stupid apprentice tricks

[BULLogna]

no names please.
A Lineman (KK) I know was up a pole mounting an arm, he noticed the arm was not in line. He called down for his somewhat new apprentice to give some right hook and went back to work. he turned to see the cant hook hanging from the hand line ready for him to use. He yelled down that he was good but not that good.....

[mainline]

I once watched a grunt for a local contractor press a full sherman&reilly spyder reel over his head to a guy in the bucket. They have to weigh 100 to 120 pounds. I thought he was going to give himself a hernia. The really stupid part was the "journeyman" was in a material handling bucket with a winch. Common sense isn't that common.

[west coast hand]

You can't be sirius about using a can hook at 25 feet up the pole swampy are you??? WHY AM I SUPRISED WITH THE THING YOU SAY

[Special ED]

Ive used the crossarm and bull rope to cant a pole. Also used two bull ropes and 2 rock bars for the same thing after an ape would plum a pole and have the gains the wrong way.

As far as the cant hook being used in the air. I watched and old timer do that once and by gosh he pulled it off. Looked like a monkey screwin a football but he pulled it off.

[BULLogna]

There was a cub in climbing school that was given the task of resagging secondary and using a automatic splice. he called for the splice took it out of the line then fumbled around for a while. then he called for a new splice. the journeymen all scratched there heads wondering what he did with the first splice. the ape sent his klines down with an automatic firmly stuck on the handle.

[wtdoor67]

Hell I can give you plenty of bone headed things I've seen so called "Journeymen" do.

Here's just a few. I bet other people can think of plenty.

Knots and splicing to name a few. Saw a "Journeyman" once who didn't know how to use a wedge grip. Once we intended to replace a transformer with a larger pot. For no outage it was decided to just place the new pot on the back side of the old pot and parallel them. The "Journeyman" in seriousness asked the foreman if it was necessary to hook the new pot to the same phase as the old one. Saw one once who had one hell of a time putting on an ordinary guy preform on a downguy. He wondered why they did away with 3 bolt clamps.

I for one can never recall doing anything wrong. Maybe a few cross phases here and there, but who remembers them? Just a little flash.

[Pootnaigle]

Many years ago whenI was an ape, I was making up several services off the pole using ampacts, I had fired the first un and didnt hear the gas release but that didnt deter me I just unscrewed the breech cap on that gun and lo and behold the shell shot out at supersonic speed and bullseyed my reproductive organs. I learned from that painful misteak. Had to stay up there hurtin like hell and finish so the customers would have lites.

[Special ED]

Worst I had was an ape with his brand new klines and some 20 M guy wire he thought was 1/0 ACSR.

I needed a piece of 1/0 about 5 foot long and asked him to grab some and cut it so I could make up a jumper. He mistakingly grabbed the 20M guy wire and his klines and tried to cut it and he was squeezing till he was blue in the face cause he has seen me cut 1/0 with klines one handed. I'm up in the air and see him and I thought he had the 1/0 so I was just laughing my ass off while he set there with his klines in the vice grip mounted on the back of the truck with the 20m in them and his hammer in his hands beating them closed to cut it. Needless to say he cut the 20m and ruined his klines only to have the wrong wire and felt like an idiot. But I was generous enough to let him use my hot cutters to cut the 1/0 ACSR though.

[mainline]

I remember being warned about an open secondary connector while installing a street light. I said yeah yeah I see it. Then I stuck the streetlight into. It make a big bark, I soiled my drawers, and the lineman I was owrking with got a good laugh. I didn't do the yeah, yeah again then though.

[Special ED]

I have yet to see an Ape not have one of them "Yeah Yeah" moments... lol

[MEGA81]

I just finished my first week as an apprentice. Having alot of fun and working my ass off. Just trying to watch , learn, and keep the damn trucks and jobsites cleaned up. I had to staple a bunch ground wire to the poles we set and stapled the first wire on all the way down to butt of the pole.DOH!! I came through a lineman school and we never stapled ground wire( material cost I guess) my foreman told me i should get my damn money back. I am a 2nd step, and on mon have to climb up and tie wire in. I will keep you guys posted on my battle with the armor rods...damn I hate those things.

[wtdoor67]

Armor rods are actually easy to put on. Same principal as a preform guy wrap. Try putting them on a hot line with sticks. Putting them on a dead line with leather gloves , easy.

[MEGA81]

Wrapping them on to the wire is not the bad part for me. Its building the damn things before they go on. I can do it, but I aint fast at it.

[wtdoor67]

You don't have to pre-form them to put them on dead.

[MEGA81]

Thanks for the heads up. Now I can say I learned something this weekend.

[BULLogna]

Try hittin with a touch of wd40 befor you make um up on the ground.

[johnbellamy]

Really.
What, you put em on one at a time?:p or are you one of those guys that can take a bundle, and twist em all on at once?

I saw a guy do that once.
Slicker than shit.

Never could do that. Had to make mine up on the ground first, in 2 bundles.

Hell, before "preforms", I've installed Armor Rod, where ya had to "Clip both ends", cause they weren't "Preformed Click type".

You sure you ain't 79.

[johnbellamy]

In these parts, soft aluminum, works good on fences, (tie wires), Those little clips, got to use hot cutters to cut em off, but it sure comes off easy.

[BULLogna]

Really.
What, you put em on one at a time?:p or are you one of those guys that can take a bundle, and twist em all on at once?

I saw a guy do that once.
Slicker than shit.

Never could do that. Had to make mine up on the ground first, in 2 bundles.

Hell, before "preforms", I've installed Armor Rod, where ya had to "Clip both ends", cause they weren't "Preformed Click type".

twistin on allat once works well for me until I get above 2/0 wire then I like um prefit in two or three pieces when you do um all at once if you spray a little wd40 on you can take a skin knife set on on end and tap with a hammer and they slide to even them up.

[Trbl639]

Really.
What, you put em on one at a time?:p or are you one of those guys that can take a bundle, and twist em all on at once?

I saw a guy do that once.
Slicker than shit.

Never could do that. Had to make mine up on the ground first, in 2 bundles.

Hell, before "preforms", I've installed Armor Rod, where ya had to "Clip both ends", cause they weren't "Preformed Click type".

Swamp.......

You ever used that aluminum flat ribbon instead of rods?? worked for a co-op that loved that crap:( that crap is a pain!!!

have used #4 pre-form secondary dead ends for armor rod, on #4ACSR..........when we didn't have any........just cut the bail off and wrap em, works real good on swinging angle shoes:):) same trick works good when ya got a strand or two of ACSR broke, and don't want to mess with sleevin it or don't have a sleeve.......

[Trbl639]

Had a job once to replace 5 or 6 poles in the oil patch...4/0 copper, all the arms were rotten, and we couldn't kill it........and the ground was rotten.......the oil company brought in a D8 and a big Sled........we put the dbl bucket and digger on the sled, and while we were setting one pole the cat was dragging the others in......anyway we finished, and was waiting on the cat to come drag us back out to hard ground, my ape crawled in the digger, took the pto out, and reached over to do something, and knocked the dang tranny in reverse....mico brake didn't hold..........off the sled they went!!!!!

By the time we got that thing back on the sled, the pintle hook on the back of the bucket was screwed...the winch bumper on my digger was screwed, winch too.....back end of my digger was screwed from the cat pushin while we was winchin........and I had to drive 10 mph pulling the pole trailer for 45 miles to get back to the yard.....over that, and ya couldn't keep it in the road.........I never let him drive my digger again!!!!!!

I took a trbl truck and he was 4th year, and was driving the dbl bucket following the digger and pole trlr.....the digger stopped,the bucket didn't!!!!
ran the tongue pole thru the air compressor on the bumper and thru the gril and radiator!!!!!

It wasn't a year later, he had topped out and was running trbl, looking for an address.....ran another dbl bucket under a 9ft 9inch railroad overpass/tressel..totaled that truck but it was a loaner and was fixin to be swapped out anyway..........but he wasn't working for us after than one!!!!! Funny thing about it, he was born and raised in that town, and knew the overpass was too low for any of our rigs!!!!!!

[wtdoor67]

Yeah, always put them on all at once most of the time, especially if we had a lot of it to do. Never put them on anything bigger than 477 mcm I don't think. I think it's more technique than anything. Had a GF once who could slap a whole set of 795 rods on in a breeze all at once. At least the other hands vouched for him. I never saw it, but I expect he could.

Actually those damn steel preforms you rodded on static wire were kinda tough all at once. You just had to keep at them and after a structure or 2 it was pretty easy. They had an old hand once who was good at it and some of the guys slipped a couple of extra rods into his set. He worked and tusseled with them and finally got them all on in good shape. No body told him they had done this, but everybody had a good chuckle.

Used an all steel fargo wrench to bump the ends all even so they would look purty.

[powerhotdog]

talkin about armor tape. We used a bunch of it at a coop in Al.

[Special ED]

I thought the armor rods were easy to put on.. Take a set and put it together in two halves. Then take one half on the front of the conductor and start wraping it. Then take the other half and put the middle of it to the middle of the have already installed on the backside of the conductor and it falls right into place.

Had one ape on a de-energized job on units who took the time to install them one at a time.. Needless to say that line boss flipped his lid when it took him half a day to get 10 3 phase poles done.

[Special ED]

Speaking of armor tape being a pain in the ass.. Do any of you still use the old copper splices that consisted of a copper sleeve you insert both ends of the wire in then you have to take two wrenches and twist the splice wrapping the conductors together?

[wtdoor67]

I have used them Ed. They don't use them anymore I don't think. Both Alum. and Cu.

[Trbl639]

talkin about armor tape. We used a bunch of it at a coop in Al.


Yep!! That's it!! Hate it...but we don't use it, but still got some of the old crap in the air around here!!!

[Trbl639]

Speaking of armor tape being a pain in the ass.. Do any of you still use the old copper splices that consisted of a copper sleeve you insert both ends of the wire in then you have to take two wrenches and twist the splice wrapping the conductors together?

Have done it before...but a Long Long time ago!!! still got 1 of the wrenches somewhere........there's a bunch of em on sale on ebay:D

[Chris]

We call putting the armor rods on without making them up first fanning. My old foreman showed me a really good way to fan them on but unfortunately I forgot. I can make up rods pretty fast though. The worst ones are #4. After many sets my hands ache. Bigger is better except for .477 and above. I'd teach you how to do it, but it's harder to explain it than it is to learn it.

We use the aluminum tape here for neutral dead ends. Wrap a 4 inch section of the wire where it hits the spool and clamp the wire with 412's.

Now for the trickery...

I suppose by now most people in line work have seen the star baskets that you put guy wire in? Well me and my ground hand put a roll of 3/8 guy wire in one and got it ready for a guy to be rolled out. We 2 man lifted it on the truck and headed out. When we got to a pole that needed a guy I hollered down for him to pull one off. I go about my business of drilling the hole when I noticed that he threw it off the truck and took it out of the star. "WHAT THE F$#@ ARE YOU DOING? You don't have to take it out of the star." "How am I supposed to get it out?"

My old apprentice and I had a line gutted up and were spreading some 3 phase. The phase in question was a little close to the pole so the gut needed to be left on the line. He's got it in his jib and puts it on the pole and asks "Do you want me to tie it to the pole?" I thought he was just joking with me so I start laughing and looked up. Dead seriousness was on his face and realized that he wasn't joking. "No man. We don't."

[Trbl639]

I guess I worked for some "high falootin" outfits.;) Never did any of those "twistin" connections.

Actually, the only memory I've got of those splices is seein the phone guys, occasionally us one. I thought those went out with "Telagraph"!:D

I was brought up with the "Niko press"....which is a dyin thing.

Nowdays, I don't know bout ya'll, but our guys can't KEEP copper groundwire on the pole anymore!! Ya put it up one day....it's been stolen the next day. Copper is just too expensive, so it's a "stealable" commodity.

What's ya'll's companys doin about Pole groundwire theft? Are any of ya experienceing any of that?

It's Rampid here in Florida.

Ya'll havin this problem at all?

Thieves stealing copper ground wire.....man you got to be joking:D:D We're having trouble keeping it in the yards and on the trucks, on the poes, in the air........been 3 people I think killed in this part of the country stealing it...bad ain't the word!!!!!! When ya go to a sub around here, better have your rubbers on when ya unlock the gate!! had a trblmn go to a sub that didn't have SCADA, to check on a voltage problem a customer was having, before he got out of the truck, he noticed smoke coming from the sta house.........somebody had stolen/cut all the 4/0 grds on the steel and the grid came out of the ground and hit the steel.......if he'd touched the fence, he'd been a goner!!!! had a big sub in Little Rock get hit last week...like $20k estimated damage.........Yeah Swamp it's bad down here too!!!

nico tools are dying, and so are MD-6 tools..we're using battery tools.......love em..sure easier on the old shoulders than poppin the handles........ya ever called the nico tool an XPJ tool???

[IN THE SHADOWS]

As for "Stealin Copper wire". It's GOT to be a bigger problem than anybodys lettin on, or talkin about.

Be interesting to hear anybody else's storys from round the country.

Been having a rash of copper thefts again here in Western Oregon. Tweakers are cutting through fences and stealing all the grounds in the subs. The smarter ones are leaving the transformers grounded..the dumber ones are takin em all ....at a risk of an ugly death on the last one

There even starting to shove URD padmounts off their pads just far enough to get to the ground wires and cutting them too. No corpses found lately, but its just a matter of time.

[Trbl639]

You're breakin my heart here man!:( Now you're doin away with my MD-6!! My "Pop TOOL"!!!

"Battery tools"? Damn, I was happy with Hydralic!! You must work for a rich Corp!

Shit, rat contractors won't have those for Years!!!
Tell me about a "Battery Pop tool....PLEASE!! Seriously.
I'm in the dark on that shit.....Teach me.



There's a bunch of em out there...Greenlee...Burndy...Cembre....all of em work about the same...they are hydraulic, just use a battery to run the 'ram' in or out to make the squeeze.........

I've got the Burndy Patriot tool........the end, looks just like the 'pop' tool, and got a handle with a battery with a trigger.......mash the trigger and it squeezes, you can tell when it has finished the squeeze, cause it pops off, just like the regular hydraulic tools did/do, except ya got another trigger to mash to open the jaws back up........the Patriot tool I've got is a 6 ton, and will work on up to 4/0, got the 'O' die in the nose and 'D' die in the back, just like the MD-6.it's a little heavy, but not bad, and I Love it!!!! If we'd had these 30 years ago, our shoulders wouldn't be so worn out now!!! I used the old pop tool today, for the first time in a long time.....had 1 bad connection at a weatherhead, and was too lazy to crawl up in the bucket to get it:D Unless the battery dies on me, and I've only got a couple of squeezes left to make, I drop down and get a 'hot' battery, and go back up...hey, I get paid by the hour!!!

Talked to a Cembre (www.cembre.com) Sales guy the other day, he's sending us one of their Battery tools (14.4V) to try, will squeeze up to 1250 Al & 1500 Cu, and weighs only 22 pounds...also has a cord, so you can run it off the truck battery!!

At the WCLR, there was a Brand new Burndy tool that was just put on the market, for ampacts!!!! No more misfires:):) It'll take em off too!!!

And we also has a Robo Tool from Aircraft Dynamics, that is a battery Impact tool!!!!!

There's some neat stuff coming out, if the powers to be will spend the money!! Our outfit is all into Ergonomics, so they are buying some of the new stuff, that's why we got the Battery squeeze tools.......some crews have em, but just about all Trblmn have a Patriot or a Gator (Greenlee) tool!!!! I think the Patriot is around $1400, and cembre's little tool (like the Patriot, and is lighter, is about $1800!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[BigClive]

some crews have em, but just about all Trblmn have a Patriot or a Gator (Greenlee) tool!!!! I think the Patriot is around $1400, and cembre's little tool (like the Patriot, and is lighter, is about $1800!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

A good example of a tool that costs more than a defibrillator.

Just thought I'd pop that one in.........

[Chris]

Y35 for the win! I freaking hate that tool. :)

Break ins on the co-ops around here. The guys are having to take all copper off trucks at night and most of them have cameras. They still get hit.

I think this thread got off track some.

[Trbl639]

A good example of a tool that costs more than a defibrillator.

Just thought I'd pop that one in.........

I hear ya Brother!! The Battery tools are ERGONOMIC, which is the latest and Greatest around here!! I have noticed the Defibrillators on the wall at our Training/Skills Center, and saw a one on one of our Transmission crews truck the other day, while working Storm Restoration, after a tornado.........but have yet to see one on any of our distribution crew trucks or Trouble/Service trucks..........I figure it won't be long, before we get em........It's a great Tools to have, just hope we never need to use it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Trbl639]

Hey Swamp........

Ain't forgot ya , about the Battery tools.....will try to remember to post a picture for ya.........went back to work 2 weeks ago, and spent the last week picking up the pieces after bad t-storms/high winds and tornadoes, at home, and out of town!!!!! Arkansas has had way too many tornadoes this year, and the people have suffered way too much!!!!!!

[markwho]

Hi Guys, I can't think of any funny ape stories. One comes to mind but it wasn't funny. We had a fellow up in a double bucket with a lineman changing out an blown arrester. The arrester blew the ground clear, not sure if the guts blew or not but the apprentice pushed the ground back up to the arrester to see if the wire would still reach. There was a flash and the recloser operated once. They were working in front of a gas station and there was a fellow offloading a tanker, he yelled up that if you are going to keep doing that he was going to move the truck. Fortunately no one was hurt , just a jump start on the tan.We have been using battery operated presses for a few years now.


We started out with the "gator", I think they are 5 ton. We have one 10 or 12 ton husky and recently we received a 6 ton Husky which is pretty nice, a little heavier than the gator but it has a "d" die in the back and "bg" in the front which is nice for doing service work. Slap a set of "o" dies in the back for your neutral connection and use the "bg" for insulinks. For me in addition to saving my shoulders and elbows is they are so much easier to use off of ladders and for other awkward positions. Also great for urd repairs, you don't have to dig a wide ass trench to fit the tool in there. We have one crew leader not much older than I who doesn't like using them though, he won't even get it for the lineman. You want it you have to get it yourself ask for a press and you get the md-6. You would think after 30 yrs of putting the handles together it would make you strong as hell. It just seems to get harder! Another thing the older guys need to realize is for some of us we have used these tools our whole career. I just came off the service truck after 4 yrs and know for a fact I would be a hurtin fool without these new presses.


When I first started we used nico presses but for some reason they went by the wayside. We recently went back to them for small cu. wire. We call it a 2-4-6 press.