Lute and rake: the handle that burns and the mat's heat

The head of a lute that has been in 300-degree mix for ten minutes is over 200 °F, and an aluminum handle carries that heat up to your hands. The mat under your boots is radiating like an open oven door, and you are bent over it all shift.

The points

• The burn from hand tools on a paving crew is the head or the lower handle grabbed bare-handed after it has been sitting in the mix, and the fall is the loose head that comes off a rake mid-swing. The bigger injury is slower: the rake crew is the first to go down from heat because they work bent over the hottest thing on the job.
• 1926.301 says the employer does not issue or allow unsafe hand tools, and that handles stay tight in the tool and free of cracks and splinters. A lute with a loose head or a shovel with a split handle goes in the truck, not on the mat.
• Gloves on the mat, every hand, every shift. Leather or a heat-rated glove, not a knit glove that soaks up mix. Grab the tool by the upper handle and keep the lower two feet out of the mix when it rests.
• Tools lean against the paver or lie flat off the mat, not on the fresh mat and not across the roller's line. A rake left on the mat is a trip hazard for the crew and a 4-foot bar the roller drum picks up and throws.
• Water every 15 to 20 minutes for the rake crew whether they are thirsty or not, and the first sign of a person who has gone quiet, clumsy or confused on the mat is a person who comes off the mat and into the shade now.

Why it goes wrong

A lute head or a rake head sitting in fresh mix stays close to the mix temperature. Aluminum conducts heat more than a thousand times faster than wood, so an aluminum lute handle warms fast up the shaft. The bare hand that grabs the lower handle to lift the tool over a hopper wing gets a contact burn. Gloves, and the habit of holding the tool by its upper half, cover this.

Loose heads are the tool failure that hurts. A rake head that has worked loose on its ferrule comes off on the pull stroke and the person swinging it goes over backward onto the mat, or the head flies into whoever is next in line. 1926.301(d) puts the handle rule in words: tight in the tool, no cracks, no splinters. It takes ten seconds to check at the start of the shift.

The mat is the heat source the rake crew stands in. Fresh mix at 275 to 300 °F radiates heat upward, and the crew is bent at the waist with their face a few feet from it. That posture puts the head in the hottest air and closes the chest so breathing is shallower. Rake hands are the paving crew members who go down from heat first, and on a hot day their rotation off the mat is a safety control, not a favor.

Shovels throw mix into the auger chamber and against the screed, and mix lands on whoever is on the platform. The shovel goes into the mix low and the mix is placed, not flung. A shovelful of hot mix hitting a wet surface or a puddle pops and spatters, and that is the splatter that lands in an eye.

Tools on the mat are also struck-by hazards. The roller drum or the paver track finds a rake left across its path, bends it, drags it and throws it. Tools rest on the shoulder side of the mat, off the roller's line, with the heads pointed away from foot traffic. The paver has a tool rack; use it.

Diesel on the tools keeps mix from sticking, and diesel on the gloves and forearms all shift is a skin exposure. Use the release agent from the plant or a citrus-based product, and keep the diesel in the tank.

Questions for the crew

1. Which rakes and lutes on this truck have a loose head or a cracked handle right now?
2. Where do the tools rest today when the roller comes forward, and is that off the drum line?
3. Who on the rake crew is new to the heat this week, and when does their break come?

To close

Today every tool gets its head and handle checked before the first truck, every hand on the mat is gloved, and the rake crew rotates off the mat on the clock.