Advice for a rigger?

[Dave79]

Howdy.

 

First post here. Apologies if it's in the wrong place.

 

Ive been training as a climbing rigger for about 7 months now and am close to doing my NRC level 2 assessment. Ive got most physical aspects of the job nailed bar one.

 

I wanted to ask if any of the more experienced Climbing arena riggers have any advice on pulling points on skinny beams. Basically theres a few places in the roof I work in where Im pulling steel from a 4" box section beam and I cant seem to get a comfy or stable way to sit down once the bridal/dead hang has been pulled to height to make it off.

 

Any tricks or methods out there that Im not aware of?

 

Ive tried stepping into my bowline and lowering to a croutch, and hanging the weighted rope over one way to get down onto the beam, but I lack confidence in my movement on those really skinny beams.

 

Advice?

 

Cheers in advance.

[Seano]

Ive tried stepping into my bowline and lowering to a croutch, and hanging the weighted rope over one way to get down onto the beam, but I lack confidence in my movement on those really skinny beams.

 

You're on the right track with that. Once the rope is over the beam with a foot in the loop, the weight helps to stablise you. Confidence is key, but a skinny wee box section beam like that is as difficult as it gets so don't worry if you find it tough, it'll take a lot of time and practice.

 

With bridles, working with your partner is also important - any jerking about at one end will wobble the person on the other end, so stay aware of what they're doing, avoid any too-sudden movements, especially be aware when your partner has the pin out of the secondary shackle. (And be prepared for that *#$%! over there not to show you the same consideration sometimes.)

 

Manchester Arena has some 4" I beams, Sheffield Arena has a lot of 8" wide box section beams with slightly rounded corners - both much easier than what you're talking about and I can think of a few folk who've been working on them regularly for years and never quite got to grips with either. I'm probably one of the more confident beam monkeys over here in Englandshire and TBH having sat down on a 4" wide beam I think I'd struggle to get back on my feet without the benefit of a bottom flange to step into.

 

Two things you can do..

Avoid the wobble: plan ahead, work at a node, make baskets off there and then slide them out into position. (Think about the order you pull points in - if you start with the one furthest away and work towards you, you can pull each in turn and slide it out before getting the next one.) 90% of the time you can avoid working in the middle of the span.

 

Embrace the wobble: work on your balance every chance you get (not while you're at work most likely), walk along handrails, kerb stones, a bit of 2x4 on the floor, whatever. Maybe get yourself a slackline and have a play on that. (They're silly money to buy, a ratchet strap and a couple of old slings is just as good.) Work on core stability (loads of exercises involving foam rollers, swiss balls and the like online), also if you're not there already see if you can get the strength & flexibility to do a one-legged 'pistol' squat on both sides.

 

This kind of gymnastic shenanigans is way *way* beyond what you need to do for your NRC assessment btw. The assessment centre is a very easy environment to work in, and as long as you're safe and using your ppe correctly you can work as slowly and steadily as you like and you'll still 'achieve'.

[Dave79]

Cheers Seano.

 

Yeah I guess balance and composure are the things I should be focussing on. There are quite a lot of places in the roof of the odyssey/SSE where there are just grids of box section for quite a distance between the big easy beams, so its something I have to get comfy with pretty quickly. No one wants to work with the guy that chickens out on a challenge!

 

I'm actually more ill at ease with the written part of the NRC assessment; currently trying to memorise the bridle angle ratios!

 

Thanks again.

[Seano]

There are quite a lot of places in the roof of the odyssey/SSE where there are just grids of box section for quite a distance between the big easy beams

 

I've only worked in there the once, on it's very first gig - the grand opening hoo-haa a couple of years back. Oh bugger, 16 years ago (how did that happen?) so it's all a blur now.

 

What I mean by a 'node' above though is any 'X' where one beam meets another, even if they're both skinny. Doesn't have to be next to a chunky main beam. Dunno if that's any help, maybe not..

 

No one wants to work with the guy that chickens out on a challenge!

 

Well there's chickening out and chickening out isn't there? ;)

 

Nobody loves a shirker, but I'd rather work with the guy who'll back off a wee bit when he needs to than the gung-ho eejit who bites off more than he can chew. (We don't see many of those though, to be fair.) It's another balance to find I guess, you don't get better without pushing it a bit but you don't want to step *too* far out of your comfort zone.

 

I'm actually more ill at ease with the written part of the NRC assessment; currently trying to memorise the bridle angle ratios!

 

Ah, sympathies. But don't sweat it too much if you struggle to memorise a load of figures and formulas and wotnot.

The written part is all very 'open book'. The assessor needs to see you understand that stuff in principle, know where to look and can find the figures, but you don't necessarily have to produce them off the top of your head.