Masonry Magazine January 2012 Page. 44
SCAFFOLDING
An old myth busted
For the longest time, mason contractors have believed that elevating scaffolding is only for long, straight walls. So, what's the secret that makes it so easy to use on complicated layouts? It's the use of independent towers that do not have to be X-braced together. The seven-foot-wide towers are dropped in place with a forklift at the rate of about one tower every eight minutes. But, since they do not have to be X-braced together, they simply are landed about seven feet apart, to follow the contour of the wall, be it a radius wall or saw-tooth walls with lots of inside and outside corners. It turns out that elevating scaffolding sets up just as fast on complicated layouts as it does on straight walls.
According to Jeffrey Jones of Jones Masonry in Biloxi, Miss, "When it comes to cut-up jobs, it goes in place absolutely faster than frames. I've been running work for about 10 years, and it's the best for masons. Of course, I grew up around crank-up scaffolding, and I was taught to use it everywhere possible. Anytime you use a crank-up system, you're way ahead."
How it works
ON INSIDE CORNERS, the key is to set one tower in the corner first. Then, set another tower beside it. It can be right next to it, or up to 10 feet away. It can be in line with the first tower, or behind it. Simple, two-piece corner brackets assure all the planks lap correctly. The masons walk boards can be placed on the side of the tower just as easily as on the front. That's why inside corners are so easy with elevating scaffolding. It works, no matter how you place the towers. Photo 2 shows how you can install walkboards on two, or even three, sides of a tower.
Setting up outside corners is the same as setting up frames, just set one tower passed the corner, and lap your planks onto it.
Jeffrey Jones' brother, Matt, tells about an extremely tight job site in downtown New Orleans: "It's a huge benefit on this job. We're using the Non-Stop Standard-Duty that we can move and set up by hand. We put it up on the second floor roof, set it up by hand, and laid those walls in no time. We used it inside for the gymnasium walls, where we had practically no access. We set it up by hand in there and ran those walls up without stopping"
Brint Callaway, a factory rep for Non-Stop Scaffolding, had a tricky layout with two inside corners, a radius, and an outside corner all set up together. (See Photo 3.) The towers were set to the brick line, and then the masons' walkboard arm was extended to the block line and the blocks were laid. The scaffold was lowered, the arms were slid back to the brick line, the scaffold was restocked with bricks, and the bricks were laid without having to shift the scaffold.
"We assembled the towers on the ground, 36 feet high, and then tilted them up with the forklift," says Callaway. "The whole process took about an hour, and we were done. We had the entire scaffold ready to go for 30-foot-high walls, three corners and a radius, and nobody left the ground. Moving to the next wall takes about one-quarter of the time it takes to tear down and rebuild frames."
Sometimes, there is no room to work
MANY TIMES on small sites, one wall of the building will be tight up against a property line, or even another building, making it nearly impossible to set up a scaffold, let alone feed it with materials.