Lowering a load via a Chain Block

Personal opinion is that we all have pushed to position a load hanging from a chain hoist. Personal safety says to me not to do so if i have to stress to get the load in to position. If when stressing to position the load if the hoist or load would come free you would be going with it.

If in the positioning the load that a individual has to put a lot of physical stress on it I recommend that the hoist be hung from jib boom.

Yes they can be lowered on an angle. You require is a second chain hoist mounted on the opposite side of the destination.

Lift on the second hoist while lowering on the first hoist, and the load will move toward the second hoist which will gradually take the load.

Thanks to all who answered! I value your comments and help!

This question came out of an incident in a 3rd World Country where I am working. A 2 tonne chain block failed when 3 workers were lowering a 485kg spool piece into position in a Furnace roof.

One worker sustained 3 broken toes when the spool flange landed on his foot just above the steel cap of his boot.

We found that the spool had been manourved more than 30 metres using hook to hook transfer of a suspended load (485kg) using multiple chain blocks (2 at a time) using different lifting lugs in the furnace roof.

The Chain block failed because the equipment was missing the chain guide rollers and had not been inspected before use, nor inspected before being issued from the tool store.

We have just implemented a quarterly inspection and tagging program and have destroyed 200+ lifting gear because of substandard condition...this one was not inspected before the shutdown.

Sorry for the long explanation...hope you find it interesting!

Geoff

Interesting yes...

Include some training of proper rigging techniques for workers in the new safety program.

Quarterly inspections should be a mandatory minimum. We also do daily visual inspections prior to use. I'd also recommend (for English readers, don't know if translations are available, but you can find out) the "Rigging Handbook", 3rd Ed. by Jerry Klinke, complete illustrated field reference. It's available from ACRA Enterprises, Inc. - www.acratech.com - 800.992.0689 and is ISBN 978-1-8-8872402-8. Hope this helps.

Thanks EnviroMan for you excellent help,

We are requiring quarterly checks and tagging and pre-start inspections as standard. However a challenge to make it happen in the field during a shut.

I am producing a lifting operation guideline to help provide what should be checked etc so the reference "Rigging Handbook" with illustrations sounds excellent.

I will source it. Translation is not a problem.

Geoff U

Glad you think it is useful. The field guide is an industry standard - we use it here extensively. One aid to meeting the safety challenge is to instill the idea that someone - wife, mother, sister, daughter, even a faithful dog, is expecting each worker to come home every night, and in the correct number of pieces - a minimum and maximum of ONE! So which part of your body do you actually want to lose...?

sounds dangerous for so many reasons.if you need to follow this procedure frequently i recommend you stop using chain block or crane altogether.it should'nt be very difficult to design an arm that could take the load along a fixed path say angular or curved or even curved along a decreasing radius with a retraction mechanism.if you want to keep it really cheap you could use the same chain-pulley block as power supply and use the arm only as a guide so the load moves along a fixed/safe path.i dont know if im being very clear so ill try to get some drawings for you.