I finally dialed in my boom angle with a cheap laser level trick

Last month on a job outside Tulsa, I kept overshooting my load radius by a foot or two on every pick. My co-worker laughed and said to tape a cheap laser level to the boom tip and mark the ground target before I even start swinging. Tried it on a 120 foot pick hauling rebar bundles, and the spotter called my line perfect on the first drop. The laser beam showed up way better than my old chalk line method, especially in the morning glare. I used a 20 dollar Husky level from the hardware store, not the fancy rigging gear, and it took maybe 10 minutes to set up. Now I'm wondering if anyone else uses a similar visual guide, or is this just a hack that works on flat sites but fails on sloped ground?

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henry_moore5528d ago

Sloped ground is where it gets tricky for sure but that's true with any reference point you pick. Reminds me of how people hang a plumb bob off a door frame to check if a wall is straight, same idea of using a cheap simple tool to get a visual read instead of trusting your eyeballs. The trick works because your brain is way better at lining up two things than guessing a distance, so a laser dot on the ground gives you something concrete to aim at. May be worth marking two spots next time, one at the radius and one a foot short, so you have a range instead of a single point.

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