off the layoff list for the last 2 layoffs. After having coffee with Sam Lauvao I called John and told him I wouldn't be able to finish the project I was on because I wouldn't be there. Then came the shocker. John said that would be alright because he and his brother Joe were being laid off with me. What the hell is that???? John is the general foreman and Joe is one of the foremen. I sure hope they were not given their walking papers because they stood up for me. I was told Frank Daams doesn't like the iroworkers because, unlike the carpenters, ironworkers are more for the union than the company. Well, duh!!!! The company will be gone with its carpenters after this job, and we will be back at the hall with our brothers and sisters. I was very proud that one of the ironworkers on the job, Jason Bradhurst, drug up (quit) after he heard what happened.
Here are my reflections on this once in a lifetime job.
