Wonder what the best way to end a pass is .ie leaving a reasonable road while turning grader around for next pass. I usually lift the leading edge a bit then spin the turntable so windrow kind of peters out between the wheels.im sure there's a more scientific way to do this and would love to hear about it.
Nope... that’s about how we do it too.
Curl your blade up a hair, depending how much material you have on you won’t change your slope just raise your grade a bit.
A slap usually ends one of my passes
X2 on curling the blade up a little if your machine has it, keep your speed constant and slowly roll it back, works great.
you can also end the pass abruptly then lift up and drive ahead until the mouldboard is past the pile then lower the blade and back blade it back smooth. i do it often when finishing a pass coming up to a highway.
Basically whatever works for you. I always have the mb laying ahead to wherever that cutting sweet spot is. As I come to the end, I take some pressure off the leading edge, then slowly curl the mb back until it empties out. I reposition my mb while I turn around and engage the ground while moving instead of stopping. I do back drag some in lose material. I find back dragging with a grader is always a source of constant debate.
Those are all great methods for feathering out material across the width of the pass. I thought the OP may have been referring to shifting a blade full of material to the side ready to pick up again next pass... when mixing gravel for example. Not rocket science, but kinda neat that with a tweak of the circle and a flick of the steering wheel you can deposit a blade full of material neatly to the side. BTW DIYDAVE, perhaps you need to try a little flair and finesse rather than tweaking and flicking.
He mentioned turning around, so that's why I figured he meant ending a pass, not finishing up his last pass, but maybe ..... My 940 is burried about half way up the windshield in the snow these days, so not many thoughts about grading.
Not sure how much road width you have. I work in mining with a 24M with lots of road width (10-11 passes to do the road width) so what I do when I’m coming to the end of the windrow is crank the front end hard towards the next pass, articulate to get a tighter turn and spin the blade so it almost touches the rear tires. The heel of the blade should get pretty close to the windrow not on the blade and the toe should line up the blade load with the windrow. When the blade load and the windrow line up, stop, pick up the blade and turn around. This method stops the windrows from getting longer and longer as you work across the road. Graders are great fun and, as you have already read, there are many ways to get something done. Your best bet is yo keep trying different ideas out and see what works for you and your application. Best wishes.
I always turn towards the next pass slow down to a near stop lift the blade leaving the material in front of the next pass , Turn around pick it up and carry on
Wish someone would teach that to the local MODOT graders on our county roads!! Gawd Awful humps, piles and residual mounds all over!!
Many are grader drivers that are in the grader based on sonority and are not grader operators.
Yup
Nail on the head. The public works division of Miramichi city hires people into a pool. You are assured of getting enough hours for employment insurance every year. If they like you, you get more. When a full time post comes up, they hire from the pool. I considered doing it because their grader man was getting close to retirement. I was told by someone that while I do have experience, chances are that I would never see a grader, I could end up planting flowers.
We are trying to get away from that pool of operators that have zero experience operating graders and other equipment but have gained sonority through the union in a totally different field in the department, ex... a surveyor are popular for getting trained to operate a grader but yet has never sat or had made any effort get in a seat of any piece of heavy equipment the department has though his 20 year career, it would cost $7000 to give that person basic training and would pass but is not grader operator but is now on the list for a position, but remains in the surveyor group because it pays better, also a lot of times when we need a spare these guys that we spent the time and money training them won't come for a day or two for fear of losing overtime, so the guy that does have experience and would have been a good grader operator did not get picked for training because the training class was filled up with these surveyors crossing over for grader training, we now are looking at stricter interviews and changing the way employee's are picked for training not being based on sonority through the union.
Not for the parts supplier....there is no debate when u call him
Thx for great info I'll be trying a few of these methods!
What a crazy way of employing operators, they must think operating a grader is as simple as opening a tin of sardines, because its not, its heaps more complicated than that plus a few yrs of experience goes a long way.
I Agree 100%, they do that so if their surveying job gets cut they could bump a under dog that has experience off a grader, like I said we are trying to get away from this scenario, its not working out for the department.
Our highway department does also NOT honor skills or proficiency. Still trying to figure out why they avoid those aspects.
One word, and I tread carefully saying it..... Union
Do not see that. Where I once worked as Union we had skill of craft lines that were not crossed. A mechanic of fifteen years could be released should they not have need where a opening in operations was not adequate for his skills and a two year qualified Ops Tech was retained.
So who assesses the skills proficiency? Who is to say a newbie is better than an old hand? Is there some kind of objective test being issued to decide who gets to keep their job and who gets sent down the road? Are there intangible traits in an employee that stand above general skills? I've dealt with plenty of people with a high opinion of themselves who were let go because of their own high assessment.
We had qualification schedules nothing was subjective, no quals no automatic positions.
Depends on your Union. What I'm saying is the union for public works for the city where I live, seniority over rules experience. We did a job for a power generation station. It was a union job. I am not in any union. I am a finish grade operator. I was not aloud on site. A union guy operated my grader. A union man, never sat in a grader, took 2 weeks to do what I could have done in a day and a half. They even offered to pay his wages to sit in the lunch room while I did the work. No go. They would allow me to join the union, but there were 150 guys that would have to be working before me.
Yeah, just seniority base does not work so well, time in seat, qualifications schedules and qualifications records do work. May not be to the advantage but a Senior Mechanic at the Power Station could not unseat a trained Operations Tech or Electrician unless also had those qualifications on file.. Did have a welder that started and worked as a Operator for 15 years, moved to Welder for four years and returned to operations, kept his test coupons up to date on his own time then took a next open slot for welder some five years after had returned to Operator. Is all a game if played well.
I have worked for our county highway dept for 46 years. It's a Teamsters union shop. Seniority doesn't get you an operators position. If 2 are equal, the senior will get it but that's it. If a driver is interested in operating, he can can tell his boss. He'll get a try on the machine he's interested in. If he has potential, he will get more chances to "fill in". Usually by the time an operator's position comes open, it's obvious who is more qualified. I can't recall losing a grievance over it. We don't have an overabundance wanting to run the motor grader, dozer or excavator / gradall for that matter. It's a lot less stressful and less work to drive their truck. We don't much handwork anymore. If it can't be done with the mini-ex's or skid steer machines, the jail work release guys get to do it. A couple state DOT's MN and ND have motor grader training programs. CAT and some dealers appear to offer training on motor graders
A nuke plant is a whole lot different than a construction project or a municipality, especially when it comes to lay offs and unions and such. I'll bet there was still a share of politics there in regards to who got to do what job.
Considerable JC, the politics of being ex-Navy come into play a lot. Saw a few Navy Nukes get scrubbed as thought their **** did not stink and were 'Owed' the positions but in general 148 IUOE kept a steady line on the qualifications schedules and rankings where seniority did not play in moving personnel. Us 'different' tradesmen types did better than the Nukes as we thought outside the box in emerging issues, the Navy boys tended to be too reliant on paper programing. The contract Laborers Local and additional Contract companies toed the mark pretty well with supplying Skills not seniority. Welders and fitters all tested prior to entry into site, iron workers and machine operators had to fulfill similar qualifications 'Cards' as we had to. Crane Certs were presented by IUOE membership training sectors that sufficed for trained background but they still had to pass a Written and practical test on site. Saw a few aspects absolutely ridiculous to an extreme but could see locals and contractors that incorporated much of what we had for the quals schedules.
I will note had early on the ability to 'Test' into a trades training program, the testing was confidential where no one could see how well or bad a prospect was except the Management. Some of those tended to be less than demonstrated capable while being upper echelon managers children or in laws, some were 'From the Same Boat' where when attempted to be qualified were failing miserably so promoted them into first line supervisory or P&S positions where the thought was they had enough background to at least schedule work(did not usually work). Had a fella in my own training class could regurgitate training manuals, lessons plans even pass tests high score but once in field was as lost as a blind rabbit, was also DEATHLY scared of heights. He and I got presented with a Crane tag Out Lock out, Turbine Building. He went to S crane I went to N unit, we were to open and tag out on frame controls breakers/disconnects then tag the control panel DO NOT USE tags. I got done with mine pretty quick, came off the cab saw him standing next to his so started jog down the access walkway(Ironwork with Grated floor), he grabbed BOTH Hand rails screamed STOP that I could hear over the turbine noise. Saw the panic in his eyes then he handed the tags to me explained he had to get down as knew he was going to fall THRU the grating. Helped him to the ladder and got him started down then hung the remaining tags. He washed out to P&S shortly thereafter but was no better at that. Favored nickname for P&S was PMS.