Any Heavy Equipment Operators here?

[PbHurler]

Our local news affiliate ran a story about someone stealing crane weights and had video of the perp's in action. My question is: Do these steel boxes contain lead? I only ask because what would one do with crane weights, other than use them for a crane? Now if they contain lead ingots...:Bright idea: (not condoning their actions here)

[Jim]

I've seen 'em made of lead inside steel boxes, concrete and thick steel plates.

[Beau Cassidy]

I once saw a 2400 lb lead crane weight at the scrap place. I would imagine they can be made of anything of weight.

[41 mag fan]

Heavy equipment operator here. But all the equipment I operate is underground. No cranes though, but currently I run a Getman road grader, on the main roads we use underground, or a getman fith wheel tractor, or a Sandvik diesel scoop, and the list goes on.
I have weights on the front for weight and stability, but they're steel plates.
Underground coal mines are hard on equipment, everything is made of thick 1/2" and thicker steel. If not it's a crumples mess from tight areas to manuever in, or a nice rock fell out of the top and damaged it.

[starmac]

Most of them are steel, but I guess someone could fill a box with lead, but never seen it.
If a guy is steeling crane weights without a crane, DON'T mess with him.

[429421Cowboy]

The heavy "suitcase" weights for the front of tractors or wheelweights for the rear tires to add traction (not the kind that we make boolits out of) are generally cast iron to save on cost. Kinda wish they might be made out of lead though, any farm auction you go to usually sells a whole set for less than $50. Most of the cranes i see my family that work in construction seem to use water tanks for weight to make transportation so i can't say as to what the metal ones are made of.

[BD]

I'm familiar with a small selection of mobile cranes in the 40 to 110 ton range. All of the counterweights on the dozen or so cranes I've worked around have been iron or steel, and you'd need a forklift or maybe a tow truck to steal them The littlest ones weigh 500 pounds and two of them are in a steel "bucket" on the rear of the crane cab, well off the ground. The midsize cranes, like the 80 ton Terrex in the picture have the crane weights structurally incorporated. Bigger cranes have a tractor trailer, or two, that carry the counterweights to the site where the crane loads them onto itself. The one in the pic is loading them. They go up under the area with the yellow "caution" sticker. I think it would be a major project to steal them.

[Guesser]

Lead has pretty much disappeared from being used as counter wights in lift trucks, cranes, loaders, etc. lead is a haaaazzzzzzzzzzzaaaarrrrrrd, as we have all been told many, many, many times by those that don't want us to have any of it. I was field service for a major Cat dealer and later Nissan Industrial, lead started being phased out as a counter weight material in the early 80's. Still lots of old equipment out there that is heavily (pun) contaminated with lead based weights. The big old Bucyrus Erie cranes and drag lines had a lot of lead in them.

[jim147]

My loader has a huge chunk of cast iron for a counter weight. No lead but with metal prices up it's worth $75-100.

jim

[geargnasher]

I just scrapped an ancient Jeep truck (complete) with some extra junk in the bed, made over $500 and the local yard came and hauled it off for me. That was at 11 cents/lb, I could have gotten 13 if I'd hauled it another 60 miles myself, but it was more trouble than it's worth. Scrap iron is valuble if you have a few thousand pounds of it.

Gear

[camaro1st]

crawler crane oper. here and most counterweights are steel. ansi standards require factory weights. most cranes that had lead weights are out of service in the industy. before osha started getting serious about the fines i can remember homemade concrete weights. any way you look at it though those weights are heavy and a scrappers dream of a easy score.

[waksupi]

I worked for Linkbelt-Speeder 35+ years ago. All weights were cast iron.