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It is with pleasure that we here at APE introduce Chris Corp to our friends in California, Utah, Arizona, Nevada and Hawaii.

Chris  is a 10 year veteran of the piledriving industry with experience from the ground up.

Chris served as a service technician in the corporate office for a few years before moving to our Missouri facility to take on the role of service manager.

His years as service manager in Missouri prepared him for his next role with APE as our California Service Manager where his skills and abilities took him to the next level of greatness.

After the passing of our friend and Vice President, Dave Yingling, a void needed to be filled and after serving APE California for 20 years Steve Cress stepped up and assumed responsibilities as the new Vice President of APE and moved to Washington to apply his 30 years of piledriving knowledge on a new level of excellence.

Chris Corp, in turn, stepped up his role from California Service Manager to California Western Division Branch Manager and assumed responsibilities to keep our California branch running smooth and strong.

Chris has brought a fresh new drive to the California branch and hit the ground running to meet the needs of our customers.

With Chris at the helm of the California branch and the backing of APE corporate, expect to see great things in 2014 out of our Western Division.

Please help me welcome Chris Corp! Go get em Tiger!

Thanks,

Steve Cress

American Piledriving Equipment, Inc.

Corporate Vice President

206-743-2846  Mobile

253-872-0141  Office

253-872-8710  Fax

San Francisco, the city by the bay. California is steadily rebuilding some of its world renown monuments. Pier 19 located in San Francisco California is one of them. The rebuilding of pier 19 has been long overdue with tourism still in full swing with cruise ships coming and going out of the port. After the demoltion of the pier, the first order of things is, of course, the foundation.

Seen here, Power Engineering of Northern California is antalling 72” diameter steel pipe pile 160’ long with a 1” wall thickness. Driving these steel casings wasn’t going to be easy with all the restrictions enforced on the job. Tight work space with little room to manuever and all the regulations involved made this job a chelleng. So when they decided to take on the job, they called APE to get the equipment they needed. With the tough Merrit Sands and the sticky Bay Mud here in the bay, they chose the APE 600 Vibro to do the job. And of course the 600 vibro wouldn’t let them down, it got the pile down!

EP Jarrett Foundation Construction is all about quality. Every project that they tackle is a job worth seeing. They do their work with precision and they use APE as their foundation equipment supplier because APE delivers precision equipment.

Working on a Caltrans project on HWY 165 just North of Los Banos California Mike and Ed Cuneo tackle a job with some interesting parameters. Working off of a failed existing structure while using heavy equipment is enough to make anyone work softly, especially when working at the limit. The Cuneo boys from EP Jarrett are up for the challenge. Installing 36” diameter CISS pile 130’ deep, using an APE D100-42 diesel hammer while working off of a scoured bridge was a challenge that is never taken lightly, and EP Jarrett Foundation went at it with precision.

The piles got started with an APE 200 Vibratory Driver Extractor with caisson beam and clamps ensuring the exact location of the CISS pile. After the APE 200 Vibratory Driver Extractor finished its job the D100-42 single acting diesel hammer took over to finish the driving of the 130’ long 36” diameter pipe pile, then the pipe was drilled out 100’ deep and the rebar cage was dropped into position ready to be filled with concrete.

At the end of the day, when the sun goes down, The gang from EP Jarrett can go home with pride in a job well done!

The Metro Muni Project in San Francisco California is creating a lot of work for the Bay Area Boys. There are a lot of obstacles on this project as they forge ahead with construction. One such obstacle is old timber pile. Yes, thousands of timber piles that have been driven in the past that need to be removed before New foundations can be installed. Vibration is a huge issue here with all the high rise buildings on each side of the project and removing those old timber pile has created a challenge. Not only do the timber pile have to be romoved, but the void of removing these timber pile would create foundation issues for the ajacent buildings. Solution? Drive casing around the existing timber pile, pull the timber pile, back fill the casing and then pull the casing. Easy solution right? With the vast knowledge and experience of APE to help, Yes! One of the problems with extracting timber pile is they need to have about five feet of timber head exposed. Driving a pipe around the timber pile would only case the timber pile to the top, not below the top of the timber pile. Solution? Meet the APE “Metro Muni Optimus Prime”. An APE 200 vibro fitted with an APE caisson beam, two APE beam to clamp adapters, two APE clamp extensions, two short APE five foot beams bolted to the bottom of the extensions and two APE model 100 caisson clamps. This set up enabled the contractor to drive the casing below the top of the timber pile to expose enough of the timber head to clamp onto. Following up Metro Muni Transoid with an APE 64X Excavator mounted vibro fitted with an APE swing arm timber clamp, the timber pile extracted out of the driven casing. Back filling the casing and extracting the casing was the final touch to a difficult solution that didn’t affect the foundations of the neighbor buildings. So the next time you sight something uncommon in the foundation industry, look for the APE!

Nehemiah Construction of Northern California knows what it takes to drive BIG pile… That’s why they called on Steve Cress of APE, the largest piledriving equipment manufacture in the world! With the massive power of the APE model D180-42 diesel hammer and the special application bottom drive system, Nehemiah Construction is able to drive their 8 foot diameter pipe pile160 feet into California’s toughtest soil conditions on Highway 99 in Nicolaus, CA; halfway between Sacramento and Yuba City.  As the pile drove deeper the driving got tougher; but it was no match for the MIGHTY APE D180!!  As Roger Brown the Construction Manager of Nehemiah said… “We had reservations that the pile would reach tip elevation without major complications but because of APE and Steve Cress and his knowledge of the driving system inovations, our piledriving was made simple”.  This is what makes team work sucessful… people who use Steve’s 25 years of knowledge and practical application with confindence! That’s what gets the job done ….the American APE way!!

Written by BN

“FCI Constructors and the great sheet wall of Bethel Island”
There is an art to driving a straight sheet wall and that art takes years to learn. You can’t just look at it and make it stand straight, you have to work it. It takes patience and you got to go slow and easy. As soon as you get in a hurry things start going south in a hurry. Just ask Richard Foster with FCI Constructors! Richard has been driving sheet pile since he was kid, and that was a long time ago! He grew up in the piledriving industry and learned from hard work and determination! To see him work on a sheet wall is like seeing poetry in motion. Richard makes it look easy! “I like to start a sheet wall with the vibro and get myself a good running start” says Richard, “and when I have a nice start and the driving gets hard and I have to pick up the impact hammer, I know I will have a good finish”. The lesson of the day is this: when driving a sheet pile wall you should always have two things, a good crane operator and a seasoned front end man, like Richard Foster!

When it comes to Low Head Room nobody knows it like APE.
APE engineered and developed the model 7.5 hydraulic hammer specifically for low head room applications, but because of the versatility of the 7.5 it is used in many different applications to drive many types of piles such as “H” beam pile, Timber pile, Concrete pile and Pipe pile.
Seen here in the lowest head room configuration, MCM drives 10” H-beam for a trestle on their project in Oakland, CA.
The 7.5 is only seven and a half feet tall making it the shortest hydraulic impact hammer in the world! It has been used across the country driving pile for retrofitting bridges and full length piles in many applications.
With the 7.5 on the job you can get your piles driven and keep your overhead on the lowdown!

Kiewit Pacific knows how to drive sheet pile!
There is no doubt about it, when Kiewit drives a sheet wall it is beautiful.
Here on the “All American Canal Project” Kiewit shows how the art of how sheet pile walls can truly be a work of art.
Not everyone who drives sheet pile can manipulate the sheets to do what they want, but the crews working on this project have mastered the art of driving, even in the toughest conditions.
Tight sandy soil conditions on top with dense, tough driving below, make for a nightmare for contractors, but Kiewit has turned this project into a dream.
The APE 200-6 drives the sheets as deep as it can, then the sheets are followed up with a J & M 115 hydraulic impact hammer to reach the tip elevation! The perfect combo for a day in the sheet pile world.
It could be nasty, but with Kiewit on the job, teamed up with APE equipment, turned this ordinarily hard driving project into a walk in the sun!

What can be said of MCM Construction of Northern California? Where can we start when taking a look at one of California’s major bridge builders? Lets see…

1) MCM Construction has built some of the most amazing bridges in California from North to South from start to finish. Massive multi level interchanges that make one dizzy just to look at and beautiful scenic bridges that span 100 foot deep gorges that are wonderful to look at and admire.
2) MCM Construction has Randy Notnagel as Piledriving General Superintendant who just happens to be one of the industry’s leading men in piledriving and foundation work.
3) Jim Carter, owner of MCM Construction, isn’t afraid to tackle any project, even the S.F. BAY BRIDGE APPROACH, which just happens to have 8’ diameter pipe pile driven to depths of 160 feet!
4) MCM Construction of Northern California uses APE equipment to get their pile in the ground!

These are just a few things that make MCM Construction great! Not to mention that they drive GREAT BIG PILES! As seen here, MCM Construction uses the APE model D180-42 single acting diesel hammer with a ram weight of close to 40,000lbs and an energy rating over 450,000ftlbs to drive their MASSIVE eight foot diameter CISS pile. These monster piles are 160 feet long and are being driven into existing bed rock formations for the Oakland California Highway 880 project located in the heart of the city where there are tremendous amounts of traffic every day!
These piles are huge! When the APE D180-42 finished driving the 8 foot diameter pile, the 4 foot diameter reaction piles are driven with his baby brother the APE D100-42. “These piles get bigger and bigger, so the equipment gets bigger and bigger to get the piles driven!” says Randy Notnagel. “The D180 makes the D100 look like a tinker toy.”
We soon forget the days when a big hammer was a D62-22 driving 36” pipe pile. That was huge in the day, but what do you expect when you want to drive across some of the safest bridges in America? Tinker Toys? Those days are gone and that is why MCM Construction uses APE equipment to get their pile in the ground, because if you want to go deep, “Go APE”!

The Ashton Company of Tucson Arizona knows where to turn when it comes to getting their caissons in the ground! They turn to APE! Why? Because APE has the right equipment to get the job done!
Just ask Bill Vail;
“We had some really bad looking soil borings out here and I was skeptical that we would be able to get our power pole foundations in the ground to the desired depth that was required by TEP (Tucson Electric Power), so I called APE!
After consulting with Steve Cress I found a valuable source to help me understand what we needed to do. Steve thought that the highly compactable sandy soils, with blow counts in the 100’s, would be impossible to drive into with any vibro, even the King Kong (APE model 400 vibro). But after searching the options, Steve suggested that we come at it with the King Kong Vibro and pump water down the center of our casing as we vibrated it into the ground. This would help us to enhance the sands into a liquefaction state.
We approached TEP with the suggestion of a test program. Get everything out here and give it a try. If it works, we have a proven system, and with all the power poles that need to be replaced, it would be worth the time and effort.
Well, the time and effort was well worth it as the King Kong drove the power pole caisson into the ground to an acceptable tip elevation while pumping the water down the center of the casing! “Now we have a proven system and thanks to APE and Steve Cress we once again have success!”