Lifting and Rigging Training: Lift Planning, Sling Inspection, and Hitches

Welcome and Introduction

Adam Franz: Good morning, and welcome to the lifting and rigging training here today. We would like to thank those in attendance. We’ve got people attending from Ohio, Colorado, North Carolina, South Carolina, and some folks down in the Florida market. So we would like to thank everyone for being here today.

Assisting me with this training here today is going to be Bob Gubanich. He is our Training Business Unit Manager, as well as Mike Close, who will be our moderator.

When you guys have questions, feel free to go over to the right-hand side in the chat bar and ask your question in real time, and we’ll look to get those addressed at the end of this.

You’ll notice it will be a little bit interactive as I ask the questions about what looks good and what doesn’t look good, and we can move through and discuss them. Without further ado, let’s get started.

The Importance of Planning Every Lift

Adam Franz: When it comes to going to make a pick, we must make sure that we plan every lift or plan every pick.

That could be anywhere from an engineered pick drawing where we’ve got detailed plans on center of gravity, where to find the lifting lug, and it’s all laid out there for us.

Then we also have times where we have to just go into a manufacturing environment, and we’ve got an item there, and we’ve got to go make a pick. But we must stop first, and we must have a plan.

That’s what we’re going to go through in these questions here, is having that information on how to plan every lift. So here we go.

Establishing Responsibility and Communication

Adam Franz: Who is responsible or competent for the lift? We’ve got the crane operator, which could be an overhead crane operator or the mobile crane operator, and then the rigger.

Ultimately, both are responsible for this lift, and we must make sure that there’s always communication established.

Again, in a manufacturing environment, this would be verbally, most likely. Or in a heavy-type steel mill, paper mill, it may be via radio.

Then we go to a construction site where probably most of the communication that’s taking place between the crane operator and rigger is happening via radio, as they’re signaling steel to be hung or precast items to be set, as well as hand signals.

That’s the communication that will be established. First and foremost, we must understand that communication is going to be established between the rigger and the crane operator themselves.

Inspecting Rigging Equipment Before Use

Adam Franz: The next question we must ask: Is the equipment in acceptable condition?

OSHA 1926.251(a)(1): “Rigging equipment for material handling shall be inspected prior to use and as necessary during its use to ensure that it is safe. Defective rigging equipment shall be removed from service.”

Appropriate type, proper identification, inspected? We must make sure that we’re inspecting these items before every time that we use them.

As we can see, on the lower left-hand side, we’ve got some wire rope with some drop-forged clips. Looks like we’ve got a little bit of a makeshift sling there, but you can see we don’t see any tagging here. We see rusting.

It’s almost like this was used as a winch line. You can see they’ve actually snapped that piece of wire rope. Looks like something that may have come out of the logging industry, to be quite frank.

But again, that is not an acceptable condition. We would know not to use that for a pick.

Then here to the right, we’ve got a chain sling where we’ve got a grab hook here at one end, and I’m not seeing a tag, so we cannot use that to go make that pick. Then the other end here, we’ve got no hook.

Appropriate type and proper identification? Definitely not. Does it need to be inspected? It needs to be inspected prior to the pick.

Checking Identification and Working Load Limits

Adam Franz: Is the equipment in acceptable condition? If you guys can use that right-hand side, is this equipment in acceptable condition?

We’ve got some Crosby hooks, as well as a drop-forged clip. You can see proper identification and working load limit.

If I come over here, you can see that Crosby and CM, something that they do in their domestic forging process is they emboss the working load limit on their hooks and hardware.

You can see proper identification. You can see the make and manufacturer. You can see the working load limit.

A nice feature here on the Crosby items is it keeps you within the 45 degrees on these hooks as well. You can see it’s listed there.

Is the equipment in acceptable condition? Yes, it is. These are brand new.

Identifying Defective Rigging Hardware

Adam Franz: All right, folks, I know we’ve got some people, some rigging experts on the line here. Is this in an acceptable condition? Before I point it out, can you write down what’s wrong with this?

I’ll give you a few seconds to write down. We’ve got a shackle here, we’ve got a pin, and then we’ve got a hook, and then we’ve got where we’re missing some items.

Go ahead and type in the comments there and write down what you think’s wrong with this.

Thank you for all those that have commented. What we have here is a shackle using a commercial-grade bolt. Absolutely unacceptable. That bolt is not designed to work with that shackle or to pick up a load.

We’ve got a sling hook here where we’ve got a place for a latch without a latch. You can see the master link here at the very bottom. That latch needs to be there because, under slack condition, that rigging can come out.

That is not within acceptable condition.

Confirming the Capacity of the Rigging Gear

Adam Franz: Are the working load limits adequate? Is the capacity of the gear known?

Right here, we’ve got the Mazzella seven-part. Each wire rope sling, whether it’s a single-part, seven-part, nine-part braided sling, you have to have listed the vertical, the choker, and the basket here.

You can see these are listed on the tag. A nice feature about the seven-part, it’s actually double-tagged. That’s a really nice feature about it.

Right here, we’ve got a web sling as well, a brand-new web sling. You can see, listed with the Dura-Clear tag, it’s got the vertical, the choker, and the basket there, so we know the capacity of the gear.

We’ve got a brand-new Crosby galvanized shackle here, where we’re going to see the working load limit embossed on the side.

We know, going into that pick, what our rigging is good to pick up.

Determining Load Weight and Center of Gravity

Adam Franz: We know what our rigging is good for, but we must start first with the weight of the load.

How much is that load that you’re picking up? How much is that [unclear]? How much is that plastic injection mold? How much is that piece of steel? How much is that modular set that’s being placed on a power plant site?

What’s the center of gravity going to be? Do you have engineered pick drawings that are going to tell you the center of gravity?

Possibly, in a manufacturing environment, they may come with the item, so you’ll know the weight of the load when it comes to that mold.

But if you don’t have the center of gravity, how do you find it out? Bob’s Rigging Handbook: You pick it up a few inches or feet off the ground and see which way it’s going to go, and then set it back down and adjust your slings or pick points accordingly.

Another question that you must ask is: What is the sling angle going to be?

We’re going to get into that later because those sling angles, when they become harsh, they provide extreme tension to the rigging and wire rope slings.

Will there be any angular or side loading? We must understand this also when we’re going into the pick. We must have this plan.

Protecting Slings from Edges and Abrasion

Adam Franz: Right here, I want to point out OSHA 1910.184(c): “Slings shall be padded or protected from the sharp edges of their loads.”

We can see here, this is a piece of precast. Precast, to your hand, is probably not very sharp, but this can definitely cut a web sling.

I would like to correct OSHA here and say any edge can cut a sling, whether that’s a sharp load or an abrasive-type load where you could get a sawing action.

Think of a sharp load as being a steak knife. Think of an abrasive type as being a plastic butter knife that is slowly, after time or load swing and movement, going to gnaw away at that sling.

Again, all slings must be padded against corners, not just your synthetics. Because you can see in wire rope and even in chain, when you get broken wires in wire rope or chain, you get metal loss, that we must protect when we’re going around sharp or abrasive edges.

In my personal opinion, I would have to say 80% of the rigging accidents or near misses happen because people are cutting slings, not protecting them against sharp corners or abrasive-type corners.

Examining Sling Damage and Failed Lifts

Adam Franz: Again, a prime example here. What went wrong here?

Looks like a natural gas turbine. Looks like they tried to pick up this turbine by the box. I would say that that rigging company, knowing that they did that work on a power plant site and power transmission, probably no longer has that contract.

You can see the blue roundslings here on the ground, just rigged improperly.

Right here, we’ve got some web slings. You can see we’ve got the tape measure right here. That tells us that this is a near miss and an accident investigation.

They’re trying to replicate where on this piece of machinery or on the cutting edge did this sling come in contact.

You’re going to see it was a pretty sharp edge here on this web sling because it’s a little bit cleaner of a cut.

Right here, you’re going to see the yarns are degraded, and they look like they were holding on for dear life. You can see they look a little bit different there in that accident investigation.

Again, this all comes back that a sling cutting is preventable when you use the correct type of sling protection, which we’re going to look at right here in this slide.

Right here, we’ve got some Twin-Path slings being utilized in a bridge girder set. Right there at the very top, where the sling comes in contact with the load, as well as the load-bearing area, we’re going to show that wherever the sling comes in contact with the load, we must have sling protection.

This also comes into play when using hardware because there could be protrusions or rough surfaces. If you use this hardware with a chain sling or a wire rope sling, you could have created a burr on it.

If then you switch to a synthetic sling, such as this Twin-Path, you have to have protection on that item.

We must always protect against protrusions and rough surfaces and, in some cases, where used with hardware.

Choosing an Appropriate Hitch for Load Control

Adam Franz: You must ask the question—again, we’re creating this plan—is the hitch appropriate?

Let’s assume that this is a long stock item, about 20 to 30 feet of tubular steel, with a choke on it in the middle. Is that hitch appropriate?

I’m going to tell you I don’t think that that hitch is appropriate because you do not have a lot of load control with it.

My professional recommendation, if you’re making picks like that, is you use some kind of a spreader bar configuration and then two slings with chokes.

Right here, we’ve got a double-wrap hitch. Let’s assume that this piece of precast pipe is only four to six feet.

In this case, the double-wrap hitch provides nice 360 degrees of contact. We’ve got 360 degrees of contact, then back into a choke.

I would say that you have really good load control, and that hitch is appropriate to go make that pick.

Is the hitch appropriate here in this case? We’ve got a double choker hitch. Got nice protection and a choke on it. Not too severe of an angle, looks to be about a 45, but we’re going to talk later why that needs to be derated if we get to that 45 in that choke.

That looks like a good pick right there.

Now, this piece of steel pipe coming down off the excavator, double basket hitch. Do you want to be the worker in the trench? I tell you what, I don’t want to be.

You think that the hydraulics of that backhoe could be a little jerky. We’ve got a double basket hitch. We’ve got nowhere for this web sling to really butt up against.

If you get that load swing going, you could lose that load by sliding it out. Is the hitch appropriate?

Then, is a tagline needed? I know we’ve got a number of construction folks on here. When we get into that outdoor environment, and we’ve got loads flying high, I would like to see that load control with the tagline.

Understanding Vertical, Choker, and Basket Hitches

Adam Franz: Now we’re going to get into selecting the sling hitches for load control.

We’ve got just the vertical, which we’ve got a connection point here. We’re going to assume these triangles are like shackles. We’ve got a choker hitch, and then we’ve got a true vertical basket hitch.

Really, the load being applied and the rigging environment will determine the type of hitch that you’re going to use.

Single leg with some load control: They provide good control only for simple loads. Really, do not use this hitch for lifting loose materials, long material, any load that can tip, as it can tip or you can get a sag in them.

We’d recommend not using a single leg or a choke in that type of configuration.

A choker hitch does not provide 360 contact with the surface but is a really viable option when going to hang steel or pipe or items in the air like that because you do get at least a good amount of surface area coverage here.

Right here, it looks like we’ve got a steel coil or some type of cylindrical item. We’ve got nice load control on that.

When you’re using a choker hitch, we can use a block of wood between the hitch and load—not steel—to improve that load grip and angle of the choke.

Double-Wrap Basket Hitches and Sling Angles

Adam Franz: Right here’s a basket hitch, and this basket hitch, we actually have a double wrap. Again, we’ve got 360 degrees of contact there, and make sure we don’t overlap the sling at the bottom of the load.

When using web slings, if you overlap, you could create abrasion at the bottom there, and those web slings do melt to 194 degrees if there was some severe abrasion.

Wire rope slings as well, make sure that we’re not overlapping so we’re getting that full 360 degrees of contact.

I’m a big fan of that double-wrap hitch, but when we’re doing this in a basket-type configuration, we must take into account the horizontal angle.

A basket hitch that’s listed on that sling tag is meant to come to two points, not to a singular, and we must derate properly because of the tension that’s being provided on those slings.

We’ll work through some math a bit later on.

Double wrap, again, we’re looking here, we’ve got the 360-degree contact. We know not to overlap on that hitch.

Using Spreader Bars for Long or Bundled Loads

Adam Franz: We’re using slings and a spreader bar. Right here is a perfect application for when we have—I’m going to continue to use rebar because we see that a lot on construction sites—or you’re flying multiple pieces of steel in a bundle, or you’re moving PVC pipe, and you have to think about that sag factor.

You should definitely use a spreader bar, then with two chokes. This is a great way to pick long stock bundled items. It provides very good load control on these longer loads.

It really is going to depend on the rigidity of that load as well, whether to use just a singular choke or a double, because it really comes into the sag factor on that load control.

Evaluating Double Basket Hitch Configurations

Adam Franz: The load control on this is not good unless the slings are snubbed against a step or change of contour in the load.

My professional recommendation, unless you’re making the same pick on the same product over and over, that this double basket creates efficiency, I would professionally recommend not to buy this type of chain sling because it’s not very versatile.

As you can see, it’s been sold or set up just for one item.

If it creates efficiency in moving that one item, and you’re making a thousand items a day, maybe it makes sense for you.

But in general construction and manufacturing, I definitely professionally recommend not to buy this type of sling, again because it’s not as versatile.

You must have it snubbed against corners because, again, if we get that load going and stop that overhead crane or mobile crane, you could possibly lose a load if it’s not snubbed against the corner.

Understanding Load Movement and Sling Tension

Adam Franz: What we have here, we’re going to make a pick with a web sling.

Ultimately, you’ve got the working load limit of the sling. You know how much the item weighs. But what happens when you lose that load either to the right or left? That’s force that’s being applied.

If this product right here weighs 6,000 pounds, and this web sling is good for 6,400 pounds, you’d have to do the math, but there is a possibility that the force of this load swing will cause you to have an overage on the working load limit right here of this web sling.

Again, we don’t have the center of gravity here on this side as well.

You can see we’ve got two basket hitches being used, not snubbed against corners. I would not use that.

Class here, what can you tell me? Why does this pick look good here? We just covered it a few slides ago. Also, we referenced using this block of wood. Can you tell me why?

On the right-hand side, why do you think that one’s good?

Again, if we’ve got questions as we go through this class here today, just ask them. We’re going to address them at the very end. Go ahead and get your questions in now. I know last class we had a number of them, and we’ll look to address all of them.

Now we’re going to talk about tensions when it comes to slings, as well as what that does for the working load limit.

I want you to sit back and envision yourself holding two five-gallon buckets of water, and you’re going to have to hold your arms out with your shoulders.

Think of it at 60 degrees, 45 degrees, and 30 degrees. What if I asked you to hold those buckets of water out for five minutes?

At 60 degrees, you could probably do it. At 45 and 30, if I asked you to hold those five-gallon buckets out full of water, you’re going to see what kind of tension that would have on your shoulders.

I want you to remember this concept as we work through the tension when it comes to derating slings properly.

Choker Hitch Angles and Capacity Reductions

Adam Franz: When we’re using the choker hitch, there’s an angle reduction chart that must be used with it.

You can see we’ve got it laid out: zero to 60 degrees, 90 to 105 degrees, 105 to 120, and then 120 to 180. Then the reduction factor that you must take into account on that choker hitch.

Here’s an example.

Let’s say we’ve got a 3/8-inch, eight-foot, 6 × 19, one-part mechanically spliced wire rope sling in a choker hitch. The working load limit is 5,120 pounds stated on the tag.

Let’s say that this is a very round item, big radius on it, and we have a 30-degree angle on that sling.

The working load limit is only going to be now 2,560 pounds, or a 0.5 loss factor, when we get down into 30 degrees.

Let’s do a sling here from 90 to 105 degrees. We’ve got a 3/4-inch, six-foot, 6 × 19, one-part mechanically spliced wire rope sling in a choker hitch.

The working load limit on that choker is 8,200 pounds. At 80 degrees of the sling, you have to reduce the working load limit to 5,822 pounds, or a 0.71 loss factor.

If you’d like to see this example shared with you, go ahead and comment on the right-hand side, and we can share this slide with you after.

Basket Hitch Capacity Reductions

Adam Franz: We’ve got an example of a web sling, an EE2 902 by six-foot web sling at 30 degrees.

The basket is going to state 12,800 pounds on the tag. At 30 degrees, again, you’re going to have that 0.5 loss factor.

You’re going to reduce the working load limit of that sling to 6,400 pounds.

Again, we’ve got our math up here, and remember the 60-degree, 45-degree, and 30-degree, roughly.

Calculating Sling Tension Factors

Adam Franz: Think of the tension again. Calculate the sling-to-load angle. Determine the corresponding tension factor.

This is another way of looking at it. Multiply load weight by the tension factor. Determine the load on the sling leg or legs, plural.

This is another tension factor chart. You can see sling angle A and then the tension factor.

Right here, 90 degrees, you’ve got a 1 tension factor. At 70 degrees, it’s 1.064.

Let’s go into some common ones, such as a 45. We all know what a 45-degree looks like. That’s 1.414, and then the 30-degree, 2.

We’re going to discuss the tension factor here. The load weight, let’s assume it weighs 2,000 pounds. The sling-to-load angle is 60 degrees, so we’ve got a nice 60-degree angle here.

The load weight is a 1.155 tension factor, increased sling tension to 2,310.

We’ve got a load weight of 2,000 at 45 degrees. The load weight, 1.414 tension factor, increased sling tension to 2,828 pounds.

You can see if you double up these, you’ll get to that math there.

Another example here at 30 degrees. Remember, 30, it’s a 2 tension factor, so we increase the sling tension to 4,000 pounds.

Accounting for Everything Below the Hook

Adam Franz: Are the working load limits adequate?

All right here, what’s the sling angle? Go ahead and answer in that box. What does the sling angle look like? What’s the weight of the load?

If you’re going to design a pick in an indoor manufacturing environment, we’ve got to take into account the weight of the load being anything coming off the hook.

The chain sling, the below-the-hook item here, which is a magnet, and the steel that it’s picking up.

For those that answered, what kind of angle is that? That looks to be about a 45-degree angle right there.

What’s listed on the tag for this chain sling is 60 degrees. To design this pick, we must have taken into account that it’s at 45 degrees to size that chain properly.

Working Load Limit Guides and ASME Resources

Adam Franz: A thank-you for all those in attendance.

We’ve got our Sling Working Load Limits guide here because we can’t pack all this information onto that small sling tag, so it’s listed here.

It’s very small. These are large posters that, if you ask for them, we can get them to your job site, and then we’re also going to share a link with the PDF.

We’ve got it listed out here. Great for job site trailers, safety boards, 5S boards in manufacturing facilities.

Let us know. These are great charts to use or have on your job site or in your facility.

When we go to make a pick, we want to think about all the rules and regulations and standards that apply.

Right here, we’ve got ASME B30.10, the hook. B30.9 is the sling itself. B30.20 is the below-the-hook lifter. B30.26 is rigging gear hardware.

If you’ve got any questions or would like to see an excerpt from one of the ASME, please reach out to us. We can have our lifting specialist contact you and provide a snippet for interpretation on it.

I’d like to thank everybody for attending this YouTube Live training here today.

My name again is Adam Franz. I’m the Regional Sales Manager in the Mid-Atlantic region. Here’s my mobile number as well as my email, or you can find me on LinkedIn.

At this point, we’ve got Bob Gubanich, who’s going to come on and talk to you about our resources card as well as our training.

Go at it, Bob. Thank you.

Additional Rigging Resources and Remote Training

Bob Gubanich: Thanks, Adam. Stay with us. I know we’re getting close to the 30-minute limit, but if you can hang on for a few extra minutes, the best part is yet to come, and that’s the part where we answer your questions.

Hopefully, you learned something worthwhile here today. If you like what you saw, please visit our website, mazzellacompanies.com, and go to the resources section.

There you will find videos, blogs, and ebooks covering a wide range of rigging questions, from how to inspect a synthetic roundsling to sling tagging requirements.

While on the web, head over to liftingu.com and take a look at our two-minute YouTube video on an exciting new product that’s been very successful: our new remote live training classes.

This innovative training format offers many advantages over face-to-face training and enables your company to meet social distancing requirements and still follow the ASME requirement for training your workforce.

With that, Mike, you’ve got some questions teed up. Let’s answer some questions.

Q&A: Does a Double Wrap Affect Sling Capacity?

Mike Close: Thanks, Bob. Thanks, Adam. Great job to both of you.

We’ve got some questions here in the chat. One we got from OHSteeler: “How does a double wrap affect the load rating on a lift?”

Bob Gubanich: The double wrap doesn’t affect the capacity at all. It increases the contact to the load and gives you that 360-degree contact, but it doesn’t actually affect the capacity of the sling one way or the other.

You just simply need a longer sling to be able to go around the load you’re lifting. Of course, the double wrap can be used with both the choker and the basket hitch.

Q&A: Why Use a Block of Wood in a Choker Hitch?

Mike Close: Great. We’ve got a question here from Brian Bell that came in the chat.

Adam, you showed an image up on one of your slides where there was a block of wood that was involved in the rigging and the load securement. Can you go back and talk about why that block of wood might be used?

Adam Franz: Yes. Great question. The block of wood would be used with that load to give a more beneficial angle to that choke.

If your angle was harsh at a 30-degree or 60-degree, you could use that block of wood to help increase your angle.

But you could also use that block of wood to help cinch down on the load itself.

Q&A: Broken Wires in Wire Rope Slings

Mike Close: Great. I’ve got one for you, Bob. Can you talk a little bit about the retirement criteria for wire rope slings when it comes to broken wires on a sling?

Bob Gubanich: Sure. Unfortunately, the criteria for rejection for wire rope slings and broken wires is a little tricky and a little complicated.

The simple answer is, yes, you are permitted to have a few broken wires in a sling, providing they meet the correct recommendations.

What I would recommend for you to do to get more information on that is to either go onto our webpage or reference your OSHA or ASME specifications.

You are, again, permitted to have a few broken wires, but depending on the distribution of those broken wires, the locations, and the type of sling you have, there’s a lot of different factors that you have to consider before you can decide whether that wire rope sling is safe to use.

Q&A: Red Core Yarns in Web Slings

Mike Close: Great. We’ve got a lot of questions here about sling inspection.

Got one about flat web slings and the red core yarns. Is that still retirement criteria when you’re inspecting a nylon or polyester web sling?

Adam Franz: I’ll take this one.

Probably some, as Bob would say, graybeards in the group. Oftentimes, back in the day, there was in all web sling products a red core yarn, and some did use that as inspection criteria.

That is not the case. You are not to inspect based off that red core yarn.

It’s been taught, and it’s not correct, that you could use it until you see that red core yarn. That is not correct.

If you have any kind of cut, nick, gouge, fluffy-type area of the sling where you can see degraded yarns, that is the retirement criteria.

On our website, we’ve got some great pictures of the retirement criteria for web slings that provide examples specifically of what a nick or a cut looks like, or a puncture.

A red core yarn, you do not use that as retirement criteria or anything in a web sling. It is an old-school training method, but it is not correct.

Q&A: Doglegs and Kinks in Wire Rope Slings

Mike Close: Okay. We’ve got another one here from Christina from the chat.

Again, going back to wire rope slings, when is a kink or a dogleg too much, when you make the determination that that sling should be pulled from service?

Bob Gubanich: Great question, and it happens a lot because wire rope slings lend themselves to having that type of deformation if you use them a couple of times.

The best rigging practice or rule of thumb is if there are no displaced strands.

The first thing you want to look at in that area of the dogleg or the kink is for a displaced strand. If you have a displaced strand, that’s criteria for rejection. The sling’s done.

If the strands are all in place where they’re supposed to be, if you put a load on that sling that would be the working load limit, and if that dogleg straightens out under those conditions, then you would consider that sling safe to use.

Most of the time, a kink is more serious than a dogleg, and you’re going to actually have deformation of wires and strands, and that’s going to require rejection of the sling.

Again, the short answer is if, under load, the dogleg pulls straight, and you have no deformation of strands or the wires, that sling is still safe to use.

Q&A: Tightening Screw Pin Anchor Shackles

Mike Close: Okay. We’ve got one here about rigging hardware. Bob, how do we tighten the shackle pin on a screw pin anchor shackle?

Bob Gubanich: Great question. Again, Adam likes my reference to the graybeards in the group. Getting a little gray myself, as you can see.

Back in the day, especially for ironworkers and steelworkers, they actually used to train people to tighten up the pin hand-tight on a screw pin anchor shackle and then back it off an eighth to a quarter turn.

That is not the correct way to utilize a shackle. We want to make sure that that shackle pin is fully tightened hand-tight before we use it.

If we start off with a loose pin, there’s too much opportunity for that pin to continue to loosen up and actually fall out of the shackle.

We want to make sure that our screw pin anchor shackles have pins that are hand-tight before we do our lift.

Q&A: Tears in Polyester Roundsling Covers

Mike Close: Great. Looks like we’ve got one more here about sling inspection.

On polyester roundslings, what is the proper procedure if you discover a rip or a tear in the outer jacket of that roundsling during the course of an inspection?

Adam Franz: The rip or the tear, I’ll take this one. It depends on if you can see the core yarn on it.

If you have access to the core yarn, it’s done at that point.

There are large roundslings that can be repaired, but a lot of the smaller roundslings are consumable.

I would say anything less than a 30,000-pound working load limit roundsling, it’s probably good just to discard at that point. It doesn’t make sense to repair.

But anything over 30,000-pound working load limit, you can repair it. Again, if you can see the core yarns, it’s got to go.

Q&A: Wire Rope Slings Compared with Running Rope

Mike Close: Okay. We’ve got one here from Robert Ivey.

“Are you allowed to use a wire rope sling as long as the dogleg pulls straight under a load and there are no obstructed wires? Compare that to a dogleg, not a kink, in an overhead crane wire rope.”

Bob Gubanich: I’m not entirely sure what the question is there, but I’ll answer it as best I understand it.

I think we’re trying to make a comparison between a wire rope sling and a running rope on a hoist or a crane.

You’ve got different specifications for the two products, especially for broken wires. But as far as the kinking is concerned, again, what you’re looking for is deformation of the strand and of the wires.

If you’re using an overhead crane and you see a little bit of a dogleg, but again, when the line is under tension, it pulls straight, and there’s no damage or deformation to the strands or the wires, you’re okay.

With a wire rope sling, you’re going to see a kink. A kink, again, is a much more serious bit of damage.

The same would apply in a running rope on a crane. If you had an actual kink, you’re going to have deformation and damage that’s going to require replacement.

Again, the short answer is if, under load, the dogleg pulls straight, and you have no damage or deformation to the strands or the wires, that sling is still safe to use.

Speaker unclear: Just to stack in there and comment with Bob, it’s two different standards, a running rope versus a wire rope sling, where a running rope is much more stringent on that than a wire rope sling when it comes to doglegs and kinks.

Q&A: Required Identification on Shackles

Mike Close: Great. Looks like we’ve got one more here about rigging hardware.

Bob, what type of identification information is required on a shackle besides the capacity?

Bob Gubanich: There must be a manufacturer’s name or marking, must have a working load limit, and a diameter or size. The three items.

Speaker unclear: You’ve got them basically right. You need the capacity, you need the manufacturer’s identification, and then, like you say, a size. The three items.

Again, that can be a problem. We do see some, especially import manufacturers, that put a country of origin, but that doesn’t meet the requirement of having an actual manufacturer’s identification. Something to look for on your shackles.

Adam Franz: Just to piggyback on that comment, I’ve seen shackles in the field that say “China” on them and then a diameter and a working load limit.

China is not a manufacturer or a manufacturing code according to ASME B30. I believe 26 is hardware.

Mike Close: B30.26, correct, yes.

Additional Questions and Sling Inspection Training

Speaker unclear: Well, I think we’re probably getting to the end of our timeline here. Any pressing questions we need to make sure we include here?

Mike Close: As always, if you have any additional questions, you can send an email to afranz@mazzellacompanies.com. Adam would be happy to field any additional questions that you guys have.

There were a lot of questions here in the chat about sling inspection.

If you go to liftingu.com, we have a course that you can enroll in. It’s got seven lessons with video demonstrations on how to properly inspect each of the types of lifting slings to the ASME [standard number unclear] standards.

Check that out if you get a chance. Again, that’s at liftingu.com.

Thanks again to everybody that signed in and stuck with us here for the Q&A. I’m going to turn it back over to Adam and Bob to wrap things up.

Closing Remarks

Bob Gubanich: I’d like to thank you all for taking a few minutes out of your busy day today and spending those with us.

On behalf of Adam and myself and the Mazzella Companies, please stay safe, not only on the job, but in everything you do. Thank you.

Adam Franz: Thank you to everybody who came and joined us in attendance.

I know we’ve got folks practicing social distancing in conference rooms, in job trailers, and some that are set up remotely.

We’d just like to thank everyone who attended. If you’ve got any questions after this, feel free to reach out.

Please stay safe during this time, and consider us here at Mazzella if you have any questions.

Have a great day.

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