Flying Steel

The erection of the second floor frame and third floor/roof began this week. The first column (below) was erected on Monday. The columns being erected this week will frame the second and third floors of the Carpenters Center.



The steel came from Capco Steel’s fabrication plants located in Rhode Island.

The project architect and structural engineers provide Capco with Computer-Aided Designs (CAD), from which the company produces its own shop drawings. These drawings include detailed fastening connections for each column and beam, so that when the steel arrives on site all fastening points have been predrilled and coordinated at connections. Each piece is also numbered. When the steel comes off the delivery truck it is placed in a numeric sequence so that each piece of steel can be erected in proper order.

Onsite, the Operating Engineer, working for Subcontractor Hallamore Corporation, operates the 200-ton hydraulic crane. The crane lifts the structural steel members to the locations of the building where the Ironworkers fasten them into place. The crane’s boom is 197 feet long when it is fully telescoped.

The following sequence shows the Operating Engineer flying steel to the Ironworkers.








Meanwhile, on the first floor of the building, structural steel was added to the first floor columns, to carry the added loads of the third floor and roof. In this picture, the Ironworker is welding anchorage connecting the concrete slab to the beam below it.