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Greynomad wrote: ↑Mon Sep 17, 2018 12:22 am Um....
T1,
I don’t think the hydraulic wrenches count.
In this page, size matters!
However, I will concede to your wrench on the tractor.
David,
If you can find a photo of one of those railway torque wrenches, you’ll ace T1’s tractor job!

Those larger hydraulic torque wrenches need something to gauge the size I guess, but that square drive for the socket is 2 1/2 inches. Near a 2 man job just to move the socket from one bolt to the next, definitely a 2 man job to move the torque wrench. At Bluescope Steel it was a 15min on 15 min off crew rotation because the work was so physical combined with the heat fatigue management came into play.

We did have a 4 person torque wrench when we were bolting down the gearbox cover plates on No.6 blast furnace, two people to carry the wrench into place and reposition it each time and 2 people swinging on the end to pull the load down evenly rather than bouncing on it. Quite a sight watching 2 people hanging off the end with their feet off the ground and watching the nut slowly turn until the 90* angle was exceeded so the torque effort was reduced. I think it was around 60 nuts that had to be tightened in a staggered pattern a total of 3 steps.

T1 Terry

So, T1,
If the hydraulic torque wrench had a 2 1/2inch square drive, what did it torque against?
Was it bolted down to something?

Greynomad wrote: ↑Mon Sep 17, 2018 10:08 pm So, T1,
If the hydraulic torque wrench had a 2 1/2inch square drive, what did it torque against?
Was it bolted down to something?

It has a bracing foot that can be set to the required angle and generally braces against the previous nut/bolt head or the body of what ever the fastener is holding together. The serious risk is pinch injuries, it can crush bone if it gets between the bracing foot and where it is trying to brace against. This is one of the major reason for the fatigue management being implemented, to avoid serious injuries cause by a lack of attention at a critical moment. Often to stop the unit falling off the bolt head or nut when repositioned, the operator will start it driving so the bracing foot will anchor and hold it in place. This is when tired operators get hurt, exhaustion slows the reaction time and instinct has either the operator or assistant reach out to catch the unit if it looks like it is going to fall getting a body part in the way of the bracing foot finding its support member rather than the brain over riding the instinct and reassessing the safety aspect first.

Gee, I wish the moron person that wrote our fatigue management policy had such a clear and decisive reasoning to prevent any potential injury as you describe T1. Unfortunately ours was written by some fat cat trying to prevent some other fat cat from litigation. And had no idea about who or what was in the process of being undertaken.

supersparky wrote: ↑Tue Sep 18, 2018 8:20 pm Gee, I wish the moron person that wrote our fatigue management policy had such a clear and decisive reasoning to prevent any potential injury as you describe T1. Unfortunately ours was written by some fat cat trying to prevent some other fat cat from litigation. And had no idea about who or what was in the process of being undertaken.

Do you have to write personal safety audits and risk assessment for each task you undertake? Tuned in companies are now pushing the safety onus back on the worker to assess the level of risk and ways to mitigate the risk levels. Then, if the worker is injured they look at whether the worker had followed their own risk mitigation recommendations and if they hadn't and it contributed to the injury then who was responsible for not following safe working procedures. If it comes back that the workers concerns were over ruled by the main contractor or company policy and the resulted in the injury or contributed to the injury, the company can then shift to onus of blame and penalties toward those responsible.
The safety officer for the particular project reads all the risk assessments and personal safety audits and goes through the whole thing bringing up anything a worker may have missed so the worker can add it to the assessment and discusses with the group anything new that needs to be clarified as to the level of potential risk of injury.
A far cry from the old days were at least one death per 3 x 24hr shifts was considered acceptable and as long as the ambulance stations throughout the plant could keep up with the "patch up and ship out" injury rate there was no consideration regarding safe work practices. Bluescope now have a very large dept devoted to accident victim follow up and very thorough accident investigation as well as an in house legal team to keep on top of the whole thing.

Maybe really step up the pressure on the safety officers at the next toolbox meeting regarding unsafe practices .... you will get that early retirement faster than you would expect through normal channels

You just about nailed it Terry. One of our Safety Managers came from BHP, another from Qld Rail. That was when things started to change. It is a big PIA doing a risk assessment for every task that you do, but it is now mandatory, so you have no choice. If you have the misfortune to have an accident the second thing they ask for is your SWMS (Safe Work Method statement) for those that have been out of workforce for a while. It is all about being able to apportion blame, but if it does help change things and prevent some other poor bugger from getting hurt, then surely it is a step forward.

supersparky wrote: ↑Wed Sep 19, 2018 5:12 pm You just about nailed it Terry. One of our Safety Managers came from BHP, another from Qld Rail. That was when things started to change. It is a big PIA doing a risk assessment for every task that you do, but it is now mandatory, so you have no choice. If you have the misfortune to have an accident the second thing they ask for is your SWMS (Safe Work Method statement) for those that have been out of workforce for a while. It is all about being able to apportion blame, but if it does help change things and prevent some other poor bugger from getting hurt, then surely it is a step forward.

The trick is to write your risk assessment in a way that no matter what happens you did everything possible to keep everyone safe, it was the company people that made the job dangerous by ignoring your advice in the risk assessment. The next step is to nail the safety officer against the wall with your risk assessment recommendations if someone does get injured. Safety officers run a close second to politicians in the way they can deflect blame onto someone else, so just do it in a way that only place open for the blame to go is into the lap of upper management, then your early retirement is almost writing itself

T1, I like your way of thinking.
But I'd rather just win Lotto then bugger off! Wishful thinking I know, but everyone is allowed a dream or two.

"That's not a radiator, son.
THIS is a radiator!"

Yep, but why is the fan on the outside? Is there a hole in the middle of the radiator for the water pump to stick through or something Certainly a strange looking set up.