One for Ivan Cloherty

[Bill Morrison]

I was searching through Ebay for manuals on JONES CRANES and as it was in search all mode this came up. Toys and models. When I saw the one for a Priestman grab I thought of Ivan but you would require a crane to operate it, found one for the job. Ivan you could have a few hours of fun operating it.
I had hours of hard graft repairing the them. The cranemen could grab more than the cargo.
Bill.

[Ivan Cloherty]

Bill, when I was operating my own company I did have those two models, but never played with them, they were among scores of models of construction and salvage equipment presented to me by various companies I did business with. Priestmans went out of business as they wouldn't move with the times when customers wanted customised grabs, they would only offer what was in their portfolio, but cranes and operating modes were changing at a rapid pace. I believe an Australian company bought the rights to all their grabs, old fashioned designs, but they did the job and easy to repair. A small UK company also had the right to build some models, but didn't last long, again because of an unwillingness to adapt design to customer requirements. Cranes are too expensive and sophisticated to have grabs that are 'near to' what what was required to meet designed productivity. You have a good memory.

When I retired and moved I didn't have room for all my models, and as my daughters had no use for them they went to auction, the models, not the daughters

[j.sabourn]

Talking of grabs brings back memories of some of the mail I received from various people after the Piper Alpha disaster wanting to run it. Past me to get my views on . One who Obviously thought of the money he could make if could get a proto type passed and get the licence for. His was an electric crane of small design fitted with a harness and able to pull a survivor out of the water. My reply was to get real , it would take at least two men to work such if it was feasible , those same two men working independently would have the capability’s of saving double the amount of people without fathing around with a crane , and were 2 men that the ship would never have . The whole point as far as I was concerned in the P.A .situation was lack of crew members . People save people not fanciful machines in some people’s minds , and told him he was seeking advice from the wrong person and to approach the ship owner, who maybe would compliment him if he thought he could cut back further on crew..So hope that was at least one personnel grab that never reached the drawing board. Some of these letters if could read would bring tears of laughter if it was a laughing matter. It shows mans competence to always be there if there is money to
make . Small compensation to the 167 deaths that had to be explained , and to me was never explained satisfactory and truthfully, JS

[Des Taff Jenkins]

Back around the 80s or 90s my brother worked for a wrecking Company pulling down large buildings, they need a bucket for one machine, but couldn't find one, his boss booked them both on a flight to Japan, they landed there looked around some companies couldn't find one there so flew back the next day, then they found one in Cardiff. MY brother said he never even saw Japan. LoL
Des

[Ivan Cloherty]

Back around the 80s or 90s my brother worked for a wrecking Company pulling down large buildings, they need a bucket for one machine, but couldn't find one, his boss booked them both on a flight to Japan, they landed there looked around some companies couldn't find one there so flew back the next day, then they found one in Cardiff. MY brother said he never even saw Japan. LoL
Des

Should of contacted me Des, as well as designing and building new grabs we kept a stock of over 200 used grabs and could convert and alter them to customer requirements in short order. A lot of suppliers and builders would only deliver on the sequence that orders came in, if we had a customer with an urgent requirement (salvage companies want it there and then) we would phone around the customers we were building grabs for and ask them if they still wanted the grab(s) on such and such a date, some would welcome a delay in delivery as their own contract had been delayed, we could then put that workforce on the urgent requirement. A grab is not just a lump of metal a lot of thought and design goes into them, even using space technology on hydraulic grabs that work under water that never resurface for months and the pistons are ceramic coated to prevent corrosion, there were lots of other innovations, it was an interesting business, building grabs up to 4000 tonne capacity. There were all types in addition to the usual 1,2, 3, 4 wire operated, radio controlled, hydraulic, electro hydraulic, diesel hydraulic, worm screw, the list goes on, so many parameters to take into consideration when grabs required for a specific purpose, depth of water, tidal flows, crane capacity, weather windows, secrecy of project, the list goes on.

[John Pruden]

my first job on demolition 13 year old i had a skill for driving plant front loaders and cranes now bill try a JONES KL 44 lorry mounted thats took me back?jp

[Des Taff Jenkins]

Ivan who's to know they didn't get that bucket from you, stranger things have happened.
Des

[j.sabourn]

As long as there wasn’t a hole in it Des , and he didn’t buy it second hand from a female called Liza . JS