Crane Hand Signals Trainer

Nineteen. The chart in ASME B30.5 — the one 29 CFR 1926.1422 points employers to — covers stop, emergency stop, dog everything, hoist and lower, raise and lower boom, the two combined boom-and-load signals, extend and retract a telescoping boom, swing, travel, trolley travel, both crawler travel signals, move slowly, and the two signals that switch between main hoist and whipline. This drill runs all nineteen.

No — 1926.1419 requires that a signal method be agreed on before the lift, and hand, voice or audible signals are all allowed. What it does require is that everyone involved knows the method being used, and that hand signals, when used, follow the standard chart unless the situation needs a non-standard signal agreed in advance. That is why recognition matters: an improvised signal that only one person understands is the failure mode.

A qualified signal person. Under 1926.1428 that means someone who knows and can demonstrate the signals, understands crane operation and its limitations, knows the relevant requirements of subpart CC, and has passed both an oral or written test and a practical test. An employer or a third-party evaluator documents that qualification — passing a drill like this one is practice, not qualification.

Stop halts the motion in progress: arm out, palm down, swinging back and forth. Emergency stop uses both arms the same way and means halt now. Dog everything — hands clasped in front of the body — tells the operator to hold everything where it is and stand by, which is what you use when work has to pause with a load in the air rather than when something has gone wrong.

Because it is a modifier, not a command. One hand gives the ordinary motion signal — hoist, swing, whatever the lift needs — and the other hand is held motionless in front of it. The operator reads the motion from the moving hand and the speed from the still one. It is the signal that gets skipped most and matters most when the load is near people or steel.