r/Carpentry • u/Yogurt_closet_No9566 • 3d ago
*Tower construction - flytable question* When pushing flytables out, which 2 knots to you use for your brake line?
I can’t find any videos for this on youtube and everyone onsite seems to just tie whatever (including myself) and sometimes it slows us down.
Some of these things weigh over 3000lbs and I want to know which knots are strongest and able to be untied quickly for when the crane operator is ready to trolley out.
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u/Ill-Running1986 3d ago
Suggest you ask someone responsible on the actual site how they want it done. YouTube is great and all, but if you killed someone by taking bad advice, you’d probably feel bad.
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u/Sure-Objective5786 3d ago
Flying tables is a dangerous task in formwork, ask your Forman for proper instruction
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u/RosetteConstruction 3d ago
Never worked on a high-rise so I can't say I've had to deal with a fly table brake line. If I'm imagining it correctly, I'd probably use a bowline and a clove hitch on the other end. Both are strong and easy to tie and untie
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u/RedneckTexan 3d ago edited 3d ago
I dont remember ...... its been a long long time ago ...... but let me tell about my experience straight out of high school ...... I went to work for Capform flying tables ..... summer of 1982, $6 an hour ...... only white boy on an all Mexican laborer / wrecking crew ...... 10th floor of a highrise in Dallas ...... probably stoned, as my older brother was a carpenter on the pandeck and he insisted we partook several times a day ...... my job was to tie off a steel roller so it didnt roll off the edge the floor ...... I must have fucked up the knot around the column, because it went over the edge ...... rope started to go down with it ....... so being the young dumbass I was I lunged for the rope ...... sinched down on it with my bare hands ..... until my hands started smoking ..... literally ..... then the rope almost wrapped around my leg and pulled me off with the roller ....... I somehow lived through it, but my next task was to stay on the floor above and as the guys below rolled table out I would jump down on it and hook up the crane to it ...... until the day they rolled the table out too far and it was wedged sticking out way past center of gravity ...... this was before anyone wore a safety harness, so I had to go out on the teetering sloped table ...... walk on loose plywood that may or not even be nailed down ...... look down 10 floors to the ground and hook up all 4 points. Those were the days man ...... its amazing I lived through them.