Cool Technology X-Ray for a facade renovation at the Golden Nugget Hotel Casino! Why?
Now I’ll be honest with you. I’m a sucker for cool technologies being used in innovative ways (just see my previous blog entry about the hanging scaffold system). But when I learned what Superior Scaffold had to go through to get their giant mast climbers up to do the renovation work, I had to blog about it.
Did you know that they actually had to X-Ray the cement on the side of the building to locate floor slab tie locations? Yep. And after having it explained to me it makes total sense. You see the tall (dual) masts for the Mast Climber 3615 have to be anchored to the building at their highest point (for obvious reasons) while also being stabilized on the ground. This allows for the platform to climb up and down the masts effortlessly. Now, I never gave much thought on how they did it – just that they had to be attached somehow. But logically, you just can’t go drilling into any place on the side of a building. You need a very sturdy anchor point. But since the Trump Marina was constructed with post tension floors there was the possibility of having steel reinforcements inside the slabs. Thus – the X-RAY machine!
The X-Ray technician had to xray specific points on the building to determine if they were free of steel so the anchors for the mast climbers could be installed. And while he was up there, he also Xray’d the masonry condition of the exterior so they would have a better idea of what needed to be repaired before they put the new facade on.
Once the technician gave the approval for the mast climbing anchor point – the crew had to cut out the exterior brick exposing the cement floor slab tie location so they could install the fasteners – and then the masts.
Here’s a great shot of the crew installing one of the masts at the Golden Nugget.
And here’s the underside of the MC-3615 platform.
And once both masts are anchored and the platform is in place – it can be put into service. Here it is going up for the first time.
And once all of the 8 masts were anchored to the exterior of the Golden Nugget. This is what it looks like.
If you look carefully, you can see the fourth unit on the right side of the building. An X-Ray machine? Who would have thought a scaffolding company would be so hip.
The work continues on the facade renovation. The workers used the mast climbers to install a unique scratch coat of a new type of material (specifically designed for this job) over the existing brick – essentially giving it a facelift. I’ll have more shots in my next entry.