What's up guys,
So today was another great day in the life of an apprentice. We had some safety meetings until 10am in paxton illinois ~ so usually we don't get as much as we'd like to get accomplished on days that we have meetings but that wasn't the case today! We have eight more single phase poles out east of Bismark Illinois, about 8 miles from Indiana. I actually took some really good photos today, I wanted to try and show you guys what it's like to clip in/tie in copper conductors/wire. The poles have 6a copper weld as the wire size and they are old ratty poles from the late 30's. I took a few photos of some of the arms and I wanted to show you what a pole looks like after lighting strikes, can do some serious damage. I cant say how these poles have been this way, but it's time they are getting changed out!
Okay, so we arrived at the show up at 11:45 am, loaded up 8, 40 foot class 5 poles and sat down for lunch at high noon. My foreman then called dispatch and set us up with a one shot so if by some freak of nature we got into the primary wire it would only take one shot or hit to knock that circuit out. Have you ever been at home and the lights come on and off three times within a couple of seconds? Well that's because the reclousers are trying to clear what-ever is causing the fault. Sometimes a limb/tree branch will fall on the phase and the reclouser will try up to three times to clear that branch. Anyways, a little off the subject but that's what the flickering lights mean. Um, what next....well we headed out to the country road where these poles were flagged by our engineer. I set up on the first pole and laid the phase out in a hot arm, I did that to give up enough room to slide the new pole in between the phase and the neutral without making contact. I went down the line and laid out several poles since we were running a little behind schedule. We set a total of 5 new poles and wrecked out three more. We had to re-span all of the new poles so we won't pull the old poles until later on. I took a few photos that I hope will show you how to handle copper wire ~ how to tie them in and so on. There's a different way to tie the primary verses the neutral. You want to make two ties before you go up, you'll need your rubber gloves on to tie in the primary wire, and what you want to do is take your tie and twist it like your screwing in a light bulb and make three small wraps or buttons as we in the trade call them, then twist the wire out about three long wraps followed by three more buttons. And when you tie in the neutral wire you want to wrap your clevis spool with one side of the tie going under the wire and one going over the wire, you'll make one button, wrap the tie two to three times and then make three tight buttons on each side. This will keep the wire nice and tight, you just don't want to cross the ties b/c that could the tie to become weak and break.
Anywho, we did stay alittle late tonight ~ about two hours and that has put my blog a little behind but I have took the day off of work tomorrow to attend a Lineman's Rodeo as I have previously mentioned about. I will try and post some pics and tell you how I do. My fingers are crossed but I hate climbing in front of people that I know and well my better half is going down with me so let's hope that I don't fall:)
Talk to you guys later, wish me luck!
l8ter,
hurtman dan.....
So today was another great day in the life of an apprentice. We had some safety meetings until 10am in paxton illinois ~ so usually we don't get as much as we'd like to get accomplished on days that we have meetings but that wasn't the case today! We have eight more single phase poles out east of Bismark Illinois, about 8 miles from Indiana. I actually took some really good photos today, I wanted to try and show you guys what it's like to clip in/tie in copper conductors/wire. The poles have 6a copper weld as the wire size and they are old ratty poles from the late 30's. I took a few photos of some of the arms and I wanted to show you what a pole looks like after lighting strikes, can do some serious damage. I cant say how these poles have been this way, but it's time they are getting changed out!
Okay, so we arrived at the show up at 11:45 am, loaded up 8, 40 foot class 5 poles and sat down for lunch at high noon. My foreman then called dispatch and set us up with a one shot so if by some freak of nature we got into the primary wire it would only take one shot or hit to knock that circuit out. Have you ever been at home and the lights come on and off three times within a couple of seconds? Well that's because the reclousers are trying to clear what-ever is causing the fault. Sometimes a limb/tree branch will fall on the phase and the reclouser will try up to three times to clear that branch. Anyways, a little off the subject but that's what the flickering lights mean. Um, what next....well we headed out to the country road where these poles were flagged by our engineer. I set up on the first pole and laid the phase out in a hot arm, I did that to give up enough room to slide the new pole in between the phase and the neutral without making contact. I went down the line and laid out several poles since we were running a little behind schedule. We set a total of 5 new poles and wrecked out three more. We had to re-span all of the new poles so we won't pull the old poles until later on. I took a few photos that I hope will show you how to handle copper wire ~ how to tie them in and so on. There's a different way to tie the primary verses the neutral. You want to make two ties before you go up, you'll need your rubber gloves on to tie in the primary wire, and what you want to do is take your tie and twist it like your screwing in a light bulb and make three small wraps or buttons as we in the trade call them, then twist the wire out about three long wraps followed by three more buttons. And when you tie in the neutral wire you want to wrap your clevis spool with one side of the tie going under the wire and one going over the wire, you'll make one button, wrap the tie two to three times and then make three tight buttons on each side. This will keep the wire nice and tight, you just don't want to cross the ties b/c that could the tie to become weak and break.
Anywho, we did stay alittle late tonight ~ about two hours and that has put my blog a little behind but I have took the day off of work tomorrow to attend a Lineman's Rodeo as I have previously mentioned about. I will try and post some pics and tell you how I do. My fingers are crossed but I hate climbing in front of people that I know and well my better half is going down with me so let's hope that I don't fall:)
Talk to you guys later, wish me luck!
l8ter,
hurtman dan.....
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