Synopsis:
Corrosion protection paint for a harbour crane
Task:
Protection for the already heavily corroded driver’s cabin.
Special Challenge:
The corrosion on the damaged area at the bottom of the driver’s cabin could not be removed properly. Sandblasting was not possible.
Solution:
We used our repair paint TimeMAX PAINT REPAIR. At a pinch the material works even when applied directly on corrosion.
Advantage:
The crane did not have to be taken out of production because sandblasting was not necessary and our paint works directly on corrosion.
In 2012 the construction company HOCHTIEF started to build a new balance bridge in the harbour of Hamburg.
This new construction has a special dimension: The biggest balance bridge in Europe is being built here!
Corrosion problems are quite common because the construction equipment is positioned directly at the edge of the water. This crawler excavator was hit hard by corrosion.
The corrosion in hidden and difficult-to-access areas could not be removed thoroughly so those responsible at HOCHTIEF had planned to replace the driver’s cabin due to heavy corrosion.
After in-depth research the engineer in charge opted for a significantly less costly solution: our repair paint TimeMAX PAINT REPAIR. What makes it special: at a pinch our paint works even when applied directly on remaining corrosion.
The layers of paint were applied with a roller in three relatively thick layers: First black, then white and black again. This way it is easy to check whether every single spot was covered correctly. Additionally this procedure uses a lot less material.
When the crawler excavator was periodically checked in 2016, that is four years after the repair, there was no reason for complaints: our paint had worked just as we had promised the site manager: The corrosion has not returned!
Field report by HOCHTIEF (PDF)
XXL digging in the harbour of Hamburg! Did you know there is construction equipment this big? TimeMAX boss Gerd Cordes in front of a harbour excavator in Hamburg.
One of the largest and most extensive construction sites in the harbour of Hamburg is the building of the Rethe-Lifting-Bridge. Technical manager in charge of the construction equipment is Lutz Riedel. Here he is with our workshop dog Oskar. Six years before these pictures were taken the he had called TimeMAX: “One of my beautiful excavators is corroding. You absolutely have to come by!”
This crawler crane from his fleet of vehicles was about to be withdrawn from the construction site due to extensive damage by corrosion. It is a LIEBHERR LR 1280 built in 2004. Repairs would have taken several months and would have been very expensive.
To postpone repairs HOCHTIEF hired TimeMAX in August 2012. Our work mainly dealt with the heavily corroded driver’s cabin. Our Task: To save the component using repair paint TimeMAX Paint Repair.
Pictures of our work can be found at:
https://www.timemax.de/timemax-paint-repair-anwendungsbeispiel-hafenbagger-fotos
Now, at the beginning of 2017, together with Lutz Riedel we had another look at the crawler crane. Four and a half years after our work we wanted to know whether our repair paint really stopped the corroding.
Although we only roughly removed the corrosion our repair paint worked very well. The corrosion did not return.
We asked Lutz Riedel to write down his experiences. Please read his report. You can find it above the pictures.
