Electric Lineman Tooling Up

Demonstration of putting tools on to climb a pole. Demonstration of climbing, transitioning, circling, and fall restraint.

VIDEO TRANSCRIPT
Okay Ronnie, I'm coming into the zone here. Ronnie's going to put on his climbers first. Putting on your belt restricts you from bending over to put your climbers. So you go from bottom to top tooling up. You want to make sure you get the correct gaff on. He's putting on his right climber, the gaff is on the instep and the buckle on the bottom is pointing toward his toe. He's going to secure that pad. At first, wrap a little looser, he likes it nice and tight on the bottom strap. He makes sure he doesn't pin his pant leg underneath the bottom strap. If the pant leg gets pinned in under that bottom strap, it could pull out when he's climbing and loosen the gaff. He's attaching his top strap of his climber, now he's going to secure this bottom strap a little tighter. I'm going to go ahead and give Ronnie a hand. You should always help your lineman out. He's securing his gut strap good and tight. This allows the body belt to hang down on the hips where it should be. He's going to go ahead and secure his body belt.

He's getting to the quarter of the pole he's chosen to climb. He's going to go ahead and attach his BuckSqueeze to the pole now. This is a fall restriction device; it's required by law. He attaches it, he wraps the outer strap around the outside of the pole, attaches the roto snap. He adjusts it, we always want that green strap on the inside on the pole. You make sure the green strap is against the pole.

Notice how he just steps into the pole. Alright, he's going to operate the BuckSqueeze from waist to chest level as he goes up. Notice he takes nice, short steps. His toes are pointing up and out and he's operating that BuckSqueeze from his waist to his chest level. As he comes to the obstruction, he's going to get the BuckSqueeze right up against the bottom of the obstruction when he's going up. Now he'll adjust the inner strap. He's going to attach his secondary lanyard above the obstruction. He's going to control the end of it by taking it one hand to the other around the backside of the pole. Never flip it around the pole. You always want to keep things under control. He takes a safety snap, attaches it to his D-ring, now he's secured above the obstruction. He can now take his BuckSqueeze off the pole, there's no chance of him falling because the obstruction would catch him with that secondary lanyard. He detaches the BuckSqueeze.

He'll take the BuckSqueeze back around, hand to hand, and bring it up through the secondary lanyard then reattach above the obstruction and the secondary lanyard. He readjusts the BuckSqueeze. He's now tightened it down; he can detach his secondary lanyard. There's no way he can fall. Passes a secondary lanyard around and snaps it back into the D-ring. He'll take a few steps up, operating the BuckSqueeze from chest to waist. Coming down.

Coming down, he wants to keep the BuckSqueeze a few inches above the obstruction, so he can attach the secondary lanyard between the obstruction and his BuckSqueeze. He passes it from hand to hand, keeping control. Re-attaches the safety snap, gate out on the D-ring. He can now detach the BuckSqueeze from the pole, he's safely secured above the obstruction with a secondary lanyard. He passes the end around from one hand to the other, keeping control. He'll step down to get into a good work position to reattach below the obstruction. He slacks off a little bit on the secondary lanyard. Now he'll pass the BuckSqueeze down through the secondary lanyard and take the BuckSqueeze around the backside of the pole, passing the outer strap from hand to hand. Reattaches, makes his adjustment on the BuckSqueeze to get it good and tight with a lot of green strap on the pole. Now he can detach his secondary lanyard from above the obstruction, reattach it to his D-ring.

Now he's going to descend the pole a few steps. He's going to show you how to circle the pole, left and right. When circling to your right, your left gaff should be inserted above the right foot. The first thing you do is adjust the BuckSqueeze by twisting it around to the right and then stepping your right gaff above the left gaff. Now he'll go back to the right, adjusting his BuckSqueeze to the left. Notice how the one foot is above the other and it's basically a pivot point, so he just rolls around. He's going to go ahead and descend the pole.

Notice he keeps the BuckSqueeze between his--Okay, he's showing you how far you can fall. He's taking his gaffs completely out of the pole. In order to get back onto the pole he'll just relax, use his two hands and push himself off the pole, and re-step into the pole with his gaffs. Now he's coming on down. You can't, you cannot fall off the pole with that. It'll restrain your fall within two feet.

Good job, Ronnie.