– all in a days work (or two)

We were recently engaged at O-I New Zealand Glass at Penrose during a major shutdown to replace their AK 3 furnace tank.

Our task was to Move the machinery and replace one of their Glass bottle Annealing Ovens [Lehr] – removing all the old sections plus the positioning and assembly of the new.

The Lehr was in 12 sections, the heaviest being 6.3 tonne, total unit weight 40 tonne – and all on the first floor.

To further complicate matters our access was limited so the roof of the building was removed to give us the access we required. New Zealand Crane Hire supplied a 450 tonne capacity crane to do the lifts at 41 metres radius – Kevin Ritter of NZ Crane assured us that the task was well within this big boys capacity.

Kevin was our dogman for the 2 day operation.

Our team was required to rig the loads and move and position the sections in the factory. We assembled levelled and aligned the Lehr with the assistance of fitters from Matched.