Hi guys i'm new to this industry.and i'm learning how to operate a dozer, one question i'd like to ask is why is it not good practice to level using the back of the blade when reversing.
Some situations "back dragging" isn't the end of the world.. Sometimes if you're working with gravel you'll have to do it since the tracks are so rigid it can be hard to final grade.. Also if you're in some wet material you might back drag.. To back drag consistently throughout that day though is gonna be counter productive.. You don't want to push material one way and then back drag the other. I'd tell you to just concentrate on grading moving forward, once you get good at that you'll forget about back dragging.
My preference is I don't believe you can get as accurate a finish back dragging. Dozers are designed to push material. Seems like all the blade wants to do is wobble up and down. Going forward grading I'm telling it where I want it. Only time I back drag is when I change directions and I still had a small pile I hadn't lost or up next to obstacles such as a building, fenceline, whatever. With a 6-way blade angled and backing up, I feel you can get that last little bit easier because you can see it. One more thing, if you're back dragging, you have ZERO capacity for material. So as soon as there is enough build up, you have dirt pushing up on the blade, losing your grade no matter how much down pressure.
Seems to me the number one reason you will hear to not to back drag is because the machine is operated in reverse....said activity puts more wear on the tracks' pins/bushings....there are some excellent discussions with pics etc showing how the wear in reverse is different than in forward.... Although having made that point it seemed to me the loading in reverse is typically less than the loading in forward and the many 'dont reverse' cautions don't really add this attribute into the discussion. In summary, from what I have seen, operating the dozer from a 'reference starting flat spot' and keeping that concept by trying to make it bigger seems to be the straightforward idea; if the tracks are on a level plane it is much easier to determine where to set the blade. And if the goal is to keep the finished surface material compacted to a high value, backdragging wont help in that regard.
From a maintenance standpoint I hate seeing operators backblade all the time. It wears out the bottom of the blade behind the cutting edge. A finish pass to smooth off the grouser marks is one thing but seeing a guy running around all day in reverse makes you question their grading skills.
Hello gravelscratcher, Back dragging will wear some parts faster, but sometimes it's cheaper back dragging than labors, scrapers, superintendents, ... waiting for you to do all your work in forward gears. I try an get each area done with the least amount of travel and move on. Deeretracks, I agree with you. I have seen guys that can't grade and try back dragging the mess they made.
I guess you've got the message about back blading by now. What kind of work are you carrying out?
Thanks for the advice guys,an answer to your question ih100 i work at an open-cut mine ,the material is mostly rock,gravel mixed with dirt.
Oh boy, my favorite stuff to try and level. :throwup