I see alot of cranes around downtown Seattle, and the few lookey-loos I’ve asked are just as dumbfounded as me.
I can understand (to a certain point) how the vertical section is raised, but the long horizontal arm is a mystery to me. Perhaps it’s truly a balancing art, but I doubt it (sounds too dangerous).
I’ve wondered for a long time about this one, and I’ll surely find an answer here.
As I recall, they construct themselves. The first very small crane is hauled up through the elevators in pieces. That small crane hauls up pieces and gradually grows.
Scaffolding, smaller cranes and quite a bit of brute force applied by very skilled and competent persons.
I had a girlfriend who’s ex-husband went all over the owrld assembling heavy equipment like the giant crane in downtown Portland and similar stuff in Asia. The company he worked for billed him out at something like $200 an hour for most things and much more if it was an emergency like a factory problem he had to fix to get the place running again (huge conveyor systems I think).
This question comes up once every couple of months.
Here’s the best explanation of it:
thanks for the link