I guess I'll jump on the picture Gallery bandwagon too. Some old threads with my pics. Demo of Galveston Causeway Saving a sunk barge on the Causeway project Some bulk pushing From when I worked in Socal Socal work on the coast More Socal Hilton in Socal
Since we bought a house on the other side of town and I don't want a 60 mile 2hr.+ drive in traffic. I started a new job that was short lived demoing houses. First day one house down sorry no clean up pics it started to pour right as I was finishing. It had these cool mostly dog and one horse statues on the chain link fence. I tried to get the ones that looked like labs but they where stuck good. It's a bit of work to bust up a house with a 312 and have I said how much I hate fixed thumbs?
Interior Demo what a pain. Had 3 section to demo inside this one building this is the first before and then after demo and loading out one truck. Section 2 big 60'x40' maybe had to save all those floor joices (the board you see leaning down 4th pic) labanated beams holding the one end of the joices up still and all the steel poles sticking up in the last pic. For reuse in the new construction. You can see a bit of plywood off to the left of the last pic under that are all the electrical panels that had to be saves in place too.
Nice pics! Angle grinder woulda took care of them dogs for ya!
You can see the electrical panels that had to stay and the wall that separates the warehouse from the offices that had to stay. Did but a few small dents in the drywall , but nothing a painter can't easily fix. Not bad I even surprise myself once and a while. Had to keep the load small so the truck could fit out the 12' door. All cleaned up just a load of steel left.
No before pics on this one was a little nervous when one of the walls really started to lean towards the neighbors car only 6' away. That ok it was a good primer for the next one the boss was real nervous on this one with the neighbors so close and the house had a lot of fire damage and structurally wasn't very sound.
I love pushing over the chimney last. The truck with the load trapped was a full load not a good pic but the load is a good 5' over the bed side I only stopped because I wasn't sure what the tarp would cover. Last pic was a driver loading his own giving me a break.
Last job all clean up New machine for me 320s work a lot better then 312s for demo. Not as well as the boss thinks it still doesn't replace a hammer for busting concrete. Needs some dental work after the first day. And all done.
After that job I decided it wasn't going to work out, so I was looking for a new job. I got a offer from this company that does industrial demo, but they don't pay to well and travel a bit so I'll be moving on. Cool job though
Thanks Ya well I was lucky to get enough fuel to make it though the day only ran out 3 times in 2 weeks. I surly would of been laughed had had I ask for any sort of tools.
320cl is a very nice machine I like it quite a bit it handles nicely. Also very nice jobs
Ya I didn't have any complaints still would much rather run a JD or Link Belt. Any one tell me how to adjust the thumb on that 320 here is a better pic. Sorry you will have to tilt your head I'm not sure how to rotate.
Here ya go Dozerboy, great pics btw!
Great Demo Pics Hey, John: Long time, no see on this site. I just LOVE your demo shots. They are AWESOME. Yeah, that must have been fun to push over the chimney. Brick, so I can imagine how it all crumbled. Great commentary about wrecking with the 320 versus the 312. All good stuff. Keep up the great demo, and love to see some more shots from you. Take it easy, man.
dozerboy thumb You are right in your earlier post regarding manual thumbs, not the best after you run the main pin hydraulic thumb. What you have pictured is a Geith Auto Clamp. Are you able to lock the thumb in position? I can't really tell by the picture but it appears you mave have some missing pieces at the locking device. I'm a newbie here but I happen to work @ Geith. I'll try to help as much as I can with locating a dealer and getting you fixed up. My name is Allen @ 423-667-4683.
Thanks Allen Yes its locked in position and I though there must be some missing/broken pieces. Don't worry about a dealer I no longer work for that outfit and sure ain't doing that POS any favors. I was just wondering if I was missing something about how to unlock the thumb.:drinkup
Those excavators can also double as a debt collection tool. I don't know too many people that won't pay their overdue debts when you got one of them excavators sitting in their driveway. Ray
Updates Had a another short lived job as a Underground foremen in training. I can now recall one reason why I have done so little utility work...live sewer work:throwup. I can can believe some of the "operaters" that work for this company. You ever seen a place where every piece of iron have at least 1 broken window just for starters? Even the ones with under 1000hrs. on them?
More The boxes we where putting in where 9'x5' around 13' deep.
New job this one is a winner I believe. I will run everything, but my main gig will be a finish dozer hand. There getting a new 850 and are going to teach me the how to use GPS . Now for the pics First job make the 1,500' temp road for a school thats being built. Not my idea of fun putting down 4" of base over fabric that I can't tear with a dozer that size. It was going good until a trailer rolled the 2% crown and the trailer loaded off to on side is what did it in . FYI you can right a trailer with just a dozer.
Clearing job and prof this might be a good company. The guy running the loader the only thing with no AC, in a dust bowl, and in 90*+ weather was the owner and this isn't a small outfit.
Last of them
Great pictures, dozerboy. Hey, sorry it didn't work out with Cherry, but, hey, it looks like you found something even better and it sounds like you are happy there, which is something we wish we could all say about our jobs. Liked those clearing pictures. Looks like it was a lot of fun. Especially liked the shots of all the trees laying down side by side. What did you do with them after that to get rid of them--break them up or grind them up? What kind of trees are they--cottonwoods? Did they come down pretty easy or put up a fight? Later, bro.
I should of given a little description. The Chipper (1st/2nd pic of post #22) and the dozer goes in and takes down all the small stuff cleaning around the bigger trees for me to take them down. When I get as many as I can carry I rake them over to the pile. Space the out in front of it evenly so the chipper can get in there and do its thing. The loader with a root rake pushes them into a pile and goes around getting all the small roots I miss. We have the dirt work on this jog too IIRC we be moving 200K yds. Kind of a small cry from the multi million yd. jods I'm used to doing in CA. They're all kinds of tree oaks and ash mostly though. They don't go down to bad most of the are under 20" at the trunk, but trying to get most of the taproot can be a PITA. I did get a call from Cherry just a week too late. I asked what they had to offer, but they didn't seem to interested in getting me over there. Not that I would of blown off this job they have been good to me so far.
John, I'm glad that Cherry finally did call you, but they were too late. Missed out on a good thing. Well, still, it's nice to know that you are wanted. Maybe some time in the future back to demo full time with them, but it sounds like you got a good job going right now. Enjoy it, and keep those great stories and pictures coming. Later, man.
More clearing for me, but here is the 500K yd pond we are digging on this site. The whole site is 500 acres that a school owns this is only phase 1 it is unknown what they are doing with the rest so far. This whole area was heavily wooded with some ~70' cypress trees. The K-tec Pans are pulled by 480s we have a Hitachy 330 and a PC300 loading ADTs. This job is winding down we had a Daewoo 450 loading ADTs too and a few more pans.
More all the dirt was stock piled. Last you can see our only scraper its a old FA paddle wheel
The first few pics is what I cleared by myself. It was so narrow I had to drag the trees out the way I dropped them, because the clearing was narrower then the trees where tall in a 1.5' of mud. One of our new 544 with a root rake.
After that was done then they decided to add 5 more acres so I got some help then. More mud you might be in trouble when its up the the thumb on the stick. Only a few of the logs.
One more goes down and we getting there
All done now it time to clean it up with a pipe mop. I tried to grade it out some so all the rain will run off and this swamp will dry out. Only half got done right with the mop the boss got in a hurry so the other half was just swept with the 300. We have a road to put in and that other half is going to take months to dry out.
Ponds done HYD mulch being put down this is the baddest stuff on the market. It will hold up to a 5" rain per hr on a 3:1 slope. This company came in to install the pump station there 160 JD broke down so they are "lifting" it out. The problem was the crane couldn't it lift it so the drug it with the crane while pushing it with the dozer. Got the booms tangled up I was waiting for it all to come down never did. This is a cool saw the line crews uses to keep the trees back from the power lines.
Last is the clean up of my hoe 6hrs latter it was done I even hosed off the house. As if the mud packed into the tracks weren't bad enough add a lot of roots and tree branches packed in there too. Never got stuck one very close call you can see the mud 6' up on the counter weight.
Great pics Dozerboy! Keep em commin!!!
That looks like a muddy mess, Dozerboy, but the trees you're pushing look pretty good sized. That must have been fun. How big were the trees? Did they come down pretty easy? Did you end up burning them? Later, bro.
I'm guessing the taller ones are 70' range that came down easy since it was a muddy mess. When Ike hit we pumped water out of the pond for 8 days with 2 6" pumps. All of that water was pumped to where I was clearing. We have a mill anything over 8" is sent there the rest of the tree and smaller stuff was chipped up and will be turned into top soil.
Thanks for the update, and keep those great pictures coming.
Trying to pick a PC200 with the whipline???:badidea
Well more fun I'm back on the job form post #21 just digging the pond and building pads now. The boss man sent me here to save these guys from them selfs. They hit ground water at 10' and where burying the pans right and left. So a 420 Daewoo and some ADT to get down to FG @ 28'. Then we got 6" of rain last week and things got ugly fast so here I am. My weapon its a nice dozer first Komatus I've ran, and the cab is very quite. I do HATE that they have separate controls lock outs for the blade and the steering. I can't count the # of times I taken off and my blade wouldn't move. ointhead Trying to get caught up with all the piles they have been dumping and not knocking down. Ya thats wet and was a close call Yep that mud is over the track. I'm stuck, but now I know the limits
Just a pan the the back side of these statues of ex-presidents. Several people stop every day to take pics of them and the job we even had a news crew stop. Taking out a few trees I had to work so hard to save. I don't know why? Can you bury a tree in 4' of mud and it still grow... Broke an axle on one of our pans. The tire is somewhere... Damn look its the Loch Ness Monster in TX, oh its just a Deawoo.
#1-#3 Down in the pond #4 (In the distance)Amazing what 2 days of sun, low humidity, and a good breeze will do even in cooler weather. (Close to me) That is what it comes out of the ADTs like still haven't gotten stuck again. #5 Local Cat dealers Xmas display out of the pic there is some equipment loading "Presents" too, but I was driving and the pic wan to blurry.
Well its been a while time for some pics. Pads are done after a few grade changes its really hard and time consuming to put down 0.10' of wet clay. I would spred it about 6" then remove a little at a time until I got down to grade. IIRC I was spreading 1 load out about 50'. Loading the trucks out of the pond and them dumping in the other fill area.
First: picking up top soil Case 480 and Ktec 1233 Second: Spreading top soil JD 850 Last: I love the look of tracked pads makes me miss doing slopes in CA
First:Trading out hoes (rental) we had chronic problems with the orange one. Second: Slope work used the GPS dozer to establish the toe. Third: Same need to tech these guys how to cut slope without a GPS dozer sitting there cutting the toe. It was steeper the a 1:1, but later they had us move the bench out and lay the slope back 15'.
Had to take some shots of my clean truck posing with all that white iron on one of our rain days.
wont be like that for long! very nice truck i like
Great to hear from you, Dozerboy, where you been? These are great pictures and thanks for the update. What are you building there? Looks like major housing development. Are they going to sell? At least they still are working on the project anyway. Good luck with it. All the best.
Thanks its my baby going to start doing some tuning on it now and really wake up that Duramax. Just been busy I guess, but I don't know what has been taking up all my time. We have been cut back to 4 10s for a little while now and it don't seem like I have any more time then when I was working 5 10s. Since we bought the house we have had lots of family and friends come down to see us. Its a new urban area that is being developed Here is the web site. Or in short there is going to be yuppie fancy with restaurants, offices, and hotels.
Musta missed this one... Nice pics dozerboy, thanks for sharing. Looks like a fun job. Are you running an 850 as well?
I don't run the 850s very much and have never used the GPS. Just from watching them I'm less then impressed, but it could be how fast our guys are going while cutting FG. I was running a D65 and the hoe on that job.
Back to the job where the end dump rolled. They dropped a bunch of trees years ago before this site was sold for development. I got to clean it up what a mess as if it isn't hard enough keeping all the dirt out of the trees to be chipped. Its 10x harder when if your a little rough the rotten trees break into 20 pieces. Add that to the fact a bunch of them was in a swamp/pond. First: Just getting start and seeing what we have to work with. Second: Before I made to big of mess. Third:1/2 way through the swamp Forth:Finely dry ground Fifth:The windrow of wood and what not to be chipped. I just used the back of my bucket going back and forth making a arc rolling it in to windrows. Then I would reverse and pull the windrows back up into the center of the area I cleared like you see in this pic. I also had to level the ground as I went since they use a dozer to clear with years ago so there where little dirt piles all over like woops almost.
First: Found some big stuff that wasn't too rotten. Second:Go baby go. To bad we didn't have some sharper teeth. Third:Can't you keep up gumming those trees to pieces? Forth:Finely done with that area Fifth:My buddy I would scared the monster field mice out and he got lunch he was there everyday. I'm not joking about the monster part they where the size of rabbits.
First:More of my buddies had at least 5 of these guys there everyday. They would eat all day long grubs, small lizards & snakes, and mice. Not sure what he has there. Second: Its hard to see, but he is eating a mouse that was bigger then his head. Third: Building up the grade for around the school ~5'. I was trucking in sand building the pad. No time for pics with over 200 bottom dumps a day and placing it with a 650 JD. I had to push all the fill into all kinds of jogs since the underground guys kept cutting off my access for the trucks. Showed the boss a few things during that. Thank goodness I placed a lot of fill with trucks in Socal. Forth: The cut its a good size pond. Fifth:Our GPS pan
Really Cool Stuff Dozerboy, man, you get to do the coolest stuff on your equipment. That is interesting about the birds. That's an egret, right? I never heard of them eating a mouse--I thought they only went for small fish, grubs and insects. Man, you must have been their best friend, scaring out all that great food for them. The hawk is pretty cool too. Now that I could see eating a mouse or two. Sounds tough going to get rid of all those rotten trees. They just turned to powder when you touched them with the bucket I bet. That must have been a real pain to pull them out of the swamp too. Well, keep on keepin on. It sounds like you are having a pretty good time out there. All the best, man, and keep the great stories and pictures coming.
Nice pics! Those egrets are funny, aren't they? We see a lot of them at the Corps spoils disposal areas. They'll come right up to the dozer, you think you're going to run them over or bury them but they always scoot out of the way in the nick of time.
nice pics sir, The quarry reclaimation we did this past winter had a couple bald eagles that would show up two or three times a week, really cool to see. what kind of pan's are you guys pulling? you guys use trimble GPS?
I feel your pain on cleaning up the rotton stuff, if it's wet you get more mud than wood mixed it. its a big pain in the rear! just mix it in with the topsoil :drinkup Jobs looking good!
Clearing is fun. Looks like your keeping busy Nice pics.
Clearing is awesome. It really puts the equipment to a test, and you can definitely see your progress. Sometimes it even pisses off the tree huggers and leaf lickers, and that can make it even more fun. Anyone else have experience with that--pissing off the tree huggers etc.? How did you handle them?
what is that machine that looks like a tank with the white boom on it? Never seen anything like that before. VERY Nice Duramax by the way!:drinkup
it is a jarraff industries line clearing machine--they are so cool to operate, but you sure get one hell of a knot in youre neck. 4 hours is the longest i have ever been able to spend in one.
Dozerboy did you like running the terex hoe? I've been curious about them for quite sometime. I know for the larger ones cat recommends them now that the 5100 series is dead, just curious about the smaller ones. Small is kinda a funny word to use with 45 ton hoe but i guess its all relative.
It was ok they use the same manufacture as the orange Daewoo. But I didn't really spend enough time on it to give a good review.
These are old just getting caught up since I have time on my hands First:Our underground guys screwing me over by opening up trenches all around the pad I'm building up. Second: Putting in the the last of the Storm Third: One of the several old tractors abandoned on those site. It was a Allis Chalmers IIRC, but I forgot the model. Forth: Oops thats why you don't just reTQ the bolts on the master link. A few days later the planetaries blew out of this dozer. Fifth:Oops you lost something there. The bolts that hole the wheel spacer broke. He was going down the 2:1 slope when the tire passed him he ended up running it over with the tractor and the pan. A few days later we cut us a road in and out of the ditch.
First: Helping out the dozer hand finish up the ditch part of the pond. Second: I had to do the toe. Third:I milked the hoe work as long as I could. I became the Double Pan Man since we did have any more jobs. We run mostly Case 480HD and Ktec pans other then the double and one 450HD and 430HD Forth: Not clear there put they made mud out of the haul road and we where slinging mud balls bigger then soft balls off our tires. Fifth: 430 pulling out of the ditch
First: The ponds 2/3s done the JD850 finishing and 330 cleaning up the back side of the damn. Second: The other chew here "helping" us finish. Third: Had a little time to kill so I was going to write another hands name in the grass with my pan as a joke to get him in trouble. Forth:Sunrise the school going up. We have some of the best sunrises/sets IMO. Fifth: Why you don't go 22.5MPH on a rough *** haul road. If the bushing hadn't gone out when it did that could of been ugly. Well thats it hopefully soon we will have some more work so I can take some more pics.
Awesome pics, John. Keep 'em coming man.
Great pics but I hate MUD LOL
Mud is my middle name I think now. I just about only run track iron and even if I'm only just need it for 10 min the tracks will be packed full of mud. There are finely getting the other hands to help me clean the tracks. To fully clean them it can take up to 5 hrs. daily we just do the rollers good and that can take 1/2hr-1hr.
I was off for 3 weeks we did a small job and now have a bigger job. Its been slow we're not always getting our 40 and he low balled this job $100/$150K so we won't be doing any overtime. Small Job First: 480 in the cut we had a 4' remove and recompack. Second: 480 and JD700 in the cut Third:There was my job chase out all the pipe and concrete in the cut. Boy there was a lot. Forth: Nice smooth cut ointhead Fifth:Starting the fill off the stock pile.
First/Second: 480 and 700 in the fill me casting dirt off the stock pile for the 700 to place Third: My 330 and a buried road we found after I piled it up Forth: Some of my rubble pipes the general did the hauling I just loaded them. It was all hauled off on 30yd dumpsters at the most I would do 3 loads a day. Don't ask me the general was paying for my time the rest of the time I napped. Fifth: Ran out of dirt started to import.
First: Now we're getting somewhere. Second: On this guys first load he yelled out the window his clutch wasn't working in half spanish and he couldn't stop. Then got stuck we left him there for a while. After we got him out and dumped he comes back with another load gets stuck again. We leave him there even longer. We weren't really doing to be mean we where just busy. Well we get him out and them he decides instead of going straight out of the fill and coming back around to dump. He is just going to come back around on one of our finished pads and decided to drive though the only wet spot with standing water. He is there for 15mins spinning his tires and eventually crawls his way out. He dumps and we wouldn't sign his ticket. He goes to the general and wines. That don't do any good, so he sits there all day. He gave his ticket to a few other drivers. They tell us "Oh you forgot to sign my ticket last round". We tell them BS and if that was that case that is you problem. Driver here give us a ticket every load and they like to try this trick so they get paid for more loads then they did. They do it on every job too I'm even had them try to add on 2 hrs. of drive time for getting to and from the job. Fing cheats
Need to get current with my pics. Did some clearing and had a bit of the dirt work on this job didn't have the pond though. This is the other clearing contractor. Never seen them use blowers in a burn pit in person before. Thats a neat wagon they got there...
you would have to think using a regular artic would be easier, no? Its a cool idea but it seems like a waste to me. Great pics, keep em commin!
First: This job was a swamp when we started every body was getting stuck even I did on the loader. JD 750 pulling and a KS 51 pushing out one of our 480s and a pan. Second: JD850 pushing pans. We tore up our 6 ways pushing pan on this job our blades ain't reinforced to be pushing. Third and Fourth: some friend I found cleaning that snapper wasn't happy he tired to get a piece of the hoe several times. I was just trying to get him to get out of the area. Fifth: Our root rake on the loader it was to wet really got a lot of dirt in with the roots.
First: Raking with our JD 544 loader Second: Time of busy work since this is our only job. Picking roots out of the dirt from the rake. Yes I'm that good...:notworthy Third: More of the same it took 2 weeks to do everything. Forth: Same again but my hoe was down, so I did'er with the loader buck/rake. Fifth: Play this cool game dozer baseball I lost couldn't find any stakes to kill. ointhead Got more just need to upload them later.
Looks like ya found a moccasin in the bucket on that last pic. Great pics Dozer Boy!
nice pics
Good eye they have been kind of pissy with our weather lately.
First: The clearing guys dozer nice. With all the clean we do I have no idea why we don't have a dozer with a rake and guards. Instead of just telling me to not break out a window A window got broken out of my hoe on the current clearning job I'm on I'll get to the pics latter. Second: Don't see many scrapers around here its too soft let alone a old 613 waterpull. Take a long time to fill that thing up out of a hydrant. It take us 30mins just to do our tri-axle water truck. Third: Here comes the pipe. Underground guys out here are nuts I don't think all 4 tires of there loader are ever on the ground at the sometime unless it parked. There is something wrong when a loader is passing our pans. Forth: The underground guys with a load of stabilized sand getting dumped. Fifth: The guys doing the pond. I wish we ran JDs to pull our pans
What do you guys run? I take it that the JD's aren't your tractors then... I'm kinda confused, you have part of the clearing and the underground on the job, but not the dirt? :beatsme oh and nice photos as always:drinkup
First: Got to get things dried out a old 9150. Second: Pulling Sand off the stock pile the pond guys built. Third: We are still drying things out but the haul roads are sure getting dry. Where is that water pull...... Fourth:We had to mix 4" of sand with the 7" of clay to get the PIs and moisture down for the first building pad. 480 with a pan ,750 JD dozer with topcon GPS, and our Bomag mixer. Fifth: Pushing the sand out into a jog in the pad. We have topcon GPS on that 1 pan too.
We have Case tractors. So was I, we did some of the clearing, the building pads for the school, 1 of the parking lots, all of the ball fields ETC. The pond, streets, other parking lots, and underground was done by other subs. I think....
Great pics...thanks for sharing. Trbo
Here are some shots from on top of the stock pile. First: One of the over-x'd building pads us use that dirt to make our landscaping ETC fills then the clay/sand out of the pond is used to make the pads. Second: Underground and in the foreground is another pad yet to be over-x'd Third: more underground Fourth: Pond in the distance yes they built a stock pile in the middle of the pond you can see the cars on top of it in the top left corner. Fifth: Us making the ball fields and a top soil stock pile.
First: Killing time lets load the scrapers with a hoe. We where helping the underground guys get rid of there dirt. Second, Third: Cutting grade with our JD 850 and trimble GPS don't look to hard or that "fancy" grade will make you dizzy. Fourth, Fifth: Some trees that where suppose to be left where in the way so they had to be taken down. That it for pics of that job I got burned out. Showing up for 10 hrs and looking for something to do all day gets old, but it pays the bills.
if you get a chance get some pics of that tinted Case STX. that looks bad a**
I'll get a few for you Pullpan I went back to big pond we did that I posted about in post #26. To load out the wood chips. There was another contractor there doing the grading in the area I cleared. They had some nice Iron, but they're kind of hacking away at our stock pile. First: A 330 loading out of our pile IIRC the ADTs were a Volvo 30s or 35s. I don't know why most hoe operators have trucks back up to them here. We have a lot of clay here so its a little more difficult to load the good side, but this material wasn't bad. Second: Nice Volvo hoe don't know the size but it was around the same as a 330 a 45 something maybe. I have never ran a Volvo, but would like to some time. Third: These guys where sure jumping around a lot. Forth: A bad pic from on top the pile of the area I cleared. I drove up there in the dark and you can kind of see it has washed out a bit. Well I was dodging washouts and dropped my front left tire in a 3'er. It was abrupt enough that I smacked my head good on the B piller of my truck. After the fog cleared I got to see how bad I bent my step bars, but there was no damage. Luckily I could crawl outt of the rut in 4lo it would of taken me 30 min to try and track my hoe up there to get myself out. ointhead
Great pics, Dozerboy:drinkup How much longer do you have on this job?
Nice pics, as always, D-boy. How you doing anyway, John?
I didn't get all the chips out the pin broke for the H linkage for the bucket. I was loading a truck when it happened. There was a loud bang and the bucket half full of chips and dirt slammed down. I though it was going to take out there nice Alu trailer.
It was just a few days loading out the chips that I didn't finish. We pulled off to go to a small 14 acre clearing job that has a pond and building pad to do on it.
Wow. Did that kind of thing ever happen to you before, D-boy?
Doing good Wolf getting a little OT and 3day weekends. Spent last weekend at the beach since my wife actually had it off. Its been hot though high 90s not much rain. What about you?
Only with the 10ton shear we had on one of the hoes I ran in Socal. I got a little rough with it doing demo and busted a linkage pin, but it happened a few times a year. Since the shear was a little to big for that hoe to be mounted the way it was.
Nice, buddy. Glad to hear you are having some time to relax. How do the beaches in TX compare to San Diego? And the scenery on the beach? Having a good summer here too. An excellent fishing trip, lots of other good times. Might as well enjoy it while things are slow. That is pretty funny that you knocked the 10ton shear off doing demo. Sounds like you got pretty rough doing demo--that is fun. I still remember your great stories about the cars falling and the Torey Pines. Hope you're making more great memories and craziness like that in TX. Do tell all.
Love the gulf the water gets over 80* in Socal the cold water killed my knees in a mater of mins. The water isn't as clear most of the time, but you can go 200' out and still touch Which is nice when you can't swim like me. You don't get pounded by waves only ~2'ers unless there is a storm. The scenery isn't as nice , but there are some looker in bikinis. With miles of beach and being able to drive on it people can spread out. We backup 20' from the water unload the 10x10 shade, grill, chairs, and ETC. Glad to here your having a good summer. Ya I miss the fat checks, but am more then happy with my 45hrs and a 3 day weekends. I going to try and avoid going back to long hrs and all week when things pick back up. This slow down has opened my eyes over all the hrs I was working last year.
Sounds like you really know how to party on the beach and are having a great summer, and less hours means you can really enjoy. I've camped on the Gulf beaches, only as far west as Port Arthur in TX, but also been on Gulf beaches in Florida panhandle and it's nice. Thanks for the great reply, always good to hear from you Dozerboy. Doing a book and some articles on demolition. May come to you to ask if OK to include your stories and experiences, and some others from the forum. Take it easy, man and enjoy the weekend.
Here Pullpan the pics you wanted I had to wait till we started the grading.
More
Well done with the pond job didn't last long enough thats for sure. I was dropping trees with the hoe and did a little underbrush work with the dozer while clearing. While grading I got to do one of my favorite jobs running a nice water truck. I think I could do that the rest of my life just fine. No pressure, time to snap some pics, radio, AC. Making some mud to play in. The rest of the pics will have to wait First- Third: 10 min after starting my hoe one of the spools jammed again so. I took 1 of our 51s to clear the under brush didn't even break a window Forth: They put a thumb on 1 of our 228s just for this job. Fifth: 320 Komatsu and a JD544 stacking logs, sometimes bucking, and using a root rake.
Dozerboy: Those are great pictures of you dropping the trees --they look like pretty cool trees. Great pictures, but not as cool as when you pushed over the torey pines in front of the leaf lickers. still think that is hilarious, John, and going to use it in the book. grind up the torey pines right in front of those greenies. LOL. gotta love it, man.
thats just sick! tint makes just about anything look better
Ya it sure does to bad I didn't get pic of them being dropped off. We do a really good job of cleaning up our iron before it gets moved. Man they looked good. First - Fourth: Dropping a tree we dig around them how ever much it take to drop them I've had to go 5-6' down on some of the big pines. Then we hook them between the bucket and the thumb and pull them towards us and swing to the side at the same time so they just miss the hoe. My 270 is a dog some I have to really work at and chew them up more then I should. With this hoe being a bog it don't have the power to swing them off to the side all the time so if they are coming at me I could use the thumb to push them away as I tried to swing them off to the side. Fifth: First time I ever broke a one of those keepers never even done it in rock. The mechanic came and put my tooth back on backwards I might add.:Banghead He cut the crap out of himself on the teeth. I keep them like razors. He was wining I told him that how real operators keep there teeth it wasn't my fault he'd never met one before.
First: Getting there 4 days on the job. Thats with a Hitachi 270, 330, and Komatsu 228 hoes dropping trees and doing some bucking. 2 Komatsu 51 dozers 1 dropping trees when a hoe is down other then that doing under brush and pushing trees way from the hoes. A 544 JD and a 320 Komatsu loader. 2/3 guys on the ground with saws Second: The mess Third: The pile Looks kind of small in the pic, but its about 7 acres worth of dense pine trees minus what we logged. Fourth: End of the day you can kind of see the pile in the back ground Fifth: Our sub to do the grinding is here. They had a Peterson Pacific 6700 belt grinder, 2 320s cats, 1 160 JD (IIRC) and 1 850 JD dozer with a root rake.
First: We left on Thurs since we are working 4/11s. The grinders started mid day Thurs when we got there on Mon they had our pile gone I know they didn't work sun for sure. That grinder is one bad:cool2. Second: The 330 no thumb on it, but it still dropped trees faster them my dog. Third: The 228, 330and me all working side by side. The Danger zone especially when the owner like start bucking the trees as soon as they hit the ground. We are damn lucky no one got hurt on this job. Fourth: The grinder are still right no top of us. There even started chasing down the trees we where dropping instead of waiting for us to bring them. Fifth: Good thing trucks started showing up to slow them down some. I'll stop there for now
looks like a duratech grinder. maybe a peterson. any more pics?
It said Peterson don't know anything about grinders though. I don't have any good pics of the grinder, but I'll post what I have. First: Loading out the chips Second: Loading the grinder Third: Track the last bit to the chippers Fourth: Last bit of root raking Fifth: Found 1 last pic of the grinder
First-Third: One of our jewels this was my first "water truck" on this job. It kind of blew 1st gear and idling it still didn't put down enough water to knock down the dust. It lasted 11/2 days before the frame broke engineering didn't think this one through all the way. They made a major hack job fix that lasted long enough to get a load of water down. Then we ordered a nice rental water truck. Fourth: Starting on the grading. Where is that water truck? Fifth: Bad pic, but at quitting time our dozer hand whipped around to head in and picked up a log. It was jammed in there bad. He was able to work it out though backing up. This was towards the end of the job you can see some of the pond in the back ground.
Just some site pics of the start of the grading. Had a few piles off roots ETC to load off and some stacks of logs to go to our mill. The scarpers are striping the top soil making the fills around the building pad.
Most of the pics I took while grading are of the scrapers in the above posts. Here are the sit pics of the end of the job. We only did phase 1 of the grading: building the pad from cuts from the pond. Rough grade the street and parking lots and prof roll them with the water truck for the soil Nazi. Then get this we filled in the streets and everything to make the whole site drain off the property.:beatsme And thats it the rest of the pond will have to be dug and trucked off. That went up for bit as we where finishing. Well thats it we didn't have anymore work really so other then 3 operators and our foremen/supers we all got laid off. Not sure whats next I'm working on a few job possibility, but hardly anyone in even taking apps. May have to fall back on my CDL and go over the road or something. So far I'm trying to enjoy my free time that I've had a lot of lately. I've been practicing my Walmart greeting in the mirror I think I have it down so theirs that too. Latter, Dozerlessdozerboy
Hey Dozerboy, what part of Texas are you located in? I was working with my cousin in Flowermound TX. There was alot of construction going on over there.
I'm in Houston not many place here even taking applications.
Nice looking project, I'm sure the tree removal was the fun part. As always, thanks for sharing. Lets see some more. Trbo
Bump Well been working but I bust my camera offroading a while back so no pics. I might have some interesting work starting up soon so I might have to go get me a new camera or at least try out my phones.
With as much mud you all always seem to be in and you all ready have the Case tractors why not get a few in the Quad Trac version? You would be amazed at where they will go.
I don't know cost would be my guess. I have never seen one here and only have met 1 guy that has ran one. He said it was great other then having to grease all the rollers everyday.
That's a drag about your camera, John. Too bad, because you always post such interesting photos. What is the interesting work you might have starting up soon? Let's hear about it. All the best.
Woohoo I got me a new camera this weekend so I'm back at it. Lots has changed somehow I became a Haul Truck driver. Not really sure how it happened, but thats what I get for opening my mouth about my CDL. But I'm back at a demo company finely and I'm only driving until they find my replacement then I'm back in the operators seat. So here pics of my baby 97' KW with a 3406Cat @425hp and a Eaton 18. First: Bring a rental 360 Hyundai back after hiding over the weekend since this is a bad part of town. I'm a busy guy so no time to break'er down almost everything is side loaded. Second: The 360s back to work sitting on a rubble pile from the apartment we're demoing. Third: A hwy we're demoing I have to come by here a few times a week and leap frog the equipment around bridges and on/off ramps. Its always a PITA but its also the only time I get any help chaining down. Fourth: A 460 Link belt we have on loan from our sister company. Its the same machine as the 460 Case I used on the causeway project. And just last week it split the idlers just the Case did IIRC there are pics of it above somewhere. Fifth: Our 300 with our "new" hammer don't know what it is but its a big one could barely get the 300 on the trailer and get the boom low enough.
First: One of our rougher hoes pulling rebar on the same Hwy job Second: Geting the Barney back to the yard from the Hwy job. I haven't found a way to side load it yet its kind of too long. Third: Do ya think I have enough chains on this little hoe? Local DOT are a pain in this little town. Surprise I don't get nailed for the trash in the bucket, bu they don't seem to care. Fourth: I do get to break some stuff. Had to knock a hole in this building when I dropped the machine off to satisfy the contract start date. Fifth: They're watching me. One of my toys it records on a 4 day loop so no goofing off as if I have time. The back up camera is nice I get into a lot of tight places with one way in and out with no room to turnaround.
nice pics nver seen a demo outfit without thumbs and grapples on the gear. what's up with that?
Love those pictures, Dozerboy. And so happy to see that you are back doing demo. Look forward to seeing you in the operator's seat doing some serious wrecking, man. Congratulations.
Its at local thing I don't know if its because they're so cheap or what. There ain't a lot of hoes with thumbs around here at all, but when I was in CA everything had one just like CO. We have IIRC 3 hoes with fixed thumbs. One is the 200 in the pic but the pin broke a while back and it has all kinds of cracks so I just haul it from job to job in the bucket.... We have a grapple that is being rebuilt that has been sitting in a "scrap pile" for years. Thanks Wolf I have missed tearing things up on purpose. Here is the closest thing I have had to a tight move in the past 2 days. Can't see them in the pic, but I had to lift the phone lines over the cab and boom while off loading. The street was nice and wide though sometimes I spend an hr walking the block trying to get cars moved and folding it car mirrors.
Well got to experience something new this week an Emergency demo. We are 1 of 5 or 6 contractor that are on a rotation every month. That get called to do emergency for the county. There are different levels anything from preplaned demos for abandon building that are starting to fall down to fire demos that we have 1hr to respond too. All buildings not structurally sound after a fire are demoed on the spot. Normally they only take a few hrs but can take longer if its arson or someone died. Sometimes we only have a few but in the past we have had 1 a night almost. I didn't do many of the fire ones because I live a ways from the yard. We sent a super, operator, and truck driver to every one. The one I did on Monday was an apartment in the morning so I was on my way in already. It was a 6 unit building I saw it on the news in the morning. It was a real mess getting in there roads filled with on lookers and residents. Not to mention it was the ghetto so there are a lot of people with free time around. Had to wait for the cars to be towed out of the parking lot and a few fire trucks to move. That took a hr or so. Normally I would of stayed on site but we had some time and there where jobs shut down waiting on equipment. We went about our day oh I'm training my replacement so I've had help this week. At 4pm we where done so I had to go back to the fire and get the hoe back to the yard. I whipped up there where we unloaded it and it made a bunch of reporters mad. Since they where recording there news cast and I pulled up and blocked there money shot of the building. Then I went to talk to the inspector I had to wait they hadn't even stated to demo the building yet.... 8hrs later. So I moved my truck out of the way and stood around BSing with our guys, firefighters, inspectors, and investigators. The arson team was holding us up they found 2 bodies and couldn't figure out how the fire started. They had a guy in custody downtown and we where waiting on him to get back. I heard all the stories from he through a fire bomb through the window to it was an accident. The kid showed up and was 5' from us he was maybe in his early 20s and was here to show them what happened. He got up close to the building and started to cry right in front of him was a large sheet hanging from where the bodies where found. After 30 mins they where done he was telling the truth. They didn't have any power and where using a candle for light. Fell asleep then the fire started. He tried to put it out only making it worse and got minor burn in the process. Poor kid has to live with that forever. So at 8pm we got started 2 of the units only had minor damage and where to stay. Unfortunately we where serounded by other buildings so we had to take sometime tearing it down. We only had to get this one on the ground 2hrs later we where done. I got back to the yard at 11 was in bed at 1am and was getting ready for work at 4:30. If it wasn't for my trainee I would of came in late, but I wasn't driving so I could sleep some. This is by far the longest one we have ever done. I did get any pics but Here is what the news had. The next one I got to operate and drive for. I feel kind of honored since this company has never seen me operate only load equipment on the trailer. And normally only there best operators get to do these. It was only a garage, but they where cooking PCP in there so Hazmat was all over. I got hit up by the reporters for info when I went for my camera they where kind of :cool2 ,but I didn't know if I should be telling them anything so I played dumb. First: I finely went and got my camera this is one of the several times they stopped me, because we spotted more chemical while I was sifting through the debris. The Capt and Chief are standing by my hoe. Every time they found something I got out of the hoe and stood behind them. I figured that was a safe place to be. Second: I had already sifted through everything and was piling up the debris back on the slab when I found a metal can with part of a placard on it. They had unsuited already so I had to wait a while. Third: Suited back up. While putting the tape they use over the Hazmat suit on The guy doing it stuck a 2' piece on this guys butt as a tail. We're cracking up and I tried to get a pic of it but miss it I guess. Fourth: The Chief giving his interview I was trying to swing my hoe around in the background. Fifth: The trainee loading the hoe on the trailer. Poor guy has never ran equipment but the powers that be want to give it to him. Ofcorse they gave me the job too and I didn't have much time on a haul truck. He came within 3" of falling off the trailer, but saved it all on his own with a little advice .
Great pics, keep em coming!
My first demo project for them is a school. Its and old elementary that was turned into storage after the new one was built. The roof leaked a bit and when Ike(hurricane) hit 2 years ago it flooded minority. Them with no power, the AC unit trashed, and more important issues the building stayed closed up for a bit and the mold took off like crazy. There is tons of stuff inside. The district went through it and took what they wanted but there was a lot of decent stuff in there. I'm not scavenging it, but I'm keeping my eyes open. First: There was a house/storage building that we demoed a few weeks ago for the school on this lot. I came over here and filled in the low spot from the build with 6 loads of dirt. From what I have see the guys that work here need to stick with demo they don't have a grading bone in there body. Second: My poor old Haul Truck in 2 days the new guy punch a 18" hole in the deck bending one of the cross member of the trailer with a hammer. And today after dropping off my dozer he took out a fender with the lifting arm for the goose neck. Not his fault really other them I bet he left the PTO on. I to get the PTO fixed before we stuck someone else in the seat so this wouldn't happen and knew it was only a matter of time. 2 other guys have done the same thing a few times now. The shop was taking bets on how long before I tore one off when I started. No one gave me over 3 weeks some didn't give me a week. You can see the fender is laying on the ground next to the truck in this pic and the new driver unloading a 360 Hyundai. Third: Just a quick pic of 1 side of the school. People have pretty well picked over the building. This side had floor to ceiling windows with alu. frames that are gone so is most of the copper. Fourth: Got to take my time the roof the "insulation" puts off a ton of dust and this town has poor water pressure. Picking out the steel trusses and I-beams took me a little to figure out a good system to take them out cleanly. I've never done a building with this type of construction. The other 1/2 of the building has a concrete roof and its going to be tough to keep it out of the trash I think. Fifth: Not bad for only the few hrs I was at it today. I'm missing a thumb though for picking out metal and ETC. Hopefully tomorrow they will get me another hoe w/thumb and operator to give me a hand with the metal.
great pics Dozerboy! How do you like that Hyundai?
I think there crap and a throw away machine. They get the job done though and it is only a rental.
I figured, I haven't heard one good thing about Hyundai's. Rental houses sure like that cheap junk tho, keeps em in business somehow.
Running Hyundai does make economical sense to some. First and Second: Getting the rest of the original part of the school down. The rest is all concrete. Third: Separating out the steel siding and roof from an out building. Were is that hoe with a thumb? Fourth: 1 of the cleaned out auditorium/lunch room. We run little JBC skidsteers man that thing is a real POS IMO compared to Cat or other more traditional skidsteers. The JBC looks more like a gulf cart with a side boom. Fifth: Trash pile mostly from the auditorium
First: Taking down the first section of roof. Have to use the bucket to sweep off the roofing material(rolled roofing) off before I dropped it to keep it out of the concrete. Second and Third: Knocking down the brick wall and shoving it back inside the building. Third: Dropping another section of roof it was made from precast panels.
looks like fun. JCB rules the land over in the UK from what I have heard, they think JCB's are the best out there. I ran a JCB skidsteer once for all of 5 minutes and decided to get the 262 cat instead. I completely agree IMO there total junk.
Uk Errr no would be the simple answer
First and Second: The last section of the school Third: I was trying to drop the roof on just 2 sides so I could sweep the roof off. I didn't realize in was of a little different construction and the whole roof came down flat inside the building and it blew all the dust right out the hallway and into my face. Forth and Fifth: My "help" showed up finely was wondering if my other operator was just going to watch me tear down this school. I didn't get pics of the bucket but the only thing he could do was light work loading trucks. The whole back side of the bucket was torn lose from using it to heal up small bits of concrete and the thumb had a 18" crack up the plate/stick. But as you can see its not one our prize hoes and a bit worse of wear. And the tracks scream like murder they might be just a little tight though.
Well I finished up the school today. Ended up doing in myself they pulled the the other operator and equipment out after a few days. I didn't even have a ground man, but that don't bother me. First: Had some cracks that where starting to open up on my 300. I had him put a few blocks on the linkbelt bucket so it didn't totally fall apart. Second: almost there Third:One of the last loads of trash Fourth: Pulling up the slab and foundation there was about 6 additions to this school all with slightly different construction. I had to be careful to make sure I got everything. Fifth: The 290 Linkbelt loading trucks still and the monster pier. Most of the piers where 2' with 4' bells this one was 4' with 6'. I had to set it in the bed of a truck with the 300 it must have been close to 12K lbs.
First: I found me a wrecking ball its about 3'x4'x8' and makes a good thud when dropped from 15'. Sure made starting on a new sections of slab easier. Second: Pulling up the base and 2" thick asphalt parking lot. We send it to the crusher and they use it to get enough fines to meet spec. Third: Dozers here after I already heeled most of the parking lot. One of our truck drivers making a mess for me to clean up. They tried to make him a super, and he doesn't know nothing about this work really. He told me after a week or so on equipment he would be almost as good as any of us other operators. ointhead Forth: Just a poser shot of the last few loads of the parking lot. Fifth: All graded took a little bit yo get it to drain I'm a little rusty at finish work and its chunky clay.
I spent a few days back at the apartment job loading trucks. Dot was watching us and busted several of our trucks. They pulled over one that I loaded thinking it was over weight and it was 240lbs shy. The driver was happy:notworthy And I have since been sent to one of our yards to process rebar yawwwwww ointhead But tomorrow my last day I'm going back to Socal for a wedding and vacation. I'm hoping they have the rebar done when I get back. First: 3 of our 6 hoes out here a 330 Linkbelt, 228 Komatsu, and a 300 Komatsu. I was running the 300 after helping get things organized on the first round. Second: More of the same. I don't know how some guys can stand not to level themselves up. He ran that way all day turning and tracking all allover. Third: Our self proclaimed best operator loading some concrete. Fourth: Got a few more buildings to go. Fifth: Just so you know I did do something that day. I'm showing you how to miss the truck while loading trash. Apparently I can't load trucks with one hand while taking pics and chewing gum.:drinkup
[QUOTE: More of the same. I don't know how some guys can stand not to level themselves up. He ran that way all day turning and tracking all allover. [/QUOTE] I does not take long to size up an operator by watching him work.You can even tell a lot by how he parks his machine at the end of the day.Ron G
I agree, but it seem like more and more I see guys do things I don't like and no one cares. Nor will they even take the time to correct them. I'm guilt of that to though.
Back from my trip had a great time. Which is saying a lot since before we moved I was hating living there with a passion. Which stands to reason since I always though Socal was a great place to visit just not to live. I don't remember it being quite as beautiful. Had some time to catch up with some of the guys I worked with. I was really wanting to go to the old bone yard one of the companies I worked for had that I didn't get to make it too. There office was gone and I couldn't get anyone on the phone so I missed out this trip. Should of made some advanced plans I guess. First: The beach I ask my wife to marry me on years ago Second and Third: Can't go to the beach without letting my wife see some critters.
Back to some work pics. I had to get out and take some pics while processing rebar or I would of fallen asleep. I'm got started on a new school demo this last week, and its a welcome change. First and second: When I started Third and fourth: Before vacation...a week worth of work. Dang that machine is so slow.
nice pics dozerboy. the 460 is slow eh? i have a 210 lx and a 210 x2 and the lx seems faster. i dunno. i still can't believe i don't see you guy's with hydraulic thumbs and grapples. i guess the fixed thumb works fine.
There is something wrong with the hoe on why it is so slow, but there not in any hurry to fix it. I have only used a grapple a few times and never seen one on a hoe here. I consider myself lucky to have any thumb I spent several hrs picking apart a steel sided building the other day. I was getting frustrated to say the least.
Got a few pics its going slow since we are waiting on the abatement guys. First and second: Just pics from the first day had to take down a shed to get to the other buildings. Thank night someone used my hoe to to steal a large heat exchanger. It had a lot of copper in it. Think it was one of our guys since they put every back like it was ie using the hoe to black the trailer back in. The machines should of been disabled at night but I guess someone forgot to program them. Third: Got another hoe on the job after a few day. Fourth: Damn bee hive after a week most of them have left. One of our labors started a small fire to smoke them out. Put on a rain coat and threw some screen over himself and got a bit of honey from the hive. Fifth: Abatement guys finished this one up at the end of the day so we got it on the ground quick.
love these demo shots Keep them coming love these demo shots, dozerboy. I am so glad to see that you are back wrecking buildings, John. You always have awesome pictures and cool stories to go along with it. Hope you had a nice Thanksgiving. All the best, man.
looks like a new(er) 138 in that first shot, how do you like it? A little small for you im sure. I have heard mixed reviews about the new 138's, interested to hear what you have to say. Great pics, thanks for sharing.
Thanks Wolf I did have a nice Turkeyday I hope you did too. Yes D5 it is a newer 138 and I think its a nice little hoe. It has a long stick on it that kind of gets in the way, but other then that can't think of anything bad to say. We may have had lots of problems with it when we put a hammer on it. I lot of greenhorns where complaining about it and had the mechanic messing with it, but I've never had a problem with it. We use it to demo single family homes and peal the brick off schools ETC. One thing I did learn about 138s and maybe all Komatsu's is there is a knuckle that attaches to the wiper that can come lose. Causing the arm to flop around and if the operator spins the arm around counter clock wise to get it away from the boom cylinder it will hit the window and break it. Been a long time since I broke a window and when I do it happens to be one of the few hoes we have with "guarding". Go figure
man, that is brain damage doing that without some sort of something. grapple, thumb, thumb. i dunno if i could take it. i really don't. nice pics.. keep em coming
It is hard I just try and keep in mind its there lose I get paid the same either way. My biggest problem is I don't like making more work for myself. Like to keep my site clean different debris in nice piles and from getting mix with others and dirt.
any new action dozer boy?
Yep My operator and I got pulled off the school for to demo a little 72,000 sq' parking lot. It was easy going ~6" thick and the only rebar was in areas that where patched. One of our drivers forgot about the light pole base he stopped by. The pic doesn't do it justice he smash the tank good, but it didn't leak. Good thing too this job is at a high profile company with strict rules and a fuel spill would of been ugly. Only $2,500 worth of damage though. Though one of those tanks would cost at least that. The first 3 days I was there I got into a argument with security. They where on a power trip and just wouldn't listen to reason. Man all the paper work too glade it was a quick one.
Spent last Sat loading truck on the hwy job we have. First: One of the GCs operators running a gradall and was good. He was cutting finish around the sidewalk. Second: Pulling up rebar Third: YOU MISSED SOME YOU.... :Banghead Rebar makes for an interesting day when you have cars 4' away going 60+mph. Now I know why I had to work on this end they had the greenhorn pulling rebar here. I was not a happy camper. Fourth and Fifth: Had (2) 300s and a 200 Komatsus and a 330 LinkBelt loading trucks
wow, looks like you guys are staying plenty busy
Is it nerve racking working that close to the interstate?
We are still a little of slow really stringing our bigger jobs to try and keep everyone busy no or little OT too. Its doesn't bother me really other then trying to load out trucks around that rebar. If it wasn't for that its just like anything else there are areas that you have to stay away from. Working in close quarters is part of the gig though. Having 2-3 hoes working on a building a few groundmen plus trucks coming in and out all in the same area. Things can get interesting to say the least.
First: This wing is gutted. You can see part of the window frames hanging down the rest they removed because of lead and asbestos. Second: Cleaning off the roofing from the first section. Third: Getting ready to take down the next section. Fourth: A few more down and it isn't easy going. The roof was 8" concrete with rebar on 1' centers. The school was build in '57 IIRC and isn't really in bad shape. Fifth: Cough cough...wheres that water hose at?
First: I have to strip the brick off to get to the block behind it with an Asbestos vapor barrier sprayed on it. Then I push the block inside the building and rake it all out into a pile after I get the brick raked up. The block has to be kept separate because it cost so much to dispose of. I left the corner there because there wasn't anything else holding up the roof there. Which is very odd. I wanted them to lift the roof of the block and flip it back onto itself so I could keep the block together and clean. I went to pull the trash away from the other side of the building so we had move room to keep gutting it. And then a came back the roof was down and they had made a mess of my piles. I got a "Sorry you where right there wasn't anything else holding up the roof". ointhead Second: The 300 starting demoing the other wing. Third: Brought in a 228 and another operator to load trucks so we can keep the 300 on demo and I don't have to spend 30mins doing it with the 138. It ended up going down and so did our 300 when a hard line torn. So I was back to loading trucks for a bit. Fourth: Half the other wing down and onto the next. Fifth Today: Needed to keep all our trucks busy for the day, so brought in another 300 to load with and got rid of the 138. I did over 40 loads in 6 hrs before we ran out of concrete. It sure kept me busy having to pick out any wood and metal with the hoe while loading.
Appreciate your pics and descriptions... never really thought much about demo work, you certainly take an organized approach to it... thanks for sharing!
No problem. Ya there is a lot more to it then just knocking the building down. If you don't keep everything organized you end up making a lot more work for yourself and add costs too.
Thanks for the great pictures! I was wondering how the 138 would do breaking up concrete? Is it able to take out the walls, footings, and slab on a house demo?
Yes it can but IMO a 20ton machine is much better. I have talked with a few guys that don't mind smaller hoes, but there a PITA to me. It going to be pretty hard on the machine to get the slab started. A demo ball or a hammer would save a lot of abuse. You really have to work at it to even break up the wood ETC, and if you have a house that has a lot of ply wood its a real pain to break it up. We normally only use the 138 on houses that the slab stays.
First: Taking down the other wing Second: And more trucking for me Third: Only a little bit more to go Fourth: Starting to load out on the other wing Fifth: My poor trailer. He didn't do it all though just 98%. I have been told he doesn't want to get the deck fixed yet until he gets some more experience. Oh and also the 228 going under the knife the pump is going out on it.
First: Just have the slab and a little bit of trash and metal to go. Second: Where did it all go? Third: Should of been before the last one, but pulling the slab. Forth: I loaded this 12'x16' shed on a trail for one of our guys to take home. He needed an other bedroom for his double wide...thats how we do it in TX Fifth: One of our driver pull up with smoke rolling out from his trailer tire. I think he forgot to check the oil. The funny part we when he poked the inspection cover and it was still smoking. Apparently it hurts a lot when you stick your finger in molten plastic.
Nice pics DB, weather looks nice, what do your temps run this time of year?
Normally 60-50, but they have been all screwy with the strong La Niรฑa this year. Every few days we have a cold front blow through cooling us down ~50s and then the warm gulf wind kicks up and pushes us back to 70. It was in the 70s today 81 one day last week. I wish it was like this every year, but this kind of weather keeps the rain away. Several areas around here are in a pretty good drought this year.
Well got pulled off this job since it was winding down to go start another. Its a pretty big warehouse/old cotton gin and a shop. We did the shop to give them some time to get the power off and the abatement started. It was full of crap a lot of it damaged by salt water from the surge of Hurricane Ike. There was at least 4' of water over this area. Pics are pre demo, crap , more crap, after it was knocked down, and all munched up. A bit of steel to sort out, but at least I had a hyd thumb.
Second: (Out of order) Pulling the slab of the shop The rest are of the warehouse its 200K sq' IIRC It was use as a Cotton Gin (pre 1982) and storage(until 08). And then we have a shot of the abatement guys moving to the outside. The second story they're working on was all office space.
Some inside shots First 2 are the oldest parts my guess is that it was built in the 20s or so its all wood. None of it will be salvaged. 3rd is the boilers there BIG the plan is to tear everything down up to them and then hit them with a breaker to shatter the cast iron. 4 and 5 are of new of the newer sections I haven't gotten pic of the cotton gin yet I guess.
Finely some demo shots First: Stripping the siding off the front of the building. Another super was running the hoe so I got to watch him and only him which was boring to say the least. Second: getting in there a little ways. It was kind of a pain could only start the building from the ramp and on the first one we had to make a beeline for the door to the next section because we had the abatement guys cut off from where they needed to be. Third: Almost there you can barely see the darkness from the door past the bucket of the hoe. Fourth: This is one from the other steel building that I demoed. I'm a little more methodical then our other super and he was giving me a hard time on it taking me longer. But when it can time to load trucks mine went way faster. Everything sorted, stacked the same direction, and all the beams where bent up to easily grab and fit in a truck. :notworthy but like I said he got it down faster. I'll call it a draw Fifth: Only a few loads left on the first section. You can see the door that we where making access to. We are going to just open it up with a breaker to give us access to the next section. The next 2 section of that building are all wood and house the boiler, cotton gin, and office. The wall the guy is standing by is of the other steel building I did. Have to see what it looks like next week I got pulled from this job for a few days to run a quick road demo. Since the abatement guys are slowing us down. I got a call that involved a chain saw, wood columns, and a large roof mounted AC unit that is now on the ground floor.
Cool pics, I'd rather take the time to sort and stack while demoing so I could load the trucks quickly and keep them moving.
hate to rub it in but i sure am glad to be on vacation. lucky to be working right now. i just know that it was i am going back to. we just demoesd a small house. but it had a ton of good wood and a shop on it whiche we salvaged/captured and took to the shop
I just don't have it in me to make a mess while working. 20years of getting my butt chewed on for doing so makes it very hard for me to just blow and go. Not everyone looks at the big picture, some just like to see results and fast. Oh BS CD you know you love rubbing it in. Thats ok I'm fine with living vicarelessly through your travels. Thats way to long of plane ride for me.
First/Second: Finishing up the last of the metal buildings The rest: Had to open up this door for access to the next section. Pre broke it with a hammer
First: Early I mentioned the other super want to get that ac unit down. This was the end result. The unit is long gone now, but after they cut the columns and the roof came down the larger unit staid up there hanging in mid air. It was attached to the wing wall you can see up there. I guess the next day they heard a large crash at lunch and it was the unit falling down finely. Second/Third: We could just push over these walls they where in such bad shape. The corners did take a little breaker work. The rest: Dang done with that section and making a door to the next.
wow! :thumbsupis that a hydraulic thumb i see???? i did not think they existed in that part of the world.:notworthy:notworthy:notworthy. cd
Looks good. Do you guys stay busy year round?
Yep that is the 1 hoe(the owners sons hoe) with a hyd. thumb. :drinkup But they have been spending some $$$ and getting us fixed thumbs on most of our hoes lately. Yes we work year round it was 72* today.
track hoes with thumbs how many hours you guy's working DB? what about you EGS? that is good they are fixing and adding more fixed thumbs. what about couplers. do you guy's use em? i remember a 220 i used to have and it had a power up button. like when you were pulling back on the stick you could toggle it and it gave you a little extra huevo. do those new komatsu's still have that.
I am/was lucky to only be working 4 10s(salary), but I have a ~4hr round trip to the job. Our schedule is always changing normaly the guys in the field don't work more the 5,6 10s. We have a few used couplers that have been sitting at the shop for months waiting to get put on. I don't mind not having couplers, but some of our iron has been abused and jerry rigged to the point it takes hrs to swap attachments. Yep the new Komatsu still have the "HeMan" button, but I don't use it really.
First: Getting us a path into the next section Second: Me playing with the hammer. Don't want to tear up the floor by just pushing over the walls, so I just knocked out the center of the wall. I let the top to pull the columns toward each other so they would fall on the rubble in the middle. Its much easier break the columns on the ground they when there standing. My plan worked as planed for once. Third: Getting ready to trip this section of wall. Wanted it to fall inside the building so we don't have much clean up in between them. Can't see them in the pic but the are train tracks we can't tear up between the buildings. Fourth: Out Of Order: A shot of the cotton press from the path we are making Fifth: The wall from #3 tripped
Demos all done around the press. Pushing over the tower around the cotton press didn't really go as planned. I just kind of cut to it with the pics but it took a while to get it on the ground. FYI Your not just going to go up to a steel structure like that and push it over without weakening the other side or relief cuts no matter how badly its rusted. In the background and to the right of the last pic you can see the stack and concrete building for the boilers. The top section of the press is just a massive single piston steam engine.
demo DB, thanks for taking the time to shoot the fotos. i know it takes extra time. but the pics are great. looks like alot of work for just a 300. what else do have on site in terms of other iron and support equipment.? regards, CD:usa:usa:usa
Your welcome I enjoy taking pics as much as I do doing the work. I only post 1/2 of what I take. We have another 300 too and a JBC skidsteer when its running. We're not big on support equipment. The extra cost of a machine and then putting extra operators in the seat too doesn't fly. I spent the last 2 days getting another job going so I'm not sure whats en store for me when I get back. I hope I'm not back to long even though its a neat job 4hrs a day of driving is wearing on me. First-Fourth: Pics just don't show how massive this thing is. Those red diagonal braces are around 5" thick. Our thinking was that if we get rid of those braces and the dog bones on the sides then we can brake the legs and make it fall. The braces came off ok, but no luck with the dog bones. We thought that was a pin in the center that we could drive out, but it turns out that its a "T". When that wasn't working we tried to split the dog bone. We didn't mess with it to much just wanted to get an idea if the hammer was going to work before going to start that other job. Fifth: I found a mark on the wall showing where the water was at during Hurricane Ike. That was about 2 1/2" up the wall and the floor of this building is raised about 4'.
I enjoy your pics of the demo. Thanks for putting them up.
You can say that again and again. Dozerboy does some awesome demo and always has great shots and stories to post. Keep it up, and thanks, John.
That press is so cool That must have taken a lot of power to get that thing on the ground. Did you cut that up for scrap. It looks like a pretty old thing---how old do you think that was?
It was built in the 20s IIRC 1926. We haven't gotten it on the ground yet, but ya it will be cut up for scrap.
First Few: Going to town on the second story (Before I Left) Fourth & Fifth: The rats nest I found for me when I got back, but after almost a full day of sorting and sizing it for trucks it was all better.
First Few: Taking down the last of the structure. Just got the concrete, boiler, and press to do yet other then loading it all out. Fifth: I saw this restored blade going by heading to the Port to get shipped out. It looked like it said 10G on the side, but that model doesn't ring a bell with me.
lots of interesting pics. good to see your keeping busy
Well got some more pics to post finely. I have just been pushing down the walls, breaking them and moving the concrete off the slab. First: loading out some steel Second: That is what 3 3' lancing rods did to the dog bones on the press it is mild steel though and 14" thick. Gave that a shot after getting nowhere with Oxy/Ace. I was trying to get them to look into PretoGen and they are, but Smith came out and demoed there GasAxe. We picked up the demo and have another one on order. Oxy set on 125psi and LP set on 18PSI with a #8 tip and a not so good burner cut through it in 20mins. I think we can do it in 15. I didn't get any pics, but I will when we start burn Monday. I guess the GasAxe can cut up to 24" steel with a #9 tip. Third-Fifth: Pulling down the first wall of the boiler room and the next one
First-Forth: Putting down the rest of the next wall Fifth: He was suppose to pull the roof off and clean up the trash so I could get a few good pics of the boilers, but when I looked next it was gone already. We where sad to see there wasn't any copper.
nice action shots db!! also nice to see the job all neat and organized. how long have you been on that one? regards, cd
To long since Jan 10th or so. Well I'm kind of **** not only did my cordless drills battery charger just try and start my garage on fire. But I forgot to charge my my camera so it was dead today. So no pics of the press going over, but we didn't get to far on cutting it up. A 6 pack of Oxy bottle only lasts about 6 hrs. with this torch... Oops short day today.
Next time you might want to look into liquid oxygen, for those big cuts it is usually much cheaper. If it is real warm out you need to use it fairly soon as it strats to bleed out, due to vaporizing making the pressure valve pop off. Sure have it cleaned up nice, though. Is the front windshield glass or plexi on the excavator? Nice shots of the wall coming down.
I will past that along. I don't know much about burning ETC and I'm not inserted in learning from just anyone(I don't mean you dirty4fun). Most of our hoes have tempered glass plastic scratches to fast. Man this has been a battle of a week, but I should be out of there early tomorrow. Pics to come then I hope.
sound a bit salty down there DB?? i bet you will be happy to get home tonight. digging and demo is not always a bed of roses.. the good comes with the bad. hope today was better than yesterday
I'm done with this job so that makes it a good day and my wife actually has this weekend off so that makes it even better. It was a battle but all of the scrap made it to they yard. Not that I would admit if I buried some of it.... Some interesting facts this is only one of 4 Presses on Galveston island which at one time made it the biggest cotton exporter in the world. And after demoing this one I know why there still there. When one of the old timer started there 50s IIRC they where still moving cotton by hand with hand trucks and pulling carts of it around with Oxen. They would jump on the hand carts and ride them down the ramps coming out of the rail cars. The base of the press would come up out out of the foundation and press the cotton bails tighter while 2 guys rode the base up and down moving the bails on and off all day long. Lets see if I can explain how this thing worked a little along the way. First: The press is on its side you can see the dog bones we cut that attached the base of the press to the linkages/piston. There about 14" thick. They would pull the base up and smash the cotton into the grate looking plate in the center of the press. The groves in the grate where to put the bands around the cotton bails. You can see a platforms to the front and back of where the press stood they would angle up and down with the press exposing a plate that would keep the bails square. Second: Whats left of the cylinder. we cut it and pulled it apart before I got my camera charged. Third: The piston also made one heck of a wrecking ball weight in the neighborhood of 10000lbs I bet. With a fairly pointed steel tip attached to the connecting rod surrounded by the cast iron cone it was deadly when dropped from 10'. Forth:The other pieces of the cylinder. I'm not sure what the tube in the foregrounds purpose was other then steam flowed through it. Fifth: Not a good pic but you can see the base off the press, foundation, and ETC. That pit was 8' deep from the floor. We had no idea since it was full of water and debris. Really happy no one fell down there with all the dinking around/clean up there we did around it. The press just sat there it wasn't anchored to the ground in any way other then some 11/2" plate steel that was used to keep it aligned with the edge of the foundation.
First: Burning some bolts off. Nope they are not more then 5' off the ground no matter how much higher they look then that 6' step latter. Second: Best shot I got of the GasAx in action. If I had my camera the day before you would see throwing slag 20'. Third: I was told to "dismantlement" the press we fought it for a full day just about and didn't get much further then the cylinder off. It would of worked had we got a Skytrack out there and torched all/most the bolts before pushing it over. I was given the ok to smash it. This is maybe 1 hr after I was given the ok to smash it. Forth: My other wrecking ball "The guillotine" it was one of the flat pieces that kept the bails square. I was about to drop it on the center section of the Press that I never got to break, but I never did put the hammer to it. I eventually knocked off enough pieces that I could the it up off the ground with the 300. Fifth: What a broken up Press looks like minus the center section. Thats about 120,000lbs of cast iron. It was amazing the shape this thing was in all of the pins looked like new and had brass bushings with oiling holes. There was no way to dismantlement this thing and replace any of the bushings. The oiler earned his keep thats for sure.
The next surprise we got. This one really had me thinking I was going to need some back up. First: After moving almost all of the press out of the way we found this. The Base. Of course the concrete wasn't broken yet. Before any concrete was broken I could barely wiggle this thing. Its 8' down from the floor at the deepest point then the concrete steps up 2' to where/what the dog bones are sitting on. Then stepping up to about level with the top of the base. About 3" of clearance on the front and back between the base and the concrete. When I would try and pull on it at this point it would bind up between the concrete plus the hammer packed the concrete in there too. Second: So I rocked it back and forth over and over. After it got a little loser we stuffed some concrete underneath the back side as I pulled it towards me then did the same to the front. Then did that a few more times until I was able to pop it out. Third: Some how I was able to drag it out of the hole. Sitting next to the 300 for size I think it weight around 45,000lbs. Forth: Hammer time can't lift it with the 300. Fifth: After about 1 hr of hammering. Its about 5"-6" thick cast with webbing in between another layer of cast. Edger end there for size.
First: We could only break out the "top" side all the way so we had to stand it up to break the top. Broke 2 3/8" G80 chains doubled up trying to tilt it up. Then we rolled it over and broke the other side. This pic is with it stood up and the top mostly broken out and pic was taken at eye level. Second: The last load off the job. The truck hit the scrap yard at 106,780lbs. that makes those 2 pieces 64K and there about matched in weight the center section(to the right) was a little bit more. So FYI a 300 can pick up ~33,000lbs 1' off the ground teetering about to fall on its nose. And don't think I cheated. The Iron in the background was another subs and they only help out by breaking out around the base so I could get it out.
Great pictures and explaination of them, sure made for some good looking and reading. They just don't make them like they used to, must of been taken care very well to last that long. Other than the mess from cutting it up look like you keep it pretty clean around. Thanks for sharing, very enjoyable to me. Where you off to next, as looks like this one is about history?
I'm glad the explanations where clear enough. Not sure yet we are kind of slow so they will probably stick me in with one of the other supers. Or I'll go to the yard and find something to do until they have something. I just hope its close I'm sick of driving and sitting in traffic.
Just been getting shuffled around the past few weeks did a small road demo job. Nothing really worth taking pics of. It sounds like I'm going back to a school job I helped start a month or so ago, but its almost done. Here are a few pic from when it was started. First: Nice looking school eh Second: That was the first addition to the school here is the plaque that you can see just to the right of the door. Its hard to read but this portion of the school was built 1926. There was a plaque some where from the original portion of the school but I never found it. it was build in 1911 or so IIRC. Third: All you can see of the original school house from the outside is this door. Fourth: A bad pic of the newest pert of the school it was 2 story. Fifth: Where we started.
We are saving all the brick on this one it will stay on site and be used as base for the lay down area while the new school that is being built. It was very time consuming to separate all the brick, but it was going to saved us a lot in trucking. First-Second: I think this was about a full days worth of work to get that far. Third: One of our hands found a nice wig Forth-Fifth: What is left after you remove all the asbestos from a school this old... not much other then the studs and the new roofing.
Do you try to save any of the lumber on your jobs? Looks like some pretty nice ceiling joist in the one picture. Yeah I am a pack rat, some of the old lumber is better quality than you get now.
No we don't it all goes to the landfill unless someone needs a little bit for a project at home. Its a good thing I don't have a bit of land or I would be a major pack rat.
Nice thread Dozer, think about all the building materials made from asbestos. That one product has put a lot of people to work and killed a quite a few in the past 50 years. I don't see any water on these jobs, most that goes on here you would see water as a dust suppression. The cotton mill was huge! I would of liked to be around when they built that, you would need some pretty big equipment that ran on steam I bet, lifting those pieces into place.
We got a fire hoes there for the dust, but you have to be careful with it here. With our clay and the fact that we get a bit of rain normaly you can get in a world of hurt if you make mud. They ain't real picky about dust suppression here though compared to other areas. Ya me and all the guys on site where amazed about how massive this thing was. I'm sure it was cutting edge in its time and so was the techniques used to put it together. I have some pics of the school, but can't post them now. Not much to see they where almost done I was there to do the Finish grading. Cross your fingers for me they are talking about sending me out of town, but only if they have too. I hate traveling and I'm sure this company will make it into a nightmare.
how far might you have to go? and for how long. considering the work load at the moment you may have to think it through. we may be going about 2 hours away here in late summer.
I hope they don't send you traveling. Where do you think they might send you, and what kind of demo work do they have going out of town. Take it easy, buddy. Love your pictures, always.
Just want to know what is the reason behind the fixed thumb? seems like a hyd thumb would be more useful
Don't know where they might send me it wouldn't be outside the state maybe 3-4 hrs away. I might go do some finish work for 2 days in the next week only about 2 hrs away. We have some school demos and concrete road demo too out of town going on now. We are cheap and fixed thumbs are harder to break. hyd thumb are a lot better especilly when your fixed one aren't set up very well.
John: Sounds like a pretty cheap outfit that you are working for, but at least it's a job and at least they have you doing a lot of demo again, which is the greatest. Hopefully they don't skimp on the safety features. Good luck on the new jobs. Hope they don't send you too far off. Do you have to stay overnight out there or do they make you go back and forth every day?:bash
The demo biz around here is very competitive and with things like they are they got to do what they got to do to keep the doors open. I think the owner is a little short sighted, but its his to do as he pleases. For now I'm happy while it might not be the greatest I'm actually enjoying my job again. Here are a few pics from the school First: That section of floor right in front of me thats missing was wood and we almost turned over one of our 300s when they tracked onto it. You can see all the brick piled up in the back ground. Second: 300 loading a truck Third: 290 Linkbelt peeling the floor and beams up Fourth: Large footing was ~8' in the ground it took 2 300s to pull it out with a little help from me. Fifth: That was a wheel chair ramp I thing they got a little carried away with the concrete it was solid ~4' tall 5' wide 20' long with a switch back.
Test
Nice pics, man. I'm glad to see you are back into demo so heavily, Dozerboy, and especially that you are enjoying it. Demo rocks, so keep those awesome pics and stories coming dude.
Different week for me I got put on a few houses demos we had. Not much time for pics when your doing 2 or 3 houses a day so bear with me. These are all for the city they're abandoned or condemned buildings. They attract all the thugs and are a haven for drug use ETC so the city pays off the owners to demo them. First: A garage tires are put off to the side and the city collects them later I found a old 2 man crosscut hand saw. Its only a 4'er and the handles where missing so I'm going to make a set and hang it up. Second: Finished Third - Fifth: Next house was a lot of work for the groundman they are normally done mowing weedeating in 2hrs. and have a mostly easy day from there. He was on that mower for 8hrs straight. I had him leave the flowers in front orchid maybe and one of the neighbors dig a few up over night.
1 more house no demo or after shots I couldn't get out of the hoe if I wanted to. There are 2 properties here. 1 has just a house the gets demoed the other has is just 2 garages and a out building. I was only there one day and got put on something else, but it was a heck of a day. I was there because the other guy doing houses had some trouble with the neighbors the other day and my machine had "AC". The "AC" was for the massive bee hive in the house in the first pic. I tore down and loaded out the whole house but the last wall where the hive was and they never bothered us. Then it was time for that last wall and the garages and out building. I had the groundman stay out by the road and things where going ok. Then I needed a break I was rosting so I tracked out to the road and got out of the hoe to go sit in the shade. Well the bees fallowed the machine and after 5mins they where after us and I had left the door of the hoe open. They stung me, but other then a little pain I don't have much of a reaction to stings. So I made me way back into the hoe luckily only 1 bee came with me and after a few mins I had hunted him down and killed him. The rest of the day the bees where all over chasing my groundman, neighbors, and ETC. It was funny some punks where doing their thug walk down the road holding there pants up then they take a few wild swings and its off to the races. The only thing that would of been better was if there pants had fallen down and they ate asphalt. I loaded out the hive in the bottom of one of our trucks and told him the drive a few blocks before he stopped to tarp it. I was in the back taking down the last the building when some moron parked his car with the windows down in the driveway and comes walking up to me. I was on the horn flagging him away and yelling at him. He just get an attitude and keeps on come he got 5' away when he got a nasty surprise and took off running. Unfortunately my groundman heard me honking and came to see what was going on. He got stung right below the eye. When a bee got on his face behind his safety glasses. Poor guy Monday a dog (Boxer) snuck up behind him and scared the crap out of him. Then latter he got into a bunch of Poison Ivy mowing. Tuesday he gets stung by that bee and his face started to swell up pretty good so we called it a day. It was a good thing I had went and got him some Benadryl that morning for the bad Poison Ivy rash he had. Another operator came and finished the house the next day. Iwas hoping most of the bees would of left since the hive was gone they didn't. In fact they where still there at the end of Wed when I came to pick up the hoe. See the last pic.
Ok then rest of the week I got to drive the haul truck. The other driver earned a few days off for not wearing his hard hat after several warnings. First: Lookie there boys 9 months after dragging that grapple out of the weeds they finely put it on a hoe. Second - Fourth: The job the grapple is on. We don't do much industrial stuff kind of hope I get put on this job. They even drug our shear out of the weeds too. Fifth: Here is our International PayStar 5000 water truck. Had to load it up as a favor to another contractor. I have never driven i before and was a little disappointed when it had and Allison(?) auto behind its Detroit.
Those house demos sure are cool, Dozerboy. Sorry to hear about the bees, though, John. Glad you didn't get more than one nasty sting, and too bad for the others. Nice of you to leave the orchids so a neighbor could dig them up. Kinda cool looking houses, how old do you think they were? Did they come down pretty easy? They look like they were in pretty good shape. Musta been fun as heck to wreck them with the hoe.
Very nice pretty fast work of the houses. Looks like the industrial job is pretty good sized, lots of steel to cut, stack and load.
John, do you like crashing through a old house (when there are no f'ING bees) better when you can destroy the whole thing in an hour or less, or the tough industrial jobs that take many days? Which do you like wrecking better? I guess the industrial jobs take a lot more strategy about how you gonna knock it down, but it sure must be fun to attack and destroy those old houses, with no bees of course.
The house with the bees was at least 80+ years old it had been added on to several times thought the years so its hard to say. Old houses like that come down easy the wood is dry and brittle, so it breaks up easy. Newer homes with plywood are a bit harder. I like the bigger jobs that last a while. I hate going to a new job everyday let alone 2 or 3. The houses are fun in moderation, but your hustling to get them down and loaded out. On big jobs I can work on demo for a day or 2 then I can spend a day loading out so your not doing everything together.
Yeah, that house looks real old. Kinda cool to see the old style architecture. Must be fun to crunch it up. Happy Birthday, Dozerboy. Keep those great pics coming man.
I've been slacking on the pics. Not really any interesting job going on and I've been doing a bunch of moving from job to job. I have plenty of free time tonight since I'm staying up all night so I can sleep tomorrow so I'm ready for the night shift tomorrow. I hate it, but its only for a few day job. First - Second: The steel buildings we where doing that I posted about eirler are almost done. Third: Quick little concrete job I did. A groundman is running the hammer. Forth: Loading out concrete with lots of rebar is PITA. Lots of guys tear apart and spend extra time chasing down rebar that is hanging out of the truck. He is what I do start at the edges piling everything up in the center, but give it a little shake so all the lose concrete falls away from the rebar. Then I roll the rebar up shaking out more of the concrete right in front of me then roll the rebar back and leave a nice clean pile of concrete in front of you like in the pic. Fifth: Then scoop up the rebar using the pile of concrete to keep it from rolling to close to the hoe. And dump it in the truck before any concrete. Smash it down some then add the concrete on top. This does a few things: Helps you get more weight since rebar is light the smaller chunks of concrete fall though the rebar and The larger chunks of concrete that don't fall though will push any pieces of rebar sticking out of the truck down.
First & Second are of a track we are demoing as part of a school we will demo once class are out for the summer. The job I'm working the night shift doesn't allow pics so here is a satellite shot of it. Its a cooling tower and is 30'x 40"x 250'. Its made of all wood and fiberglass. The foundation stays, because they will build a new one using it. Get this the debris will be trucked on site stock piled and ground up with a grinder. Then sent to the landfill. They are doing this to be "Green" and take up less spaces at the dump. ointhead
All done with the cooling tower less then 48hrs to get it down and loaded out. We spent most of last night we spent sweeping everything. Next week we start the "Demo Derby". We are going to knock down ~115 houses in 5 working days. We don't have to load them out just get them on the ground. Then we can crunch them up and load them out later. The plan for now is for me to drive one of the haul trucks we will have 3 going and then 4 hoes/operator and groundmen demoing.
Great pictures. Wow 115 now that would be a fun time for me. It sure is fun knocking down a house. I have another house to knowck down in July and hope to get an old bowling alley with a restaurant to knock down. The funding for the bowling alley didn't go through as the buyer had wanted so got pushed back, a few weeks. Then can look see and give them a bid.
That should be interesting, let us know how it goes.
Demo derby!!! That sounds so awesome. Did you do the wrecking of the hundred plus houses? Smash them down? What kind of equipment did you use? Get any pictures? Awesome stuff, demo derby . . .
Well I ended up not driving a haul truck for the derby. Which isn't such a bad thing it hasn't gone as planned really. Some of the houses still had the utilities on and ETC. One had a live horse in it, 2 of our guys got chased by a pitbull. One the citys plumber buried the riser for the gas meter when he did the sewer disconnect which the found the hard way. The city has decided to treat all the houses as if they have asbestos so thats a PITA too. One house the neighbor doesn't have any power or water so he has been using it as a bathroom and dump including for some of his puppies that died. IT WAS NASTY!!!!! I did make it to a a few of them, but only took 1 not very good pic while they where loading out. Second-Fifth pics are of a water tower we are demoing. Its 90'+ tall and 1,000,000 gal. We subed out the burning of the tower and rigging. We just cut up the big pieces and hauled it off. The top was cut into 6 pieces ~28,000lbs each IIRC.
More of the tower. We didn't have much room to work so in order to keep the pieces flying off we tried to just flatten the pieces. It didn't really work with 3 guys burning and a 300 it was slow going. We preloaded all of our trucks every night with steel trying to get it out as fast as possible.
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And now for my current project it old offices for the military. More asbestos to deal with so we are stripping the brick away to get to the block that has the asbestos. The other pics are of my girlfriend Annie. She is a party animal even after I hit her with a brick wall she didn't drop here beer, but I broke her arm off. I hope she is a righty.:drinkup:drinkup
DB- you are slacking as well. nice to see you take such fine care of your old lady. hope all is well and you are busy regards, cd
Ya we are keeping busy. I've been slacking at taking pics, but our puter has been very slow so I ain't felt like messing with posting them and hate to put them on the laptop. So I got a PB account here are links since posting them ain't working for me right now. Part one of my new toy. The rest is held up because of permits. Apparently some states don't want oversized stuff on the road this last week. Its going to be mounted 2nd member on a Kobelco 350 Here is the job we got it for. This is the biggest build of the project and is ~400 yards long. Getting started with brute force (3) 300 Komatsu's and a 460 LinkBelt The building fights back. A 300 with a minorly twisted stick I'm get'en fancy with the PB stuff here is even a vid of our Barney busting up a road. http://s211.photobucket.com/albums/bb127/d8dozerboy/?action=view¤t=M4V00745.mp4
The rest of my toy came in this week. The view from the high walker undercarriage is great, but the limited reach of a 2nd member mount sucks. First: Coming off the LB from FL Second:Owners son going for the test drive and pulling the first scratches on the shear Third: He sprog a leak it was just a fitting that needed snugged up Fourth: Cutting up the big beams Fifth: Just a poser shot
Very nice tool.
What excally is the point of the high walker undercarriage, I've seen 1 or 2 around here before and they were both Kobelco's, one contractor did alot of demo work, is this more a demo application?
Nice looking and I bet you can see great out of that high boy. Does look like the reach is pretty limited, though.
No its not a demo thing, but thats were a lot of the advantages lie. You see them a bit in scrap yards the most. The view is great and it gets you up and away from all the stuff that causes body damage too.
nice lookin hoe nice machine db.. take care of it.. it may be awhile till you see another one. regards, cd :usa:usa
Thats for sure. That is the reason I'm the only one thats allowed to run it for the time being. First and Second: The 460 LB and me taking the building down around a live power box Third: Not much left Fourth: 300 attempting to pull down the next section after I cut the leg Fifth: Almost there
First: 300 having a go at the next leg Second and Third: I had to go cut the rest of the legs and drop it since it wasn't going well with the 300 Forth: The 460 having it out with the center section of beams
GREAT demo shots, John. Good to have you back, Dozerboy. Love those demo shots. Awesome building take down. Great work man.
First-Third: The 300 and 460 pulling down the rest of it Forth: Now that the building is down all I have is lots of metal to process. Fifth: Burners helping me out with the beams cutting them into 4' pieces. Latter I will split the in half.
Must be crazy fun to topple it like that. You sure are good at it man, lot of practice, I guess.
First: Cutting through some hardened 3" solid round stock Second: Equipment all lined up for the long weekend Third: Yep its broken Fourth: Storm blowing in down town
nice pics hey db, looks like you have been staying plenty busy. i love the pics, is that houstan in the background? regards, cd
Yep I've been real busy cutting metal and some more metal, and yet even more metal..... How long is this job going to be again??? I love long jobs just not when there monotonous. Yep thats the main down town of Houston in the back ground. That is why this area is getting developed a few miles from down town its worth ~85million $$$$.
Getting down to the last of the metal from the 3 building we have taken down so far. Next week we start the next phase of buildings. I got the word last week in Dec. I sheared over 500 tons of heavy iron alone. The goal was to do 250 of lite and 250 of heavy. We also had 93 loads of tin. First: 460 linkbelt pulling the slab and loading it out Second: Shear with a pile of big beams behind it Third: Big beams all sheared up Fourth: Storm blowing in we got 6" of rain out of it Fifth: The grapple is picking up rail road rails and dropping them to break them up. The hardened steel of the rails really does a number on the shear blades if I cut them. They also have concrete all over them since they where in the slab. Then in the back ground we have a 300 and the 460 pulling concrete.
Been a while and I'm back logged with pics so here are some One of the things I though was really neat about processing is how much room it saved. You can see in the first 4 pics how much shearing everything to 4'- saves on space. The before pics don't really do it justice those are pretty good size piles of steel. And the last pic is them loading out all my hard work
On to the last building in this area
On to the next area this is another monster building nowhere near as high though (the first 3 pics) Another building and a wash area(big carport thing) Last is my little buddy. I was jacking off for a week waiting on permits before starting demoing this side and he kept me company. He was blind for sure and probably sick roaming around during the day. He would come right up to my machine and me we'd feed him peanuts. After 2 days we started bringing him dog food, but he took off when we started demoing.
Great pics, John. Looks like you are doing some awesome demo. That raccoon looks sick, doesn't it. Glad he liked the peanuts, though.
Very cool!
First: This is the inside of the next big building its basically 5 of theses connected to each other. I was really wanting to do a massive burnout with my truck inside this thing, but there is a ton of security on this site that it wouldn't go over real well with. Second: Paint booth notice the army green (top secrete) I found some old Cat sticker in here 12G ETC. Next few: Large wash area built pretty stout too Last: Dust collection system for the sand blasting booth. Our super got a hair up his butt and tore this thing apart with a 300 w/grapple. No water the dust cloud was massive and went for miles.
First 2: The next building to go down Last few: A "Carport" I took down while waiting on permits for the building
thanks for posting the fotos db. nice to see that you are staying busy. regards, cd
Nice work DB. That's a ton of scrap metal...:cool2
Ya there is so much scrap we paid the customer to do the job. I'm going to try and get some totals when the job is done if I remember.
Thanks for the pics Dozerboy. It's kinda sad seeing all of these buildings going down. If only I could have just a 1/2 of one.
Ya they where in pretty good shape, but security is so tight it would be a nightmare to disassemble the buildings to be moved. First few: We're finely getting started with the last big building. Fourth: With the shear being mounted 2nd member you don't have much reach and with no FOGS I wasn't going to get close to the building. So I made me a fancy boom extender. Just grabbed a 10' Ibeam from the end and used it to pick off tin ETC since it would be pretty hard on the shear to do much more with it since thats not what it was built for. Last: Another load ready for the scrapyard.
First 2:Still working on the last big one Last 2: We had so much metal on the ground all we did was trucking for a few days and I didn't rally have anything to do. I go sick was goofing off so I decided to finish off the rest of the easy part of the building myself. Took me about 1/2 a day to get that far. Had some guys scratching there heads how I was going so fast and I was even sorting everything. I had put in my 2 weeks and this was my last day so I told them I wanted to make sure to remind everyone who was #1. Thats a big joke between several of us since I beat our "best" operator at an operator's rodeo a few months back. So no more demo for me for now. I'm back to dirt work and took a job that requires traveling :Banghead to make more $$$.
As always, fantastic demo pictures, dozerboy. sorry to hear you are leaving the world of wrecking, at least for the time being. hope you are back to demo soon, cause your pictures and stories ARE SO AWESOME, John. Glad to hear you are making more money. That is always nice. All the best to you.
Sure a big job that looks like is going well. Hope that playing in the dirt job works out, the traveling kind of sucks after while. The extra money helps make it seem better. Looking forward to seeing what you are playing in the dirt and doing next.
Got some new pics The new job is great so far as most new things are. Its also nice to impress all the bosses when its your first day and your only there to observe. Then you get put on a machine because there other operators can't cut a "V" ditch and you do more footage in 3 hrs. then they did all day. First: We are install a rock abutment a long this Hwy that washed out during Hurricane Ike. This is the simplest one the other are much more complex with different layers of rock sizes. LinkBelt 330 w/grapple and loader or 2 for placing rock and I'm cutting the ditch with a brand new Hitachi 225. Second: As you can see the Gulf is right there so ground water is a problem. Third: Back fill time with a Hitachi 450 and JD 650 Forth/Fifth: State is cleaning up the beach for a big weekend
Dozerboy great pics. hows the new job so far? im jealous
Got to take the good with the bad just like any where. That have nice Iron, pays ok, and hrs are decent. But its traveling and they are tight with the Per Diem its not even enough to cover the hotel if you don't have a roommate.
That iron looks pretty nice!
Ya they take care of it and a lot of new stuff too. In the past 3 weeks I have seen 2 new 644 JDs loaders with paint still on the buckets come in. They have 3 225 here with ~500hrs on them. I have been running a older 330 almost 9000hrs on it for a few days and its not in bad shape undercarriage needs some tlc. It through a track yesterday. There are 4 crews out here on this project and it should last another 8 months. We very from and avg of 600'-100' a day depending on the type of structure and how bad the ground water is.
Ground water This is the most difficult structure 9' deep, 1.5' of 6", and 3'-4' of "1 ton" limestone rock. IIRC 22 loads of rock go in every 100'. All grades have to be verified. The second and third pics we had to stand by for 30 mins while the verifier tried to get his GPS to work (a consent problem). The ditch went from the slope roughed in and cut to grade with a 2' sump hole to bucket the water out to what you see. Fourth pic is of a plant at night I love they way they look especially when they are burning off whatever. Fifth is sunrise at the beach
Thanks for the pics dozerboy. I'm guessing this work protects the road from washing out? What is the purpose of the step between the vertical wall and slope on the roadside?
Yep this whole road was gone after hurricane Ike hit, and there isn't much other land to drive on here. A lot of wetlands so its important to maintain it since to go around takes you 1hr or more out of the way. The step is the same thickness as the first layer of rock we are putting down. So the step is kind of a shelf for the next layer of rock to sit on. You can't really tell in the pics but that first vertical and step are limestone base that another crew is putting down. It doesn't run under the road or anything just kind of an abutment.
Test
Its been a busy few months. Wasn't making enough to justify traveling, so I got on the hunt again. I have a few more old pics of the abutment job to post. First: Still working on the biggest structure. 450 hogging out the cut and loading trucks with the spoils. Second: One of our new 544s Third: Big rock is here Fourth: Done digging for today so its nap time for the rest of the day. Oh and look a truck driver backing his truck into a wetland area...:Banghead Fifth: We had to cut the back side of the ditch 4' to keep the slope from collapsing and my machine going with it. Well at least slow it down some.
A big storm blew through over the weekend so we have a bit of water to get rid of. We ain't compacting the back fill so during rains we have tons of sink holes to fix. And last was a rain day that I washed my truck and waxed it.
The last job I was on was a 2 wast water ponds we have graded 3 times now. Every time we finish it rains this time they are going to plastic the whole slope. The other times they just used silt fence and plastic 15' down the slope. I don't remember the size of them, but the slopes are 1.5:1. Which was fun to side hill the roller on. The ponds are going to be unfinished for a while while they put down a drainage layer and concrete them. The last pic is of the guys doing the lift station and they will also finishing up the ponds. They're the type of contractor that likes to make up excuses on why they can't do there job. I think we'll be back. Not sure if I'll have much for pics to post any longer since we have nondisclosure agreements with most of our customers.
Awesome work.
:crying
Nice, man.
Makes me sad too while the equipment I work around nowadays isn't anything special. Some of the stuff I get to see is.
Nice work bud, looking good! Stinks about the pics
Have some demo Pics. My old company demoed UHs stadium so I had to run out there and get some pics and BS. You can see in the last pic they put a bucket on my old shear machine. Looks like it has been taken care of so far.
Few few more. Lindamood and JTB each had 1/2 the stadium to do since there where tight deadlines. Its pretty cutthroat in Houston guys don't screw around down here. Lindamood got a little taste they both started at the same time. You can see in the pics JTB was on their last section and Lindamood had little more then that. Lindamood has some nice iron and badass trucks. It was really strange to see a track loader on a site down here. Lindamood had one of theirs down here.
Great Demo Shots Hey, Dozerboy: John, you always get the best demo shots. Great to see you on here. These are awesome shots of the UH stadium coming down. Too bad you didn't get to do the job, but you got some great pics. Looks like a pretty old stadium too, must have been in bad shape. Thanks for posting. What kinda stuff you up to these days, man? Be well!
Environmental work and lots of it all over the state. Clean up contaminated soil, brush hogging super fund sites, pipeline removals all kinds of stuff. There is lots of talk about what we are going to do with the Astrodome. I guess there is going to actually be a decision made soon. I hope they demo it that would be cool to see.
Demo Astrodome That would be cool to see the Astrodome get demo'ed. Too bad you are not working demo any more, John, you would take some awesome pictures of the demolition work. Do you miss doing demo? Would be good for you to demo the astrodome, since you helped clear the way for the Petco in San Diego too. STill remember those stories about dropping the cars from the jaws of the excavators and the damage you did to the torey pines LOL. Take it easy man. Good to hear from you.
Sounds like the Astrodome is going to live on... Darn. A pond I've been working doing on the side. It was dug, but the side where really steep and it wasn't very deep. So I made it deeper, built the slopes up, made the dam, and spillway. Don't mind the trash the land owner or old owner thought an unfinished pond was a good place to dump trash and concrete. It was tight getting on the dam. Before this job I had no idea that a fully loaded ADT could side hill a 3:1 and not tip over. I had a talk with the driver after I have calmed down. He didn't do it again.
Few more I got a little stuck with the ADT. There was about 12' of silt on the end of the pond where we built the dam. My guess is that when the project of abandoned it was a bit deeper and silted in. There was a find line between building the dam and loosing something into the muck. Third pic: As you can see my guys are well trained... There is a "Creek" that flows through the pond. We had to divert it to finish the dam and spillway. Pretty water
First: Building the spillway Second: Well after a few week of no rain the creek ran dry. In order to save a few $$ the land owner returned the 6" pump we where using. This was a few days later. You can see the top of a small dam in the middle right of the pic. The area above that was suppose to flood, but give us enough time to finish our work. In the area just this side of that dam the water is 10' deep. The rest of the pics are of after we pumped the water down and finished the spillway. The last pic is the pond almost full.
Well he wanted another 9 acre pond that he was going to build his house on. Started clearing the area for the pond then it started to rain....
Wow! I've seen the progress on your project. Good job Dozerboy!
Time to get this thing back to the top. The kind of stuff I get to play with now. Yummy... Yep we got a few of those 228 to be exact... Dang there is some more..... This is a wast oil site we have been contracted to clean up. Equipment break downs and ETC caused them to get over their heads in product.
Not the same product, but similar. I load this in to a conveyer that "delumps" and runs it up into these trucks. Which in turn haul it to be burned. A baby dredge. Used to remove 8' of sentiment in some ponds. Filling some low spots in a dike
Can you say where this project was at? The area looks familiar.
Keep these great pictures coming, Dozerboy. Merry Christmas.
Some of them where in Houston, but once you've seen one plant you've seen them all.
You haven't posted any pics in awhile, I hope everything is ok with you...
Oh ya everything is great thanks for asking. I just don't get the opportunity to take a lot of pics these days. Here are a couple I have posted lately. Here are a couple more First: New D6N that we rented closest thing to a big dozers as I have ran in a while. Man I miss running big cats. Second and third: Grading a county road with a dozer. We had this thing all all torn up had 1000s of heavy trucks up and down it in the few months. I had to fix it after 1 day of hauling "on site" 30 some loads over this road we had a truck down with several sheared suspension bolts.
bump...
Nice looking dozer work there DB
Anything new to share Dozerboy?
Thanks JDOFMEMI Going to try and get back to posting again soon. I've got out of environmental work, and ba k to demo. Now I'll be working sites that won't be so secure and I'll be able to take pictures. Funny though the first demo job I do I can't take any pictures on either.
Great pics..what size machine were you using on the road project? Looks like a deere
Yes it was a little Deere 650 IIRC I'll seek one in here
Back up top so I can find it to add some picture.
Man I never seem to remember to take and action pictures. Doing some clearing for a transformer pad for large industrial expansion.
They brought in a manifold and a building last night they are 24' wide and 200k lbs. The manifold is on the trailer and the building is being lifted via a tandem pick in the back ground of the other picture.
I had to dust this one off. I run a crew for a great company building subdivisions now. Just some fun ones.
Hey DB it's been a while! Glad to see you back around.
Yes sir. I'm glad to your still around!
Well this is a new one. I had one of my job get hit by a tornado. It's a city park with detention ponds. Really sucks because we were literally 2 working days away from finishing the project, and this has been a nightmare of a job. They say we made money, but I don't see how. Had 2 broken windows on one of our machines luckily most of them had been moved offsite already. It destroyed a storage unit next to the project which scattered debris all over the ponds that we had dug. We installed some exercise stations and they're completely destroyed.
Last few
Damn DB! That's going to prolong the nightmare going through insurance coverage and then rebuilding it.
Ya we pull off the job. The silver lining might be its a city job. I hear we are pricing the clean up and then regrading for the city. My dozer operators gonna strangle me. Hes probably regraded these ponds 4 times now. They are a nasty black wet clay. Which takes a lot of work to dry out to be able to grade. The scrappers already took advantage of all the free metals sitting out there and cleaned it all up for us at least.
Here's the deepest I have gone in S.E. TX. 65' down and its amazing we didn't hit ground water. I often hit ground water a 5'. The pond had a 2' clay liner. That's a (2)336cats and a 470Deere loading 17 trucks. I think I was running 6 "D6N"dozers on this job, but we often had 3 broken at once. Still managed 15k yrd a day being short on trucks.
DB what's the pond for?
New subdivision. That's pretty much all we do. The land is very flat here. Like maybe 200' of elevation change from the coast to 150-200 miles inland. Most of my jobs only have a 4' or so elevation change on them. Because of that all new subdivisions have to have large retention ponds dug to prevent flooding. Normally you don't go but 20' deep because of ground water and the outfalls/storm is only 10' max.
Been awhile but I've graduated from photos to drone videos now.
Welcome back! Great videos. Keep them coming.