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The post about getting started in the trade by Camille Norvaisas (that is SUCH a cool name) got me wondering about people's experiences up off the ground. Here's a scary one I remember:
I was asked to do some lettering on a concrete tower sort of thing, the place where they mix concrete and put it in a truck. I knew the guy, and owed him a favor, and he was paying what I was asking. He had a boom truck that he bought at an auction, but the last extension boom piece was for holding up poles, like telephone poles. So he removed that portion, and made a platform, welded it up real sturdy and all. Problem was, the only piece of square box-tube steel he had was a little smaller than the inside of the piece that it slid into. So every time I would walk out to the side of the platform, CLUNK! The thing would do this drop-shift-clunk sort of move. I even tried crawling reallllly slowllly, but still, it waited, then CLUNK! Like I said, built real sturdy, probably would've held up a car, but I never got used to it.
-------------------- James Donahue Donahue Sign Arts 1851 E. Union Valley Rd. Seymour TN. (865) 577-3365 brushman@nxs.net
Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what's for lunch, Benjamin Franklin Posts: 2057 | From: 1033 W. Union Valley Rd. | Registered: Feb 2003
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We've done lots of high work over the years and had way too many close calls. When we work high we are always only one small step away from the end of an exciting career! I learned on one of my earlier jobs to double check my rigging before I began to paint.
It was a warehouse job... real big for the time, about 270 feet long and 40 feet high on one side. The second side of the building was a little shorter, about 120 feet as I recall. The letters and graphics were on the top half of the wall.
The customer supplied the swing stage and it was the first time I had used such a rig. Exciting stuff! There were beams which went back over the roof and hung over the edge of the wall to support the rigging. Weights were placed on the beams to keep everything stable.
I was up there for days and days. About half way through the job I was painting merrily away near the top of the wall when another worker on the job leaned over the edge and asked me if I wanted the weights placed on the beam. I had been working for quite a while balanced precariously... one slip away from a long, long fall to the ground.
Ever since then I've always double checked my rigging before venturing off the ground!
-dan
-------------------- Dan Sawatzky Imagination Corporation Yarrow, British Columbia dan@imaginationcorporation.com http://www.imaginationcorporation.com
Being a grampa is one of the the most wonderful things in the world!!! Posts: 8738 | From: Yarrow, B.C. Canada | Registered: Nov 1998
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20 years ago, I climbed fir trees for pine cone collection for re-forestation seedlings to be grown in the Gov't nursery. The trees were usually around 175 - 200 feet tall. The bottom half would be mostly free from limbs. That part was climbed with climbing spurs & a flip line like your basic lumberjack setup you may have seen. My flip line was split into 2 sections so I could unhook one when I got to a limb, throw it over the limb, then do the second so I could pass the limbs & keep climbing. Eventually you would get to a point where there the top 40 - 50 feet of the tree was thick with limbs & a much narrower trunk. From here I would free climb to about 20 feet from the top & clip in a 20' safety line (any higher the trunk couldn't be expected to hold my weight if I fell) At this point I would work around the top collecting about 50 lbs of ripe pine cones in burlap bags to climb down with. Using the 300 ft of purline rope I would set my double strand rappel line as high up as I could find a clean descent line down between the branches (but no higher then 150' )
Anyway with the occassional windy days, there were a few scary moments (like once noticing I failed to lock my caribeener)... but one of the worst was on a contract camped by an awesome gorge with an incredible swimming hole & some great cliff diving opportunities. I had to try this jump, but standing up there(probably just 50 feet up)trying to make myself jump, after weeks of working heights requiring a controlled descent was a real mental short circuit for awhile there.
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oh wait... can I do two??? This ones scarier!
10 years later I was at a similar cliff diving gorge with some much younger friends from the area. They were all daredevils & got me to jump (not dive) from most of their 50 - 60 ft. launches... except one. That one required trusting the physics that allow a man jumping out 4 or 5 feet from a rock to clear the lower outcropping that juts out over 10 feet because of the angle of the fall & the 20 - 30 distance to the lower outcropping. Seeing these guys do this didn't make it any less scary... but the icing on the cake was the fact that the lower outcropping completely obscured the water we were aiming for.
In the end due to my foolish alcohol influenced submission to peer pressure, I went for it. They said it was easy, but I still had to throw myself way out there out of fear of the lower outcropping... as a result, when the 30 foot creek became visable... I was not heading for the deep water in the center... I was overshooting the center by 6 or 8 feet. now that was the scariest high off the ground moment for me. I sort of laid my upper body back twards the center of the creek when I hit & got a little whiplash to the back of the neck, but my feet barely hit bottom that way.
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The scariest "high" job I ever worked on was on a swing stage with rope falls...we couldn't get our rigging up the face of a 10 story building because of 10 high tension wires (all over 7000 volts)so we carried everything up and hauled our stage and wood beams up thru an opened elavator shaft then used the elevator to bring up the sand bags...we rigged and shinnied over the firewall and dropped off the top of the building ...it is pretty tricky getting both guys on the stage coming from the top while handling the falls. Wait it gets better...we had to let our selves down to with in 4 feet of the High tension lines(thats down about 8 stories) and begin our layout...as I recall the wall was about 60 feet across so we had to do it in 3 "sets" we were there a week and at the end of everyday we had to pull ourselves back to the top (because we couldn't drop passed the lines)man those were the good old sdays when I was young and in shape. It was nerve racking to say the least working over the wires...wait it gets better...when we got all thru and hauled everything back down that elevator only to find out we had forgotten a small line of copy and had to go back and rig a bosons chair from the top (tied off to the elevator shaft this time and by buddy Willy Creel lowered me and hauled me back up after I was done...(we did this last little trick on our own time the next morning because it was our mistake and the shop never knew about it.
I've had some mishaps in 35 years with ladders, boom trucks, stages and scaffolds but none were as nerve racking and scary as this one job.
[ January 21, 2004, 12:54 AM: Message edited by: Monte Jumper ]
-------------------- "Werks fer me...it'll werk fer you"
I was working for Active Ad, (big sign shop, with billboards and cranes) and they sent me out one cold November day to repaint a board.
This one didn't have the 2 ft x 10 ft sectional panels. This one was plywood sheets bolted on barn poles.
The cat walk was 20 feet in the air and I had to climb another 10 feet to the top of the board.
I had one half of a 10 ft step ladder as my only ladder. The wind was blowing, it must have been 10 degree wind chill, and the wind is rocking the entire structure back and forth a good 8 to 12 inches.
The cat walk was just planks with 2" gaps between boards. I climbed to the to top of the board, then the legs of the ladder slipped into the crack between the planks.
The ladder falls sideways, I reached for the top of the billoboard to hang on, and missed the edge by a finger.
I hit the cat walk full on my right side, but my left foot was tangled up in the ladder rungs. I hear a sharp crack, and then feel this horrible pain shoot up my leg.
My foot was broken in 3 places, I lay on the cat walk 15 feet up in the air, out in the middle on nowhere with this friggin ladder suspended in the air hangin on my broken foot.
This was in 1979. I had two babies at the time and said to my wife: "This job an't worth making you a widow." 6 months later I was in my own business.
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I have a couple I could think at the moment, one with Richard Bustamante, he scored a job in San Pablo CA, at a storage place. It was a good size wall job, I think 25'x 300'?? at first he was using ladders, planks and jacks, but with the winds in the bay area, I didn't feel comfortable knowing below was this fence with all this burglar wire on top of the fence. I thought to myself, I could slip really easy on this thin plank, falling is one thing, but in my mind to fall and land on this wire would be double torture, then either bounce or slide down this forked wire then fall would be a nightmare!! I said hey bro, we need to get some scaffolding, after he went up there and painted a while he decided scaffolding was in the project. My other one was with P-King in Birmingham Al. I was traveling cross country, Pat had broken his foot on some project, and interneted me that he needed help. I was in New Orleans LA at the time. The city had just got flooded from a tropical storm, nobody was interested in having their signs painted or repainted. I answered his call, and drove up to Birmingham, he made me his lead man and we knocked out a four sided 100' tower 30'x 40' corgated metal siding, along with three other sign painters. I remember climbing up this little tall mounted on the building ladder to see how high of a boom lift we was going to need, I had a 100' rope with me as I climbed, when I got to the top, there was this little plank very easy to slip on because of smothered pigeon poop. As I leaned towards the wall thoughts came to my mind, "nobody even knows where I am, none of my family, I was on the road for already 2-3 months, if I drop here these people wouldn't even know who to contact." "Nah don't think like that, I don't want to know that feeling" So without even looking down I threw the rope over, it daggled as it went down, not even hitting the ground 7-8 feet short. We easily needed a 100' boom.
-------------------- aka:Cisco the "Traveling Millennium Sign Artist" http://www.franciscovargas.com Fresno, CA 93703 559 252-0935 "to live life, is to love life, a sign of no life, is a sign of no love"...Cisco 12'98 Posts: 3576 | From: Fresno, Ca, the great USA | Registered: Dec 1998
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Althouh I have my own stories about high jobs that I didn't like, the best one that comes to mind was told to me by one of the guys I worked with a while ago. He came from a family of signwriters and his brother was self employed. Said brother landed a job of painting a logo spread across several adjoining silos at the local wharves. They were painting them from a swinging stage and found that for the last 4' or so of one of the sections couldn't quite stretch out to reach the vertical line that needed to be cut in to finish the background panel. So 8 stories up (if memory serves) they start the stage swinging so that one guy at the appropriate end of the stage can reach out at the azimuth of the swing and cut in a few inches of the vertical line at a time. I never did hear if the money was any good from the job, I certainly hope so. David
-------------------- David Fisher D.A. & P.M. Fisher Services Brisbane Australia da_pmf@yahoo.com Trying out a new tag: "Parents are the bones on which children cut their teeth Peter Ustinov Posts: 1450 | From: Brisbane Queensland Australia | Registered: Nov 1998
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Hi... I have 2 but they are just small potatas. I was on a scissors lift at my favorite glass plant...8 months pregnant & noplace to put my belly...the plant manager told me to finish up and go home. (I have a photo but can't find it) #2 was my first time on scaffolding with Bill Berberich, a 25-year billboard/walldog. We were up 3 stringers of scaffolding ON TOP of a rickety shed roof, doing the side of the barn. I could paint OK...I just had to hold the rail with 1 hand the whole time. I never knew I was afraid of anything until that autumn day. Then that show-off kept bouncing on the scaffold, jumping and chuckling. My heart felt like the Grinch's after it grows 14 sizes, but I was not in a benevolent mood! Love- JILL
-------------------- That is like a Mr. Potato Head with all the pieces in the wrong place. -Russ McMullin Posts: 8834 | From: Butler, PA, USA | Registered: Jan 2001
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Almost hit by lightning. For details see the rest of the story in the profiles section.
CrazyJack
-------------------- Jack Wills Studio Design Works 1465 E.Hidalgo Circle Nye Beach / Newport, OR Posts: 2914 | From: Rocklin, CA. USA | Registered: Dec 1998
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I was installing control instruments on a offshore production platform in the Mississippi Canyon in the Gulf of Mexico. The outside legs of the fireloop were on the outside support beams of the helipad. The beams were about six feet outside the handrails and 18 feet higher than the deck below. I used a 28' extension ladder resting on the web of the I-beam on top and the floor below at +60. So I was about 75 feet above the water's surface. The water was 1500 ft deep, and we had caught 6-10 ft sharks often while fishing from these structures.
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Working in Phoenix in '87, we got a repaint on a couple of bulletin board out west of town in the desert off of I-10. Wasn't that big of a board; so we decided to rig it with ladders, jacks and a twenty-foot aluminum walk plank about fifteen feet up.
It was a windy November day, and we were sliding the walk plank up the ladders to the jacks, when my foot slipped and I fell. It was a skidding, sliding fall down the ladder, followed by my end of that heavy, twenty-foot walk plank. I landed on my back, and the end of the plank wedged itself into the ground over top of me. Brad had kept the other end up; if it had come down that plank would have cut me in half or at the very least broken my back. I rolled out of the way and he was able to drop his end of the plank, and come down off the ladder. That plank had crushed his right forearm between itself and the ladder, but he didn't let go; that probably saved my life. As it was, it broke his arm. But he stayed on that ladder, fifteen feet up, holding a plank up with a death-grip on the ladder rung, with a broken arm - after he was down he nearly passed out with the pain.
In a way, that accident brought about my learning to hand-letter. Brad having a broken right arm could mean weeks of nothing getting done - we were still a hand-lettering shop, and he did all of it himself - so I had no choice but to pitch in and letter everything myself; trucks, 4x8's, menu boards, banners, the works. Up to then I had not been very serious about practicing; that changed quick. For three weeks I practically lived in the shop, doing layouts and painting, while Brad looked over my shoulder, corrected my mistakes, encouraged me, made coffee, told war stories and kept me company while I ground my way laboriously through the work. Within three weeks his arm was sound enough where he could paint (with his arm still in a cast). Up to then I was pretty much a gofer, and the relationship was strictly employee-employer; in those three weeks we became friends. Brad never forgot that for three weeks I stepped in and busted my balls to help save his business - and I never, ever forget how he hung onto that ladder with a broken arm and saved my life.
Oh, and the bulletin board? The customer was ****ed at us for not getting it done that day, and hired someone else. Can you say "a$$hole?"
-------------------- "A wise man concerns himself with the truth, not with what people believe." - Aristotle
Cam Bortz Finest Kind Signs Pondside Iron works 256 S. Broad St. Pawcatuck, Ct. 06379 "Award winning Signs since 1988" Posts: 3051 | From: Pawcatuck,Connecticut USA | Registered: Nov 1998
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Back in the summer of 83 I went to work for a buddy who owned a high rise window cleaning company. I was between jobs and wanted to learn how to rappel. Heights have never bothered me- I once climbed to the top of a radio tower on a bet, but that's another story... Anyway, the work turned out to be relatively easy for me and the money was decent. I'd been on the job for about 2 weeks and we went out one morning to do a Marriott that was about 15 floors. I was working on the windows at one end of the building- they were at the end of each hallway and each one had a 4" concrete slab above it that stuck out about 3 feet and went the width of the window- about 6 feet. Because of these slabs there was no way to do these windows with a chair or a stage- had to be done from a rope because you had to swing yourself a bit to get your feet far enough in to stand up on the slab. No big deal until the storm comes in. I saw it coming and figured there was time but didnt count on the winds that came with. I'm working down to the next level (about 10th floor) when a huge gust of wind catches me and blows me out to one side (maybe 8 feet but it felt like fifty). The problem is that I am no longer facing the slab so I cant use my feet, and in my haste to let out more rope to get to that next slab, I let out too much. My bad. I'm holding on to the rope with both hands so I cant brace myself as I slam into the slab sideways and break three ribs. I manage to let myself down to the next level and re-center the ropes. Every movement was excruciating. No one else in the crew knows my predicament since they are on different sides of the building. And since the storm is still coming I decide to go over the side and try to get to the ground. Man that was one painful ride. No more window cleaning for me!
-------------------- Jay Nichols ALPHABET SOUP
~the large print giveth and the small print taketh away~ Posts: 176 | From: SW Florida | Registered: Mar 2002
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2 years ago, I was finishing up an install for a used auto parts dealer. The sign was 54 feet long above a series of small gable ends along the front of the building. Figuring I could get good footing on all that roofing, I hopped onto a 12 foot ladder at one end of the building and immediately slipped as I got to the top of the ladder. As I began to drop, I managed to grab the edge of the roof. Unfortunately, I had also managed to knock the ladder down as well. The height was not the problem...the piles of used tires and rims were. They didn't look to forgiving. The owner's son was driving by withe the company bucket loader and scooped me up in less time than resetting the ladder would have taken.
I'm definitely in the wrong line of work since I have always had a fear of heights. Rapid
-------------------- Ray Rheaume Rapidfire Design 543 Brushwood Road North Haverhill, NH 03774 rapidfiredesign@hotmail.com 603-787-6803
I like my paint shaken, not stirred. Posts: 5648 | From: North Haverhill, New Hampshire | Registered: Apr 2003
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I've had 3 falls -- all off step ladders. If you haven't had a fall yet, you can't believe how hurt you can get in such a short fall. There's no rightin' yourself -- it happens right now, so as I get older my nerves aren't what they used to be.
A few years ago I was working on a man lift about 25' above asphalt lettering a logo on a grain elevator. It was about the jerkiest piece of equipment I've worked from. When I finished the painting I was gathering everything together and had patterns under my arm and brushes in my hand. I was turning myself around in the basket and by accident hit the "TILT" button for the platform with my elbow. The platform went from horizontal to a 30 degree slant in a nano-second. Everything shifted forward including my heart. As luck would have it my paints and solvents were in a box and stayed in the platform. I was shakin' so bad I didn't have the nerve to push the tilt button and I didn't know if I was going to push it in the right direction, so after I caught my breath I hollered to the painter whose equipment I was borrowing and he calmed me down and walked me through it. I was a MF-in' this and MF-in' that.
-------------------- Bill Diaz Diaz Sign Art Pontiac IL www.diazsignart.com Posts: 2107 | From: Pontiac, IL | Registered: Dec 2001
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mine was back in 98 when i had to letter a ski areas new quad lift...they named it quadzilla and it was this god aweful monster face i was putting on the front of the quad(it looks like a giant spaceship for those not familar with ski area quad lifts) they had to have it done b4 february vacation so off i went the week b4...they said oh they'll be scaffolding and people to help...i get there...nothing is set up, no group of helpers and it was cold!!! it had 3ft round eyeballs with eyebrows of course and a 7ft slobbering tongue, nose mouth etc. it was uglier than a bucket of a$$holes. so i get a ladder and start doing what i could...well the turnstile that 4 people go thru at once had a 10" space for me to stand on...10ft up...of course they had a handicap ski race going on that day and lift was packed. everytime 4 people went thru that turnstile it would shake the top above where i was standing to do one side of the face...well the eyebrows were fun...i had to climb on top of this structure, hook my boots in the corregated metal roof groove and hang upside down. people were just watching in amazement...got it done..but it sucked! almost as bad as doing the 32ft sides...which consisted of 7ft claws and the word Q U A D Z I L L A staggered on the metal spaceship. we live and learn fast. i don't get paid enough to risk my well being so i do as little installs as possible!
-------------------- Karyn Bush Simply Not Ordinary, LLC Bartlett, NH 603-383-9955 www.snosigns.com info@snosigns.com Posts: 3516 | From: Bartlett, NH USA | Registered: Jan 2001
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1 more. Last year we installed a sign on a building above an aluminum awning. The painter was there before me painting a portion of the building above the awning and called me to tell me he took down my old MDO sign and used the 2) 24' x 96" halves as a walkway on top of the awning. He said he was going to leave them up there to make it easier for me to install the new sign. I said that's great! A carpenter helped me with the new sign late on a Friday afternoon and since it was getting too close to beer30 and he was anxious to go, I decided to call it a day and go back the next day and paint screw heads and finish up.
The next day had gusts of wind up to 50 mph, but since I was going to just paint screws, I didn't figure it was going to be a big deal. Other than the fact that each gust of wind blew paint out of my brush, I was proceeding nicely until a wind gust picked up the MDO walkway I wasn't standing on and sent it right for me. All I could do was brace myself with what surely was going to be my demise. Just then it smacked into one of the cross bars that attached the awning to the building. I couldn't believe I was still alive. I got the 2 pieces of MDO together and got real low and crept those suckers and my paint and brush to the edge near my ladder that I had bungie strapped to a brace.
There was a guy on the sidewalk below and I begged him to help me. So I handed him down the MDO halves and he asked me what I was going to do with them. I said they were going into the dumpster. He said he would like to have them for some shelving for his garage and I told him to get them the hell out of my sight. And people wonder why I would rather sit in the shop and pinstripe trucks. M E R C Y!!!!!!!!!
-------------------- Bill Diaz Diaz Sign Art Pontiac IL www.diazsignart.com Posts: 2107 | From: Pontiac, IL | Registered: Dec 2001
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This is such a great post...it would make good reading in a book. I have had many adventures up in the air while painting signs, and fortunately they have all been safe ones. But I have had some close calls when I worked for other people servicing electric signs. Most of these were a direct result of equipment failure, but a few were weather-related.
One time I had a boom truck outstretched to the bottom of this high-rise sign, to where the service door was on the bottom. The thing was, you stood up on the boom's ladder, on the last rung, and stuck the upper half of your body into the sign, after which you hauled yourself and the tools, lamps, etc. up into the sign. I did this, and worked inside the sign for about 45 min. When I came to exit the sign, I realized the boom had leaked down about 5 feet. I panicked a little since I was by myself, 75 feet in the air, and the only way down was to jump that 5 feet. In addition to freefalling that distance, I would have to throw myself about a foot to one side, since the ladder was not lined up directly under the door.I didn't think anyone could hear me as the sign was at the far end of the parking lot, and the noise of the interstate would drown me out.I finally began to realize that in a few more minutes, the dang thing would be even further away, so I bit the bullet and jumped. I made it.
Never again will I work alone on anything that's up in the air like that.I've seen guys that knew what they were doing get hurt over some faulty equipment, so it pays to have a helper. I saw one guy get hurt..we were changing parking lot lights at a local hospital, with an aerial ladder. It had a basket on the end that flipped down when you extended the ladder, and flipped up as you brought the ladder in.We had the ladder extended to the bottom of these lights, and were taking turns working on them. My friend Jack was doing one, standing in the basket removing the large plastic globe that covers the bulbs, when the extension cable snapped. This cause the whole ladder to come in suddenly, flipping the basket up with Jack in it, as it slid down . Jack was lucky 'cause he landed on the ladder, but he slid down some of the rungs so hard he had a brushburn from his butt to his knee. Now that was scary, and I was on the ground !Also I have seen 2 other cases where a broken hydraulic line caused an aerial ladder to fall straight down...both instances caused fractures to the ones who were in the basket at the time.
Dan and others are right about inspecting equipment before using it...you get used to using certain things, and sometimes get complascent about really looking the stuff over, but it should be done at all times.
-------------------- Jeff Ogden 8727 NE 68 Terr. Gainesville FL, 32609 Posts: 2138 | From: 8827 NE 68 Terr Gainesville Fl 32609 | Registered: Aug 2002
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My nerves have gone just reading all these, especially that last one about jumping onto a ladder with crook hydraulics. I've had a few scary moments, nothing to compare with the ones above, but relettering a phone number 20 feet up a shed wall, standing on a pallet, held up by a forklift, which had crook hydraulics gave me the heeby-jeebees for a long while- every three minutes it would lurch 3" down and 1" forward (so it seemed) and bounce and shake while it recompressed. Then lurch again. By the end I was standing on an awful slope with the pallet only held up because it was leaning on the building. The driver eventually came back. Several lessons were learnt then. Next time, I got them to pull the sign off the wall for me.
-------------------- "Stewey" on chat
"...there are no limits when you aim for perfection..." Jonathan Livingston Seagull Posts: 7014 | From: Highgrove via Toowoomba, Queensland, Australia | Registered: Dec 2002
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Great post. I love these stories. Jeff, I'm still shuddering from your story. Jump or you'd still be there holdin' in your pee. I'm going to tell you what, my ladder hoppin', you know -- bouncin' your ladder over to get that extra couple feet, those days are over.
My last story isn't about me, but about a restaurant owner who wanted me to repaint an old "Hen House" sign along the interstate. This sign was about 125 feet up and would require a 200' crane. The guy was from Chicago and one of the new immigrants from some former Iron Curtain country. He was pushy and arrogant, but I politely told them I was not interested and did place a call to a shop in a larger town that might be interested. As luck would have it, I got the guy on the phone who put the sign up in the first place. He remembered the sign like it was yesterday and said in a hurry that he wasn't interested. He told me that in the flat countryside of Illinois with nothing to stop the winds, that when you get that high up you encounter a whole new set of winds. He remembered swinging around in a cage trying to weld and said there wasn't enough money on earth for him to do that again. I told the restaurant owner to get in the phone book and call around.
About 3 weeks later I was on a ladder 10' off the ground lettering a marquee on another restaurant, when I heard this guy yelling at me from below. It was this same guy wanting to know if I'd reconsider. He wanted to know what it would take 30grand, "what?" And why was I giving him the cold shoulder when I was brave enough to work on that ladder 10' off the ground. Seeing as though I had a paint brush in my hand and was gettin' irritated, I thought he was the brave one, but when he saw I wasn't going to do it , he said, "Fine, I'll just have to do it myself!"
A light bulb went off in my head, and I told him if he was willing to do that, then for a couple hundred dollars I'd make him a pounce pattern. He thought that was a good deal. I told him to take accurate measurements when he got up there to paint out the old sign and that nobody was going to fly up there to see if he stayed within the lines of the pattern. By God, he did it, but the funny thing is I laid the pattern out from a center line so if he was off with his measurements or placement he'd only be half off when he got near the edge. All he had to paint was the name "Chenoa", because "Family Restaurant" was on another sign below that. So if you ever travel I-55 southbound near Chenoa, IL, you'll see the "C" just barely made it on the sign, because the idiot didn't start from the center and work out. Can you imagine trying to handle sheets of paper 125' in the air. Serves the sucker right, I hope he learned a lesson.
[ January 22, 2004, 10:26 AM: Message edited by: Bill Diaz ]
-------------------- Bill Diaz Diaz Sign Art Pontiac IL www.diazsignart.com Posts: 2107 | From: Pontiac, IL | Registered: Dec 2001
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In 1992 we added window tinting to our services and in August we had our first big residential job to do... it was a custom cedar home and the living room had three sets of windows facing se, that were scorching the customers... July of that year i had cut the top of my hand badly and had it in a splint,(left hand thankfully). We had to set up three sets of scaffolding in the fellows living room, i hired a couple of guys to help and my wife did most of the tinting off a ladder, but when she got up on the scaffolding she froze,, so to get the job done, i crawled up and became a one armed tinter.... with the combination of heat killing me thru the window and dangling off an edge to squeege that last corner, it was all i could do to get it done.... man that check was nice....
-------------------- Del Badry philmdesign Sylvan Lake, Alberta Posts: 636 | From: Sylvan Lake, Alberta | Registered: Nov 1998
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My stomach feels woozy just reading these stories.
I guess it's my old age. Heights never used to bother me. I'd freak my Mom out climbing trees as high as I possibly could and running across the peak of the 2 story barn. Now I get freaked out on an 8' step ladder.
[ January 22, 2004, 01:25 PM: Message edited by: Terry Whynott ]
posted
We had four tiers of scaffolding set on a sidewalk and were working on this wallfrom ladders atop this stageing. Following completing the front wall, we decided to roll the scaffolding around to the side wall, however, there was a power pole in the sidewalk preventing the swing around the corner. We needed to move the stage out into the street and into the highway to a place where we could clear some power lines and then back up onto the sidewalk. We got it in place and there was nothing to tie off to on this slanting sidewalk. I climbed up with confidence and lowered a line down to pull up the box with our needed tools. Just then the whole thing shifted and snapped and I hit the deck. As I held on and appraised the situation, I found that when moving it over the curb, the tubes on the top section came off the pins and it was only held on by one pin. I decided to become weightless and levitate, but that did not work. After a while I climbed down very carefully and then went back up and re established the top section and completed the job.
Bill Stender gave me this story after I sent him some of these tales.....
hey rick,
those were chilling and hilarious. makes me remember a few close calls, standing high on an extension ladder strapped to a bucket to reach the top 6 feet of some 80 feet, the whole thing swaying like a thin branch. ugh
climbing to the top of a rolling scaffold that was preposterously high...to the roof of a hanger at Alameda Air station, how high is that? 100 feet?. that whole thing swayed like crazy,, not tied off to anything, just 4 wheels on a 4'x8' base i was petrified for quite a while, moving 1inch per 10 seconds or so. but by the time the job was over i was scampering around on it like it was solid ground.
my closest call to real pain was working a rolling scaffold on a 9th street factory wall, a sane 3 stages high, i had to compensate for the slope of the street by raising the levelers to the maximum and as i moved east i had to let them down a bit to be at the right height... it was all steel and cranking those levers was a lot of work, on one of the moves as i lowered the first leg, the weight came off of it so i spun the crank down to the target distance went to the next leg and as i was cranking, the weight started to shift over to the leg that was spun down. it would have kept on going right over landing on a brand new car parked right there and me being in my perpetual state of poverty at the time, without insurance, this was unacceptable and i grabbed and held it up with all my might. I was holding it up, arms extended and quivering, yelling for help but noone was anywhere on the street. i had no choice but to aim a foot at the crank and quickly kick at it. the successful kicks only only a moved it few degrees per kick. each kick took great effort and i'd have to wait and build up strength all the while knowing i was running out of strength. it took at least 10 minutes but i finally kicked it up far enough to carefully let off the pressure and it held. then i was able to use both hands to finish cranking it up to level so that i could collapse in exhaustion.
-------------------- The SignShop Mendocino, California
Making the simple complicated is commonplace; making the complicated simple, awesomely simple, that's creativity. — Charles Mingus Posts: 6720 | From: Mendocino, CA. USA | Registered: Nov 1998
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While working on a blast furnace in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, Ca. in the winter, I took the outside elevater to the top at night. I stepped out of the elevater in the dark onto a sheet of ice, went flat on my butt and slid through the railings, I was able to grab the lower rail that was covered in ice and dangled 200 feet in the air. Somehow???? I pulled myself back on the platform and crawled to the elevater. Did what I needed to do the next day.
-------------------- Ed CJ Williams CJ Graffx Christiana,Pa. cjgraffx@comcast.net Just have'n fun.... Posts: 296 | From: Christiana,Pa. | Registered: May 1999
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I'm with Terry on this one. I was never afraid of heights, didn't believe a roof existed that I would be afraid to crawl around on. But these stories are giving me the heeber-jeebers.
CJ, your story reminds me of a safety walk I took. But first, some histroy: When I was about 3, my grandpap was working swing-shift security. One day he went over to pick up his check & took me with him. The guard bldg was this old brick, very dimly lit bldg with a grating floor. I have no idea what was under there because when you looked down you could make out the grating, then total blackness. Scared me silly! I had nightmares about that place. Fast-forward 20+ years, I'm working a temp job at a power plant. To get to the parking area closest my bldg, you have to walk across a little grating bridge over the rushing cooling water out of the towers. It was January, so I just knew how cold that water had to be. Suddenly, those nightmares returned only this time they ran through my mind everytime I got to the bridge. The others I worked with laughed at me cause I'd stand at the top step waiting til everyone was off the other end & run across it.
Now, for my "Shock Treatment for my Irrational Fear of Grating" experience. I'm working another power plant construction job and I see all the shipments of grating coming in, but I don't think about it. Safety man asks if I want to go on his afternoon safety walk with him and I readily agree. I ain't afraid of heights, it was a georgous almost-hot spring day & I can't wait to see the view from the top. We get off the elevator on 13 or 14 and all I see below me is grating. I start screaming inside. We walk over to the edge and I hurriedly grab for the railing with a death grip. The view was awesome, but I couldn't get past the images of my falling & sliding through the railings or the grating just giving way below me. We walked around each floor and down the steps to the ground. As soon as my feet hit solid ground, I starting telling Norm of my fear of grating. He yelled at me for not telling him about it before hand, but I had totally forgotten about it til those elevator doors opened. Thanks CJ, you've just validated my other irrational fear from that day, sliding through the railings.
-------------------- Chris Welker Wildfire Signs Indiana, Pa Posts: 4254 | From: Indiana, PA | Registered: Mar 2001
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We were doing the launch marketing for the then new Marriott Marquis that was opening in Times Square. We we given a tour of the building while it was under construction. Some lower floors were nearing completion but the top floors were still just girders and cement floors. No walls. We took a construction elevator to the top floor (the elevator ride itself was scary as hell) When the doors opened, we all stepped out. Everyone began walking straight ahead but for some reason, I veered left. My writing partner grabbed me by the back of my jacket just before I stepped off a 57 story ledge. That was kinda, sorta scary.
-------------------- Mark Rogan The Great Barrington Sign Company 2 Stilwell Street, Great Barrington, MA 01230 mark@gbsignco.com
"Sometimes I think my head is so big because it is so full of fonts" Posts: 332 | From: Great Barrington, MA | Registered: Mar 2003
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Heights never seemed to bother me:jumped out of helicopters all the time in service, different heights, night, day, didn't matter(until 90'jump into 20'sawgrass almost killed me), so, once in Vegas, working for AdArt sign co, rebulbing the Frontier sign, the face was 65' from ground and had a steel "fence" around the entire sign, I used to hang like on a monkey-bar and hand over hand the whole way around the sign, 65' above ground, and thought nothing of it. Third day on job, was in bucket of crane truck doing side, when cable broke and all the stages started to collapse, as they ran down, one into another, the last stage hit and launched me over 100' thru air to land in bed of truck loaded with hay. After counting my lucky stars, I swore off high-work for-ever. No sense in pushing envelope any further. It was still a hell of a ride, can't say it scared me, just let me know, I need to calm down. What can I say? Old habits die hard.....lol
-------------------- Frank Magoo, Magoo's-Las Vegas; fmagoo@netzero.com "the only easy day was yesterday" Posts: 2365 | From: Las Vegas, Nv. | Registered: Jun 2003
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Frank, maybe you allready have a hundred times or more, but if you havn't, think about all the variables involved. The force of the lift, the trajectory, the position of the truck, and the fact that the truck driver could've made a wrong turn, stopped along the way for coffee, got a flat tire...man it just doesn't sound like coincidence.
-------------------- James Donahue Donahue Sign Arts 1851 E. Union Valley Rd. Seymour TN. (865) 577-3365 brushman@nxs.net
Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what's for lunch, Benjamin Franklin Posts: 2057 | From: 1033 W. Union Valley Rd. | Registered: Feb 2003
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I guess I should have also stated that this happened during rodeo week and the parking lot was filled w/trucks full of hay, I just happened to hit one. But point is well made, I made peace with God that day.
-------------------- Frank Magoo, Magoo's-Las Vegas; fmagoo@netzero.com "the only easy day was yesterday" Posts: 2365 | From: Las Vegas, Nv. | Registered: Jun 2003
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I wish someone else had started this thread, that way I wouldn't be reviving my own thread, but oh well. What brought this about is that I needed to come up with an action type comic picture for the webpage that describes a comic and cartoon class being taught to some homeschooled kids in the fall. As far as an idea goes, I've been "drawing a blank" (sorry).
One thing the teacher hopes to do is get the students interested in seeing heroes in everyday people, people making sacrifices, that sort of thing. I was hoping to get a picture of somebody doing something related to graphic arts. So I'm at work today, praying about an idea, and bingo! this thread comes to mind. So now, I'm thinking of a guy painting the name of the class (Action comic class) on a sign, above the Gulf of Mexico, with sharks swimming around below.
Most of all, thanks to everyone for the contributions, this is wild stuff.
-------------------- James Donahue Donahue Sign Arts 1851 E. Union Valley Rd. Seymour TN. (865) 577-3365 brushman@nxs.net
Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what's for lunch, Benjamin Franklin Posts: 2057 | From: 1033 W. Union Valley Rd. | Registered: Feb 2003
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I'm reminded of another one, Jake and Mike faig will know the location. I was repainting a sign on hwy 66, across from the smaller flea market. I had about 4 sections of scafolding assembled, and needed to complete the job the next day. The scaffolding was in a parking lot, but I ASSumed that if I ran a bunch of yellow tape and whatnots around it, people would see it. Yeah right. Next day I get this call, hey, a customer just backed into your scafolding, you might want to get here and do something.
OH great. I remember zooming the 15 or 20 miles from south Knoxville to Kodak like a race car driver, all the while having visions of the leaning tower of scafold falling on a tourist's Oldsmobile. I figured that if I got pulled over I would just tell the officer to put on his sirens and lead me to the emergency. Never did get stopped.
That was years ago, so my memory is sketchy. I think I fixed it up as best I could from the ground, then climbed up there to work on it. I do remember the snotty brat kid that made bawk-baw-w-w-wk chicken noises while I was up there.
I guess it would have been worse though, had I BEEN ON IT at the time of the accident.
-------------------- James Donahue Donahue Sign Arts 1851 E. Union Valley Rd. Seymour TN. (865) 577-3365 brushman@nxs.net
Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what's for lunch, Benjamin Franklin Posts: 2057 | From: 1033 W. Union Valley Rd. | Registered: Feb 2003
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I was up on a ladder about 20 ft off the ground taking down an old sign. Unbolted the sign and proceeded down the ladder with the sign, sliding it down the ladder, it weighed about 75lb. The rung I'm standing on breaks and I fly backwards the sign goes over my head to the ground, my ankles get caught in the rungs, I'm hanging upside down by my ankles, weighing 250 lbs I feel my ankles are about to crack. No one is around, to help me and I have about 12' from my head to the ground, so I push up to get my ankles out and fall to the ground upside down landing on my head and shoulder. Laid there for about 1/2 hour kind of dazed. Didn't break anything, but I don't climb ladders anymore without someone around. If I can I hire a monkey boy to do the ladder work or work out of the local electical contractors bucket truck.
-------------------- Silver Creek Signworks Dick Bohrer Two Harbors, MN Posts: 236 | From: Two Harbors, MN USA | Registered: Jun 1999
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I was climbing an eight foot step ladder the other day when I froze up and had to be rescued by the fire department. I'm scared of heights. Any heights. I don't even like being this tall.
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Well, I was helping my buddy paint on his house last weekend... it's all kinda foggy, I can't really remember what happened but here's a pic...
Seriously though, about the scariest heights thing for me was a couple years ago I installed a wifi antenna at the high school in Brewton, AL. It was mounted on a 20' pipe, that I mounted to the top of the 90' tall stadium lights... so the antenna ended up being around 105' above the ground...
Anyway, I had climbed up and down the concrete post a few times, and was noticing the metal pegs stuck into the post had liquid nails about the base of them. Also, the safety cable that runs down that you are supposed to attach your harness to was flopping in the breeze, the bottom bracket holding it had popped out...
So I was about halfway done, been up and down the pole about 3 times and the principal of the school comes out and is chatting with me.. He says.. "Yeah, we need to get them to come back and re-attach that safety cable... you know they delivered and set up these poles and lights and used bucket trucks. After they left, we noticed that didn't have any climbing pegs on the poles, so we told them we wouldn't pay until they put some on... they sent out a dude and he drilled and glued them on all the poles in one day, so I'm not too sure about them.."
Well, after that, all I could imagine was those climbing pegs being drilled about 3/4" into the concrete and what I was going to do if one popped out half way up the pole...
Went from about a 5 PSI to 200 PSI pucker job...
-------------------- Jon Jantz Snappysign.com jjantz21@gmail.com http://www.allcw.com Posts: 3395 | From: Atmore, AL | Registered: Nov 2005
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I was working on a polycarb face in front of a little strip mall sorta thing in Bloomington. I was up only about 12 or 15 feet in a bucket van, but I had to kinda weasel my way into position because of all the flags the used car dealership had up. It was real cold that day so I had my hat on and hood up so I was kinda focused in on the work in front of me. My sense of smell is not all that good (maybe from growing up in a sign shop), however I did catch a whif of something odd. When I turned to look down I saw FLAMES shooting out of the back of the van. It didn't matter how fast that boom could move it wasn't fast enough. I jumped out of it and tried to contain the fire until the fire department showed up. I was able to drive the van back to the shop, but it was pretty much toasted inside and ended up getting totaled.
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