I work in limestone and sand production for a concrete and rock producer in Wisconsin. I was hired soley to run they compaines earthmoving equipment to aide in their aggregate production. The Wisconsin side of the company has about 25 rock quarries and a sand pit(on the Mississippi River). For them quarry stripping isn't new but they havn't done it on the scale they are looking to go with now(min of 100K of rock available). We are using a PC 220LC excavator to load a 25C Volvo and a 35D Volvo and have a D6 Cat as well as a Dresser TD-15C(my old dozer, bought by company in my town, whom got bought out by the company I went to work for). The 220 with the 25C is a nice combo, still about 8 good scoops to fill it but the 25C moves around in some of our tighter areas much better than the 35D. I would like to go up to a 30D(get two of them) and up the excvator a bit as well. Somthing I was thinking about the other day was(tell me if yall think I'm crazy) what would it be to have a tractor with a couple of pans. Alot of times its hard to get drivers to drive the haul trucks, somtimes in nice dirt conditions I could load a scraper quicker and neater than using the excavator. A good scraper man can maintain his own haul roads, and his fill pile as well. If you get into a rocky area or other difficult area you can still very easily top load your scrapers with your excavator. And your scrapers will last a long time, and you just replace the power unit. Try to make it a one to two man operation at all times, til we get bigger. Trbo
We used to strip for a sandpit a few years ago and that's what we used, Steiger tractors and pull scrapers. We had a dozer stripping off topsoil when it was a short push and occasionally would give the tractor a shove if it got hung up in the sand. He would also push the spoil pile into the water a couple times a day. Two of us working off and on for about 2 months between other jobs cut an average of 4 feet of overburden off of close to ten acres.
This summer I spent almost 2 and a half months doing nothing but dredging sand with a 240X2 longfront. Had it all stock piled and then had to transport it. I used our 220 LC with a 25C Volvo, most of the time I was alone(3mile round trip). I know even with still having to top load it(truck or pan) that I would have been much further ahead(hauling more material per trip) with a pan scraper or 2 or could have even ran 3. I had to spend about an hour(no where near enough time) to try to keep the haul road in somewhat of a shape with the dozer, where as I could have maintained it much easier, as I went, with the scrapers. I have to sit down with my supervisor, and put a nice essasy of sorts together to look at our best way to get the most out of equipment with the man power we have. Trbo
Both set ups have their pros and cons as usual. Youve stated you have some areas where the bigger truck has a harder time getting around. I think a tractor and pans is going to be worse getting around in tight areas. Their going to need a lot more room to load, and to empty. The scrapers would be a little more productive if your keeping your materials separate. If you have a market for topsoil it would be easier to strip with a pan. Otherwise you have a dozer push up the topsoil, then the hoe and trucks come in and move it. I think your farther ahead with hoes and trucks in this operation. Id up the hoe to a 30 ton with the biggest bucket you can get. Two 30 ton offroad trucks should do the trick. The fewest operators you can get for this set up is 3 though. To run efficiently you probably need 4. 2 truck drivers, 1 hoe operator, and one dozer operator. The dozer man can run both ends of the site and the road in between. On any truck crew ive been on, a dozer on the dump and the haul roads was pretty rare. A couple of good truck drivers can stagger their ruts on the haul road and keep a good pace. At the pile, we would dump as close to the edge, then with the bed still in the air back up. The bed in this position can work as a dozer blade. If you know how to dump and space your loads you can run your stockpile with little help from the dozer. The other option would be a couple of double engine scrapers. A couple of older Terex Ts14s would do the trick. Their simple to work on. They can be very productive. They can out maneuver the trucks and the tractor/pans. With this set up you only need to pan guys and a dozer operator. If you get in some bad ground you can use the 220 to top load them just like they would with a tractor pan. It will be a little slower since you really dont want to be swinging over the engine or cab. Our average with ts14s on a site with 500-1000 ft hauls was 3000 cyd. for each machine in a 12 hour day. Im not saying you can go out and get that in a day, it took two good operators to make those numbers.
i bet u work for bard i own a lot in pine bluff
i ran your 220 when kelly had it nice hoe
With so many variables involved and not knowing what kind of budget parameters, or the dual-purpose uses of these machines, it's hard to really make a call on what's best for your situation. But one thing I would strongly recommend you look into, as was already mentioned, is a pair of twin engine scrapers. With the current slow housing market, there are a lot of older, but very decent condition scrapers on the market right now that companies are trying to get rid of. You could pick up a pair of 637D's or 627B's in fine condition for the work that you're describing for a low price, and only require two operators for the entire operation. If you shopped around you could probably find two decent condition 637D's for $55,000-$90,000 apiece depending on the auction. These machines will do an awesome job on what you've described, with very little support equipment needed. Watch some of the auctions. At a Ritchie Brothers auction in November, one buyer purchased ten 657E's for $1,000,000. There were good condition 637D's at the auction selling for $40,000. Some 627B's were selling for under $20,000. It doesn't sound like these machines will work in an extremely high stakes environment; tight schedules, deadlines, etc, so the older D series twins, or even the B's may fit the bill.
Not sure if this will help to the situation but, what about the penetration the excavator can get while digging down off a ledge and top loading (if possible)? I don't know how deep your digging, or how hard this material is. Around here I've seen trucks and excavators used on very short hauls due to this, they were able 'nit pick' at their cut. Maybe the experts can correct me?
When possible we have the excavator sit on the dirt to be dug and have the trucks down below, works wonders. Usually take a pass only so the excavator swings 90degrees total, from scoop point to dump. Somtimes have to go more but they like us to make shorter swings and maybe it adds to one extra pass but all depends on where we are at. I myself grew up on the contractor side and know there is no such thing as TOO MUCH BLACK DIRT. I try to get all of it taken off and piled in one place, heck you can sell that stuff like black gold, and no matter what you still hav to move it so you might as well stockpile it seperate. Trbo
Turbo 21835 Turbo 21835, I caught your comment about the TS14 which I agree are a great machine, maneverable, easy to transport, light weight in wet conditions, easy to work on, but as rule to be productive with them you need to be pushing the 14. But anyway you said on AVERAGE you could get 3000 CY in a 12hr day each going 500-1000', NO WAY!!!!!!! I've worked around TS14's and on average 1000CY in 12hrs. According to your figures: 3000CY/12hrs= 250CY a hour 250CY/12CY=20.8 trips in a hour man you guys are really GOOD!! I always found that kind of distance to be between 6-10 loads in a hour
I forgot to mention in my other thread. I don't know what kind of rock conditions you have but keep in mind if your rock elevations vary be careful with the pull pans that you don't rip the floors out of them on the rock, it doesn't take much, with excavator you can follow the rock contour up and down.
Isn't a TS 14 rated at 20 LCY? Here in Ohio that would lead to about 15 BCY and 13 CCY. If Josh was talking about LCY that would be 12-13 trips/hr. If the case were BCY it would be about 16-17 trips/hr. Seems to me if the state of material was on the same page it might work out correctly? Just throwing that in......
It all depends on the quarry. For years our family biz always did the striping for ourselves(we crushed ag lime for over 40 years) as well as the aggregate company in the area, with dozers and a self loading scraper, and later had an excavator as well. You got what you could with the scraper and still had to do some clean up with the dozer. The way we do it now works pretty well for uneven terrian. I've stripped quarries all different ways, just looking to see what some of yall think is the best way to go about it. thanks Trbo
Here are a few pics from one of the quarries we stripped this year, the last one with the excavator and rock is from a small pit that has "cut" rock on top of sandstone. Trbo Just started using the pic resizer and that thing is awesome.
FensonConst, no a TS14 will only haul 12 LCY. Don't get to caught up in(bank,swell, compacted CY) when figuring production.
Just wondering how big of an area are you stripping at one time....... 1/2 acre more or less.Also how far down before you hit the rock your wanting. What was you doing in the first picutre stripping black dirt along the edge of the cut with the dozer.Hopefully your cut is a bigger area then that? Second picture i take it is where you have stripped some of the black dirt.Are you going to be stripping all the aera by the pickup and where the dirt, grass is tore up? I guess if your just doing a small area it looks like it would be better to do a bigger area at once.Especially if your cutting back into the slope on the corners,or coming pretty much straight down.With scrapers your going to have to lay the slopes back farther or use the excavator and truck to cut the corner areas out. Three sided box stripping with the corners is a real pain.If you have 50ft. cut or more???? Are you pushing the high bank into the last place you stripped? Would like to hear same more info what your planning:beatsme .Thanks:usa
How many yards do you need to strip per year? How much time do you have to move the material? How far do you have to haul it? Do you strip at all 25 locations every year? There are a lot of variables to consider. If you are just doing small areas at a time by yourself, not in a hurry you might want an elevator scraper. IMO from the looks of your pictures a farm tractor/scraper combo would be a pain to manuver there. What does the aggragate processing crew run? At our local limestone quarry when they need to strip they just take a day or two and strip with the 988 and 769s, then back to hauling rock :beatsme .
Every quarry is different, the one in the pics, didn't require as much dirt volume to be removed as it has a face of 75 to 95 feet. Those pics were in the middle of stripping, we are done with it now. Did the airstrip and down another side. I have stripped this quarry many times with a self loader, back when we still had out business. Last time I hauled over 9,000 yards, there is plenty of room at each end to turn around and enough dump area as well. One of the last pits we stripped off was one of our largest pits and took an area of 200x700 with dirt ranging from 2 feet to 7 feet, plus an earthen berm. I myself like slopes, looks more professional but somtimes is not needed to do height of bank, we always berm as well. We try to strip for 100,000 ton of rock each time. When were were finished we were back to the fence, past the pickup. Trbo Here is another one from a while back, done with dozer, scraper and excavator.
Its really not hard to make those numbers if you set your site up correctly. Yes you need a push cat. Our first day on site was striping a cut area, and stripping our fill area. By the end of the day we would have both approved to start our cut to fills. By day two our whole crew would be on site. It consisted of a D7H two Ts14bs. Those would be on site the first day. Day two the D5N and 815B would be on site. Sometimes a tractor with box and a disk also. Day two, the d7h would be pushing us through the cut, the 5 would work haul roads, fills, and cuts. We would run our first cut load to the fill. On the way back from the fill we would pick up a load of topsoil to take to stock pile. We would self load in the topsoil most of the time, sometimes the 5 operator would have nothing to do so he would push us. Belive it or not this helps a lot. It was nothing to get 20-25 loads an hour The double hauls are the most important part of this set up. It can be difficult to get a soils tech to agree to this. Usually because they have 2-3 jobsites they are on each day. They had to spend twice as much time on our sites. The office loved us for it. We were getting double of what they bid the job for in a day. Moving topsoil for 0.89 cents a cyd. That included the d5 and the 14s. Cut to fill was $1.17 a cyd. That included the cost of the d7 and the 815 in with the 14s. The other pan operator and I were driven individuals. We both wanted to be the best and have the highest load count each day. We got well rewarded for our production. Our 14s got news seats when requested. They also recieved better care than our other 14s in the fleet. We did all the grease work on the machines. The shop also made sure our engines and trannys were in tip top shape. The only thing they wouldnt do for us was get hooks and bails. That woulda freed the D7 up for pushing cut to fill in the short areas and pushing topsoil that was close to the stock piles.
TURBO21835 OH WELL you forgot to mention one little detail that you where double haulin, I will agree with you now that you can get that kind of loads. Double haulin is great if you got the right setup. We use to do that with D8's and 20 yard pull pans, people don't understand how you can run up to 500'-1000' and make production or money but double haulins the key. I use to work for a guy that blew his mind when he saw us double haulin with Steigers and pans, alot people don't utilitze double haulin. Plus you must of had good ground conditions and material. Helps alot when you have go getters like yourself, they don't make good scraper hands like they use to.
I agree with you on that one, and for alot more than just scraper hands. Its really hard to find guys that WANT to work and EARN their money. I myself miss being on our self loader, always enjoyed it cause alot of times I was alone. Trbo
Great thread here As I have done plenty of this. TS 14s are a good size on new or unstable ground & Push-pull setup increases production. Double hauling works great for extra production and less wasted fuel. Save your topsoil & treat it like black gold. It can sit in a stockpile for years and increase in value each day.......C ya.....Ray
There was a project going on in town that came to a standstill and the reason was money, the owner claimed that it had way to much black dirt that had to be trucked away and alot of clay as well. They had so much the contractor was giving it away as well as clean clay. One compnay bought some at dirt cheap(no pun intended) and has over 2000 yards in a nice pile at a rock quarry. Black dirt is GOLD as you said. Trbo
EZ TRBO You got that right, during the summer it's non stop crazy, balls to wall with 5-10 operators to watch over. But then winter hits and it slows down to just me by myself sometimes out runnin equipment, kind of nice like a vacation only freezin and muddy!
when buying scrapers have to remember the transportation, if they are gonna stay in one place for a long time ide go with older 637s but to transport one is a pretty hefty job, if you go with the smaller scraper 627, when its time to move them just slap on an oversizeload sign and drive it, at least here in wyo, im not sure about anywhere else.
Guess I didnt really thinking about it, thats the way my crew always did things. Most of the times we did double hauls. Certain times where we didnt want to have huge fill areas open was the only time we really didnt double haul. Topsoil can be black gold. It can be a huge pain. I was working in central Ohio when I was on the scraper crew. It was nothing out of the ordinary to find 16 inches of topsoil on a job. We had jobs where there was 4 feet of topsoil. A lot of the time we would have to use borrow pits to get our fill material. So we usually just burried the topsoil in the borrow areas. One job we had one borrow pit that we put 17k cyds and another pit that we had 12k cyds in. We did a Target in Columbus Oh where we stripped 50k cyds of topsoil. All of which had to be exported off site. We loaded day and night for 5 weeks solid. Most of the topsoil was hauled to fill low areas in fields. We couldnt give it away fast enough. The real fun part was loading pickups with a cat 350LME and a 5 cyd bucket. EZ TRBO, where are you working? Sounds like your having a hard time finding good hands. You looking for operators? Im looking for a change in scenery, the economy in Mi is in the crapper big time. Im looking at options for getting out of here. The hard part will be selling my house.