BREMERTON, Wash. –
A six-person team of painters is working hard throughout the short Pacific Northwest summer to repaint cranes 80, 82 and 92 at Puget Sound Naval Shipyard & Intermediate Maintenance Facility.
The team of painters from Code 730, Crane Maintenance, is comprised of Darius Aldan, work lead, and crew members Dione Anderson, Romero Aquino, Rachele Brock, Ellie Colberg and Justin Machin. They must work around a variety of challenges to get the work done within about a three-month window of opportunity.
According to Matt Engel, Portal Crane general foreman, Code 731, lots of planning and strategy goes into finding a window for a full crane paint out.
“Supporting the shipyard mission is our top priority, so we always do our best to work around production needs,” Engel said. “This often is a key factor in crane availability for complete paint out. We keep our service schedules to lowest duration possible and have plenty of work that does not go hand in hand with leaving the painters to paint. The painters are most successful when given the crane and not interrupted, so the tough part is making this happen while supporting the overall numbers production needs and also considering executing the crane services.”
Stephen Fogelman, supervisor, Code 730, said the cranes’ overall appearance won’t change very much to the casual observer. Crane 80 will have a bright blue paint for the body of the crane, with safety yellow for the boom, the travel trucks and drive motors. Crane 92 will be a deeper, darker blue for the body, also with safety yellow for the boom, travel trucks and motors.
While the cranes may look similar to how they have for decades, the specific paint composition chosen should be an improvement over their current paint.
“The colors are a variation of the their original colors, and were chosen from approved color charts that meet the Naval Sea Systems Command Military- Specification and Federal Standard color requirements,” said Fogelman. “The paints used are silicone alkyd enamel, with a higher gloss sheen added for ease of cleaning purposes, and for better UV deflection. This should help slow the oxidation process down, which happens due to the environment that they are used in.”
Engel said there is no set schedule for how often a crane must be painted. The primary factors that lead to full crane paint out are corrosion control, longevity and overall appearance.
“Cranes are inspected for corrosion each and every year, and problem areas are corrected as they are identified,” he said. “Corrosion is most commonly found where water pools or heavy exposure to harsh environmental or operational conditions exist. These cranes are 25 to 35 years old and these small corrections over time, along with the oxidation of the paint, present a visual nuisance. The full paint out provides a thicker paint layer and brings the cranes back to uniform color coverage. This also helps resist UV degradation better.”
According to Fogelman, members of the painting team should not have a fear of heights, and must have current qualifications for paint removal, paint application, along with fall gear qualification, as they work at heights up to 135 feet off the ground to reach the A-frame and floating mast of the cranes. Despite the challenging work conditions, they must follow best practices to get a lasting result.
“Cleaning and prepping the surfaces of the crane is most critical to obtaining a good repaint,” Fogelman said. “Your finished product is only as good as your preparation, which means poor preparation can allow the finished product to fail sooner rather than later.”
According to Engel, this small paint crew maintains more than 300 pieces of equipment throughout the shipyard and IMF. The effort and planning required to paint these cranes is enormous, and doing so while having the bandwidth to support the PSNS & IMF mission is impressive.
“While I hold in high regard the accomplishments that they made on these two portal cranes this summer, I am also very proud of what they do all year round with all the rest of the equipment,” he said. “This team is arguably the team that stays the busiest. The never complain about the work in front of them. I really appreciate the sacrifices that our counterparts out at Bangor made this summer by loaning us two great painters during the best painting months of the year.”