The gravel that I'm digging out with my Hitachi EX270LC extends below the water table. That's why I bought this machine. The machine has a reach of about 33 feet, and I'm digging down to about 12 or 15 feet below the top of the water level. Most of the stick is under the water during the digging. While I'm at it, I'm also taking out some heavy blue clay that lies underneath the gravel. The blue clay is really hard stuff and takes a lot of force to penetrate. There also are large rocks mixed in with the clay. The machine has a hydraulic thumb, which allows for taking out overfull buckets of the clay and rock. I'm using a good moly/lithium grease. It seems to me that the water would increase the need for frequent greasing of the bucket and stick. What do you think? How often should these parts receive grease? Another question I have is about bucket size. The machine has a quick attach one yard bucket with four aggressive teeth in very good condition. I have thought about buying a larger clean up or ditching bucket. That would leave a smoother surface and might allow for quicker work. The larger bucket likely could handle gravel well. But it seems to me that for digging the clay under the gravel, the smaller bucket with teeth might work a lot better than a larger bucket. A larger bucket without teeth might not penetrate the clay or it might place too much strain on the boom and other parts of the machine. What are your experiences with this?
you could use the smaller bucket to "rip" the clay up then use your quick change to load it out with the larger bucket...grease 2 times a day when in constant water that deep..imho
I use that lucas red and tacky grease all the time.
If the grease you are using is listed as water resistant you should be all right. If I remember correctly from a few years back when I bought my own grease the moly/lithium stuff does alot better underwater then your regular EP2. As for invervals do this. Grease first thing in the morning before you start, and then at coffee grease again. Listen carefully for the "pop" sound you get when you have greased it properly. If you get it fairly quickly then repeat the proceedure except wait until lunch time. You'll get a pretty good feel for how often you need to grease using this techique. Usually you can feel a difference in the bucket when it started to need grease as well but that will depend on how well you know your machine. If you are only wanting the gravel and its somewhat easy to dig I'd run the larger cleanup bucket. You can then "feel" when you are at the bottom of the gravel and running along the clay. Since cleanup buckets dont penetrate too well you wont be popping up as much blue clay or large rocks, and you can just slide the cutting edge along the top of the clay. 12 feet down doesnt offer much visual aid so anything you can do to to help you know what your bucket it doing will be appreciated. One thing to take note of. Gravel is well...rock. Rock's fairly heavy and when you add water filling every little gap between the rocks that bucket is gonna be awefully heavy. While it's underwater it wont be too bad, but if you have to reach anywhere with the full scoops then the smaller bucket will start to make more sense. After all, 12 feet gets you pretty wet if you pitch it over the side
I always wondered if this would work digging out a pond to help keep the bottom graded out - a remote depth finder. I don't know a thing about these things, but it seems like they let you know where and what the bottom looks like. Something like: http://www.amazon.com/Humminbird-Sm...-Finder/dp/tech-data/B00070KN0A/ref=de_a_smtd Again, I don't know a thing about these instruments - maybe there's a fisherman out there that would know if this would work in theory.
What you say about the cleanup bucket being good for taking out gravel makes sense. The gravel is fairly valuable, and we do want to salvage as much gravel as possible. But after removing the gravel, I also want to dig a distance into the clay so that we will end up with a deeper pond. Properly landscaped, this can become an asset instead of an eyesore. Most of the areas that I want to deepen have already had most of the gravel removed and are beyond the reach of the EX270. I wish that I had a long reach excavator for this, but that's not likely to happen. So I've started building some temporary causeways with a clay and gravel mix pulled from the bottom. Hopefully it will harden up enough to support the weight of the excavator.
I hate that stuff :Banghead :Banghead :bash :ban ointhead :crying :cussing:cussing:cussing I hate that grease..... Did I already say that?