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Re: Welding on crane boom

Posted: Fri Sep 16, 2016 1:05 am
by Big Pete
Back in the day when Lloyd's Class Society was founded, sailing ships coming out of London would wait at an anchorage called "The Downs" for a favourable wind to start their Sea passage, so many ships were lost in storms while at anchor in the the Downs, because they dragged or broke their anchors and were beached, or on the voyage, that the Insurers wanted to verify that the ship's equipment was sound before insuring them.

" The Society printed the first Register of Ships in 1764 in order to give both underwriters and merchants an idea of the condition of the vessels they insured and chartered: ship hulls were graded by a lettered scale (A being the best), and ship's fittings (masts, rigging, and other equipment) were graded by number (1 being the best). Thus the best classification "A1", from which the expression A1 or A1 at Lloyd's is derived, first appeared in the 1775–76 edition of the Register.

The Register, with information on all seagoing, self-propelled merchant ships of 100 gross tonnes or greater, is published annually. A vessel remains registered with Lloyd's Register until she is sunk, wrecked, hulked, or scrapped.

The Register was published formerly by the joint venture company of Lloyd's Register-Fairplay, which was formed in July 2001 by the merger of Lloyd's Register's Maritime Information Publishing Group and Prime Publications Limited. Lloyd's Register sold its share of the venture to IHS in 2009."

And it all started in Mr Lloyd's London Coffee House, Lloyds Insurance, Lloyds list Newspaper and Lloyd's Class Society.

BP

Re: Welding on crane boom

Posted: Sun Sep 25, 2016 6:33 am
by Redroof
Hi again,

Just for your info, this was the reply I got from the company crane group manager.

"Crane is not under classification, slewbearing deferral certificate is produced by Lloyds for us, we don’t do it for Lloyds. We use their service as 3rd party competent person. This in fact can be done by other crane contractors. Lloyds do this at a very reasonable cost which is then made available to the clients during audits or for our own assurance.

Annual inspections are done to comply with LOLER & ILO C152 and 5 yearly inspections / load test is done to comply with ILO C152. All these criteria is captured within the Crane Maintenance Strategy. 5 yearly load test is usually witnessed and document by 3rd party competent person. Again, crane load tests are normally aligned during 5 yearly special periodic survey of vessel whereby a Class surveyor is usually onsite for the vessel and we use their service to witness crane load test & issue certificates. This is not mandatory and a competent 3rd party company usually issues load test certificates."

Like I said to him, every day is a school day!

Cheers, happy clanking

Rr

Re: Welding on crane boom

Posted: Sun Sep 25, 2016 11:16 pm
by Big Pete
Hi Revolver,

I hope that sets your mind at rest. I think I said earlier that cargo cranes would not normally be a "Class Item" and it appears yours are not, however, all Lifting gear still has to be certified/Tested independently, which is what LR are doing on behalf of the owner in this case, separately from their Class function.
It still does not resolve the issue of whether or not welding on the crane boom could weaken it! Just make sure procedures are followed.

BP

Re: Welding on crane boom

Posted: Mon Sep 26, 2016 1:03 am
by Merlyn
Bring back the old days.
In other words, coded or a decent welder you knew.
Right rods, good penetration, right amps and no stitch welding.
Continuous welding only and, oh, no B.S.B.
( Birdshit Blobbers)

Re: Welding on crane boom

Posted: Mon Sep 26, 2016 4:38 am
by JK
Here in Canada, we have the Canadian Welding Bureau. It started as part of the Canadian Standards Board, then moved onto its own.
The board set all of the welding standards in Canada for training, processes and procedures.
If you were doing a job like this here, you would have a welding engineer develop a procedure to do the repair and have a certified welder do the work. If it was a really tricky job, you could ask CWB for a moderate fee, inspect the company's facility, procedures and welding certs before starting a job. Is that ever a shock to them when they are found deficient!
CWD has a bank of welding procedures developed over decades. When an engineer does a weld procedure it is sent in for approval. CWB authorizes it and you are good to go. This method made Transport Canada Inspectors very happy because everyone knew the process.
Then DSIP happened. It seems Class is, shall we say, apparently not so enlightened....

https://www.cwbgroup.org/

Re: Welding on crane boom

Posted: Mon Sep 26, 2016 7:02 am
by Merlyn
So what you are saying then is all the Birdshit Blobbers are over our way it would appear.
Or maybe they don't make them any more. ( but I know they do )

Re: Welding on crane boom

Posted: Mon Sep 26, 2016 8:11 am
by Redroof
Cheers folks. Decent explanation from the crane group. Got advice and welding directions from the manufacturer and getting a welding procedure drawn up by a well respected local fabrication company who have proper coded welders. Also got a statement from the manufacturer that says no load test is required after the job. So, all in all, much happier. Just need to find time in our schedule to fit this in. The crane has been without them for about 3 years now, so no rush......

And to add to Merlyn's comments - never trust a welder who carries a pot of paint with him to all jobs........

Redroof

Re: Welding on crane boom

Posted: Mon Sep 26, 2016 8:26 am
by Big Pete
I can remember many years ago, on a 3,000 DWT Bulker tied up in Port eating our evening meal when the ship rocked as a Ferry went past and then there was an almighty crash on Deck and we all ran out to see what was happening and found one of the after Fairleads had ripped off the Deck, and was suspended on the mooring rope. Once it was clear of the deck it was very obvious that it had only been tack welded at the corners and then painted over, but nobody had noticed before.
BP

Re: Welding on crane boom

Posted: Mon Sep 26, 2016 8:44 am
by JK
Merlyn wrote:So what you are saying then is all the Birdshit Blobbers are over our way it would appear.
Or maybe they don't make them any more. ( but I know they do )
oh we got them all right
the trick is minimizing their appearance onboard

Re: Welding on crane boom

Posted: Tue Sep 27, 2016 2:22 am
by Merlyn
Over here the B.S.B. Specialist can be identified immediately by the carrying of the Bitumen tin which is akin to the car body under seal.
Covers a multitude of sins.
Valleys, crevices, bits of rods fused to the job by underamperage being selected, holes burnt ( bit like the gouging rods effect ) caused by overamperage being selected and hiding the uniformity patterns of the welds not being consistent like a nice sea swell pattern effect.
" That looks like a nice job " says the chief surveying the level surface effect left by the under seal , " yes sir, and it's heavily corrosion proof too )
All the B.S.B. has now to worry about is the drying time of the underseal/ bitumen as this will denote in the main the strength of the job and how long it will last.
Did it myself in the early days before Tig/ Mig welding came out, although we carried full time welders you had to demonstrate that you could effect a good weld whilst away for example at sea or in a foreign port using both Mig, gas and stick.
But like the engineering side there are folk out there who no matter how often they are told/ taught /shown will remain B.S.B. forever.
Usually the ones with top dog theoretical qualifications too.
But it seems things are different today on some ships with repair crews flying in and engineroom staff "assisting in the repair only "
We used to say that those spending most of the time in the control room they were " bus conductors," ringing the bell to make her go and in the case of some people who I have known not really understanding in full what was going on outside of the control room
People who sent others to diagnose faults and when found to be correct absorbed all the credits/praise doled out and when found to be wrong were very practised/skilled in the art of transferring the blame.
Still maintain after all these years that if when instructing others that you are not capable of doing the job properly yourself then you run the very real risk of having rings run around you and bullshittedtherein together with being the laughing stock of the engineroom.
I reckon that is why there are so many cockups still going on out there, no good being a top dog with four rings if the brain doesn't tell the pinkies how to work/run properly.
So how is your self diagnosis here?
No fault codes necessary .
Just look under your fingernails.

Feel better now.

Re: Welding on crane boom

Posted: Tue Sep 27, 2016 12:36 pm
by Redroof
Fantastic rant that I am sure we all agree is worthy of its own thread!
My opinion is that we are breeding/ encouraging a generation of button pushers and control room operators. 'It's the sensor, Chief' I hear a lot. My standard response is, have you gone out to check? The standard answer is 'there is no local thermometer'. That is often true these days unfortunately but when I explain that you can tell a lot from just being close to a machine I get blank stares.
Checked my fingernails, yep, a bit dirty, phew.........

Re: Welding on crane boom

Posted: Tue Sep 27, 2016 12:44 pm
by JollyJack
Try asking a push-button black box engineer to do a Donkeyman's job and start a boiler with no electronic gadgets.

Re: Welding on crane boom

Posted: Wed Sep 28, 2016 2:43 am
by Merlyn
R. R., Yes, no doubt about it, you have passed the oral with flying colours, the fingernails addition providing you with a clear distinction pass to boot.
No question and beyond all reproach you are definitely not a B.B.C. ( Bloody Bus Conductor ) type jobby.
( Had to add that supplement as I see you are just up the road from me and you could have had connections with the C.E Glencannon, even if your claim to fame/ relationship was as important as you drank out of the same beer glass as him.)
Draw out and buy your crew a laser remote temp.ray gun machine, cheap as chips, got three at work and use them remotely all the time for, as an example temp. sensor measurements with resistances being measured throught the temp. transmitter range, i.e. Startup to under full load situations.
Just walk by, shine the ray on the target and it's in the window.
Can all be stored to boot.
Some of them you have to line up the two dots which means getting close to the sensor but no physical contact.
Should block that excuse.
However before dispatching the Monel Metal Medal to you we need to put the Chatter program to bed in order to qualify?

J.J.,

How well I recall the problems with those boilers when they first came out way back in the sixties.
Spanner Boilers are the ones that stick in the mind, gapping those electrodes, emerying the contact faces,
Got a belt once from the high voltage transformer power pack of ( as I remember ) some sixteen thousand volts, made all my hair stand on end as well remembered by a bloke I work with today )
Coil tower had a crack in it and under test it tracked down and into my pinkies.
No ignition, open the micro peephole door and bring back the old torch for a manual flash up.
Sometimes it was like the old days, out with the torch, into the L.F.O. and out with the trusty lighter.
Boom, large dripping flame dripping burning fuel oil all over the boiler room.
( wouldn't be allowed nowadays methinks )
Aside with the peephole, in with the torch lift the auto valve by bypassing it and ignition.
However there was one thing that I was taught never to do.
What can this be?

Re: Welding on crane boom

Posted: Wed Sep 28, 2016 3:19 am
by D Winsor
That's an easy one
Don't stand directly in front of or look in the peep hole when trying to light the burner with the torch (Not a Flashlight)
Early in my career I was on a couple of ships with Scotch Marine Boilers and using a hand held fire torch was the only way to light the burner. As a result I've seen my share of rookie and sometime experienced firemen with singed eyebrows or worse burns from being caught in the flame that shoots out the peep hole when the burner ignites.
I also wouldn't look in or stand in front of a peep hole on a modern auto firing boiler either as I've seen flames shoot out and or the peep hole cover rattle when the burner fires on these as well, especially on Spanner Boilers

Re: Welding on crane boom

Posted: Wed Sep 28, 2016 4:14 am
by Merlyn
Good one and many a good laugh was to be had here especially with the new boys, no eyebrows, no hair at the front for weeks " together with that black look for a couple of weeks.
" I told you to be quick, you didn't get out of the way quick enough"
" You need to practice flashing up a bit more"
However there is a dual meaning here.
On a turbine ship with Pamatrada Turbines installed every fireman had his own torch.
Twin boiler installation, three fire boxes in each boiler.
These torches were to be treasured and who betide you if ( without permission ) you picked up the wrong one.
To that end welded onto the end of each rod ( approx inch diameter ) was neatly welded a circle of about four or five inches diameter and from one side of the circle to the other was welded in the stokers initials.
Starting out it was part of your job to repair / renew the initials with a neatly made up pieces of mild steel and whoe betide anyone who did a Birdshit weld job for the reward would be a cuff under the ear from the 18 stone stoker which, had he progressed from coal fired furnaces could make you see stars and develop a cauliflower ear hole for a week.
The other end of the torch was split, not by milling but by Three hacksaw blades in your hacksaw frame handle at the same time to take the cotton waste/whatever.
You may have had a narrow escape on this one D.W.
On the other hand there are not so many stokers about nowadays but as the M.C.A. state " a proper lookout should be maintained at all times "