Very nice pictures!! Thanks for posting these. To these, I'll add a couple that I took of Castaldo working at the Brooklyn Navy Yard in the late 70s.

Great photos John, especially the last one! So much has changed around there.

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-Vinny

http://www.heavytruckphotos.com/

Very nice so thanks for posting , like the old pic's from the 80's
Seems that American's/cranes in the New York area had more colorful paint jobs , i like it

Eef

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***Flickr American cranes group***3D printed crane parts at I.materialise

Man its crazy how yall can move stuff up there! I love the pictures.....PLEASE keep them coming!

Justin

p.s: I so want to hijack this post into a old American crane post!

There is another thing i noticed in this picture.
The way the pendant lines are connected to the outer bail.
They should be on the outside of the outer bail.
Does not looks standard to me.

Beautiful pic's anyway please keep posting

Eef

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***Flickr American cranes group***3D printed crane parts at I.materialise

You are right Justin , i found some more pic's in my archive with this type of outer bail connection.
Never noticed it before , you learn every day.
it's typical for the 900 serie , on the 700 this was not done.

You are talking about this pic do you ??
That shows the tapered tip and thats narrow , the hammerhead is wide on top.
So i think it's the other way around , but it has definite something to do with width of the tip.

Eef

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***Flickr American cranes group***3D printed crane parts at I.materialise

i absolutely love the older stuff, partly because that is what i learned on and operated but also be cause those old rigs are bad ass from a load chart standpoint. with the old stuff it was always a two edged sword they are not always the funnest to run and required alot more effort than joysticks do but you kind of knew that you go right to the absolute edge of the chart and it would be fine. i have gotten newer cranes light before i was even close to capacity and i hated the way that felt.
ian

I believe that Castaldo had at least one 9310 as I've seen an artist's sketch of one of their machines including model number and it was a 9310. The red booms and counterweights seem to be a New York City thing as it was done by both Gerosa and Castaldo.

The 9280s configuration was to deal with their long booms during set up and usually operated with a very vertical boom. The offset was not needed with the 9299, 9310 or 9320. The 9320 was the last and biggest of the American 900 series. All are lift cranes.

It should also be noted that there a three boom tips for the 900 series. There is the standard tip and the long reach which uses a 50 foot inner taper section as well as the final tapered head section which is known as the "Castaldo" tip as well as the McHugh tip which is the maximum sheave tip for heavy lift work. Both of the later were developed with the input of customers whom are obvious from the names of the tips.

Last I knew, Frank Conforti had the Castaldo Autocar heavy tractor used to move these machines which he acquired from Tony Mack along with a DM800 tractor.

I don't recall Castaldo ever having HH rigs to move their cranes. I believe they relied on Heavy Haul companies particularly EJ Davies. Davies had a huge, long wheelbase DC Autocar with 14.00 x 24 rubber and planetary rears.

Peter and Danny are correct Castaldo did not move their own cranes. Years ago they used Gerosa and than Mack Trailer and EJ Davies. Gary