GBP Cranes and Heavy Haulage have relied on Andromeda Industries’ innovative lifting solutions for 20 plus years. Eliott Jones, the Gunnedah Branch Manager for GBP Cranes explains more.
“I’ve been with the business for 20 years and over that time we’ve always utilised products from Andromeda Industries. It helps that they are only a town away, just north of Tamworth, and regional businesses tend to support each other whenever they can,” said Eliott.
“But we’ve always been impressed with the innovation, engineering and performance of Andromeda’s products, including the rubber products they offer.
“I work closely with Geoff Bower, Andromeda’s Customer Relationship Manager, and he’s frequently on the phone, talking about a new product or a refinement to an existing one. He brings these to the yard and we test and trial them for him and provide our feedback. We are always ordering products from Andromeda with the latest purchase being a series of soft steel webbing slings for a recent lift we had with a client.
“We had to lift a number of pre-assembled triangulated roof trusses, which were 10t in weight and the client wanted all of the roof sheeting to remain on the trusses. Roof sheeting would not have allowed the use of soft slings around the lacings as there was a real danger of them cutting, and they didn’t want chains to go around the lacings either, so we had to find another solution. I rang Geoff and we had a brief phone conversation and determined the soft steel webbing slings would be ideal and so we went down that road.”
GBP Cranes purchased four of the four-tonne capacity slings which were used in a basket configuration around the lacing on the trusses, equating to eight tonne capacity per leg.
“10.5t was the heaviest lift on that project and the soft steel webbing slings proved to be the ideal solution to lifting the roof trusses. We’ve used them a couple of times since for our own purposes, not wanting to run the risk of abrasions on nylon soft slings, and they’ve been really useful,” said Eliott.
“Andromeda’s design and manufacturing processes generate very clever technology. The way the slings are woven provides an end product that is incredibly gentle to the product it is lifting, but being steel, it has the strength and all the advantages of large lifting capacity, without there being any danger of tearing or cutting. I was surprised with the flexibility of them.
“Part of today’s conversation is about a sustainable lifting industry which includes the reuse of lifting systems. These slings are totally reusable, and the life span is significant, whereas synthetic slings are often used for a one-off lift and then sent for landfill,” said Eliott.
He said GBP Crane was recently exposed to the Andromeda Dean-0 Sling.
“Geoff bought a Dean-0 Sling over, asking us to trial it and give him our feedback. This sling had a capacity of 80t, and we put it to work straight away on a project where we were building a mining excavator for a client.
“We used it in place of what would be two rings and a shackle to go back from a ram head to a single point, and it worked fantastically well,” said Eliott.
The Dean-0 Sling is a specially designed sling produced by Andromeda Industries to provide a single lifting point under Ramshorn Hooks on large cranes. These slings can be made very short and creates a single point load to be attached and still maintain centreline loading.
Unbalanced loads can cause the Ramshorn Hooks to skew on the rig centreline, potentially damaging the block assembly and wire rope. Andromeda manufactures the Dean-0 Sling in capacities ranging from 11.0t up to 165.0t.
“Geoff and the team are always prepared to listen and will come up with solutions to any lifting problems we might have,” said Eliott.
“Some years ago, we had a major project where we had to transfer some large transformers from a yard. Andromeda designed some large capacity steel cables which made the job much easier for us to complete the project safely and efficiently.”
The relationship between GBP Cranes and Andromeda predates Eliott’s time with the business.
“Before his untimely passing, Stuart Grosser used to work with Andromeda’s founder Raymond Maclaren so the relationship between our organisations goes back probably 30 years.
“Over this time, the products designed and manufactured by Andromeda have remained of the highest quality, and they continue to engineer innovative lifting solutions for the industry,” said Eliott.