i was just wonder how long did you guys have to be labour or do grade before you got onto a machine and started. ive been working for a few months now and im iching to get onto a machine and start operating weather its dozer or exacator or anything. i grew up around heavy equipment all my life and ive always wanted to operate them. so im just wondering how you guys started out doing for how long before you started operating?
i was a ditch rat for 2 summers (when i was 16 and 17)...the next summer when i was 18 i was running our Takeuchi a lot and skid loader then the summer i was 19 i started running backhoe with my boss watching...now when i go home from college in the summers i am running equipment everyday and i am 21 now...backhoes, trackhoes, trackloaders, dozers..etc...i rarely get in the small machines anymore
Takes a while, I can tell you that. I started out on the other end of things. While I've done my share of being in the ditch, it was usually working for myself. My dad has a landscaping business, but we ended up doing small excavation. I started running skid steers and minis at 16, got the feel for iron doing small jobs. When I was 19, my dad bought a 312 and I ran the excavation side of things. I worked by myself, so I taught myself my ditch techniques. I'd dig the trench and throw whatever I was installing in the ditch myself. They say to be a good operator you need to be good in a trench, that's totally true. But if you teach yourself to dig a trench without a spotter dead nuts, I think that's worth something as well. I was never perfect by myself, but I was able to see the job from 2 perspectives. I was always jumping out of the machine to check my own grade, so I got to see everything from 2 points of view. I think that played in my advantage a little. When I was in the machine I thought I had it nuts on, jumped out, nope, too high yet, keep digging. I think having someone tell you where grade is all the time never makes you try to see things for yourself, you're dependent on the grade hop. That's why it's important to learn to run grade. It's also important to know what it feels like to work at the other end of the hoe. Until you work around a 400 swinging a 4 ton bucket, you just don't have the kind of respect it deserves to not hit someone with it. I'm fairly comfortable working within arm's length of the 400's, but sometimes it gets a little gut wrenching. I work with some very good operators but have been told never to trust anyone behind the controls. Like I said, until you spend some time on the other end, you'll never know just how scary that bucket can be at times. Now that I'm a union apprentice with quite a few hours on excavator, a fair amount on a skid steer, and I'm building more hours on dozer, I still end up grade checking. It only makes sense for the boss to put a guy who is 2/3 the hourly cost behind the grade rod. It's good experience, though, I'm not going to complain, especially on a terrible work year. I can't say that's all I do, I bounce around a lot. Sometimes I'll be in a 400 loading trucks, then I'll grab a dozer and do some bulk pushing with the 8, maybe the 6R, just never know what I could be doing on any given day. Boss knows I can run hoe, I'm still learning dozer, I have less than 50 lifetime hours on a dozer but I'm picking it up. The joke of it is, I'm the new guy on the crew and I'm staying on longer than some of the journeymen as we go into the next phase of the job we're on. I will be checking grade almost exclusively for the next 2 months, but hey, work is work.
thanks for the replys. For the past week i have been learning how to check grade. so i see ur perspectives... i own an KX61 kubouta mini excavator and i have learned lots over the year of operating it. the work i did with it was like build trails for cottegers or do land scaping with it...so this being on grade and doing slopes is all new to me but it is interesting to learn and see the work in progress from being on the ground or in the seat.
Take that time on the ground. I spent a few months checking grade, and running a smooth drum roller. After that I was bounced to running scraper moving material for the same dozer operator, and still checking his grades. Then our crew got changed from a finish crew to an all around crew. I started running scraper full time. Then we started having the need to load excess material from site. So I started running hoe too. Then I switched to a different company. They did a lot of pipe work. Most of my time was in a loader, and cleaning up with a small dozer. But I also spent a lot of time on top of the trench, hooking pipe, cutting pipe. Even building tops on manholes. All the time I spent on the ground, and around the ditch, I always watched. Not just seeing the operator doing xyz. But trying to figure out what he was doing. Then when I started to figure out what he was doing, and why he was doing it. I started to try and figure out what his next move was. If he did something different, i tried to figure out why he did that. Lastly, I started thinking about things from the point of view of, "what if I was in that seat." I havent spent as much time on the ground as others have. I have spent my fair share. I still get on the ground. The other night I was digging storm sewer. We were at the end of our run. We were installing a 2ft diameter yard drain. The line was 8 inch pvc. Once the manhole was centered, on grade, and in the ground I hopped in the ditch. I helped the pipe layers. As for never trust someone 100%. I disagree with that. You do need to know who you are trusting. There is only 1 dozer operator I trusted being on the ground with. He was the first finish man I worked with. The reason why I trusted him, he did everything the exact way ALL the time. I knew once he passed the stake, he was going to the third stake after that. Assuming we were grading roads. He also knew I would do the exact same thing. I would check grade at that station. Then I would run to the next station and check that grade. About the time he hit that third station I was finished painting that number on the ground for him. He would always back down the opposite side of the pass he just made.