Every now and then I come across for sale listings of excavators stating, "Ideal as a dedicated hammer machine", I have a sense that is "code" for the condition of the machine (probably not desirable). Can someone share what the "code" meaning of the phrase is?? Thanks!
A hammer will excelerate wear on nearly every part of a machine and the operators dental work. Code for loose and sloppy buts runs and digs well.
Usually means the undercarriage is shot and the engine and hydraulics are tired. You aren't going to spend much money of fixing things. I define these machines as runners. You might have to jump start the engine, there are leaks and other problems but it will work for awhile before you have to fix something big.
^ AKA not a production digger.
Thanks, everyone for the replies! Trying to learn as much as I can before taking the plunge to buy a machine for use on my farm.
I picked up rock in a quarry one time. There was a guy in an excavator sitting on a pile of rocks the size of kitchen stoves using a hammer to break rocks the size of cars into rocks the size of microwaves so they could go in the crusher. All day long. I wonder if they meant for the blasting to break them somewhat smaller than car size. But maybe that is just how they came out.
Blasting is an art starting right from the drill pattern. A good blaster can read the rock, pick the pattern, depth and size of the holes, and how much stemming to put on top of your charge, even down to the timing on the detonators. A good blast will be fine, ant the muck pile should be almost in a pile away from the face, and not spread all over. The idea is to force the material towards the center, and have rock break rock as well.... hence the pile if done right. The farther you space the holes, and the less slurry you use, the bigger your rock. They company we use for our quarry go with a larger pattern, as we want a percentage of oversize for shore line protection jobs. Our quarry is bad for seams and can produce some larger stuff that is even too big for armor rock, and it has to be hammered. My back gets sore thinking about carrying 5 gallon pails of 1/4 inch stone for stemming, and bags of Nitropel, and ammonium nitrate, and boxes of power frac. Now they pump it with a truck.
^ art indeed. I worked Cowlitz Falls Dam in the 90's, and the day shift would drill and load, and shoot right at shift change. I was on swing on a D8 at the spoils end. We would watch the shot and then get after it. Some shots were interesting. One time they missed a hole and had a 15' chunk, and elected to put a shaped charge against it. We were all hiding out by the dry shacks and CRACK! way different sound, and then here comes this head-sized line drive at us. It hit the curb log and bounced halfway back to the river, narrowly missing the opportunity to take out some soft things.
We used to call that mud capping and we were told it was illegal. My thoughts on it were that it would be a chargeable offense only after someone got hurt. We always ended up drilling and shooting the over size in the coal mines. In the coal mines, shots were designed by a few factors. Pattern and spread was related to cost of materials. We only did slurry once and I had to fix the pump truck as it had a fuel line plug up in the middle of loading a shot. The truck belonged to the powder supplier but we couldn't leave a pattern half loaded overnight while they got someone out to fix the truck. I stuck some tubing directly into the fuel tank and to the carburetor, yes it was gas powered, and got it running with a rag packed into the fill spout of the tank to lock the tube in place while we finished loading holes. The thought occurred to me that day that I had created a bomb that Molotov could have never imagined. Never did another one of those again as the cost of the slurry was far more expensive than stick power and Anfo. It did do a great job of breaking rock. The larger of the two mines I worked at only did boosters and Anfo. We got the Anfo in sacks and it was delivered in semi trailers. Patterns were designed so the free face of the pattern was taken out first and the relief went back to try to leave a cliff type face when the spoil was removed. Drill hole diameters there were eight inch and forty foot deep done by a Drilltek blast hole drill with a carousel holder for extra steels. Powder factor was a huge deal at that place because it wasn't far from residences built around a small lake. When the shots went off you could feel the vibration in your feet was all. Fly rock only happened a few times as stemming was at six feet. Overburden at that mine was thirty feet of glacial till which ate up drill bits almost one per shot at times. We found that ripping worked the best there as it was more cost efficient and did a better job of loosening the till. Hard white colored sandstone was under the till and had to be shot. When things were in high production we would shoot a semi trailer load of powder each week. I've talked to quite a few people about removing big rock and witnessed different methods and schemes over my career. The comment about it being an art designed from the end product of the process working toward the start has always stuck with me. For sure though, it is a profession that also appears to be dying out. There are few good drillers around here anymore and powder license holders got scarce in the years after 9/11.
In the quarries we used a dropball , there was a hammer at the crusher in case they got one to big , in the coal fields we shoved it over to where the coal had already been taken up
I don't think I could work underground. I had a chance to go to a mine in northern Ontario and run grader underground, and I said no. The guy showed me pictures and explained how safe it was, but I declined. But I suspect you are talking open pit mining. I have never don any blasting with this company, but I worked with the blaster at my last job. He had the ticket, and the rest of us just did what he said. Strong arms, weak mind I guess.
That was my dad's profession right after World War II. He learned the craft from a guy named Roland A. Davis I put that name out because maybe somebody in his family will find that reference. Dad went to work for him at Tokatee Falls, in the middle of the Oregon Cascades not far from Crater lake. We had an old magneto but I think it was stolen when my brother took it to do a school play with it.
I don't miss the headaches. literally.... It was like a roll of cookie dough. I had to make a small hole, insert the cap, one wrap with the cord, tie it, and lower it down the hole, 2 or 3 sticks of dough on top of that, then 3 or 4 bags of captain crunch on top of that, then pour the stone in until full. I didn't like wearing gloves, and that stuff would give a wicked headache.
At the first mine everyone packed powder to load holes. The sticks used electric caps. Poke a hole in one end with a Phillips screwdriver, put the cap in the hole, point the cap in the stick down and put two half hitches on the stick with the blasting cap wire and lower the stick into the hole. When it reaches the bottom, you tie the wire around a bigger rock than the hole and start pouring powder from the sack. When the hole is about half full, we put another stick in and then some more powder. We then used a special pole and put it in the hole feeling for the powder level. The pole was marked at the stop level and when it got there, we filled the rest of the way with gravel and dirt. Those were always a long day.
My dad used to do some blasting to place footing for barns on the farm. He told me about the headaches from handling. Of course in the 40's when explosives were not regulated to the same extent.
Dad talked about using ditching powder. It is hard to find info about it, but it was high concentration nitro powder in sticks, and you took a digging bar and poked a hole and set a stick with a cap, then headed off across a swampy area setting a stick every 6' or less, depending on how big a ditch you wanted. The high nitro concentration would propagate across the 6' in wet soils and set off the next stick. if you found a big stump or log you set one in from each side at an angle. When you fired it, it would blast out a ditch and toss those logs and stumps aside. I recall it was a 6' deep 12' wide ditch. The stuff was very unstable to be that sensitive.
There was a story told about my grandfather who did the same thing in the 1940s or 50s. There was a creek on our place that kind of flattened out and made a meadow into a big swamp. He laid a line of those charges along the property line and set them off, voila, it became a defined creek and no more swamp. Still in its place to this day.
As to the op question we bought a machine with that description at auction it cost more to plumb it than we paid for it was the perfect dedicated hammer machine under carriage was about toast the fuel tank was cracked and leaked if it was more than half full one ram needed recrome but man was she a runner We sold that machine for 4 times what we paid never really had to put any money in it if the operator know what there doing hammering adds very little wear to a machine but with a bad operator or a bad size match or bad hammer design you can take a machine out in a shift As far as powder monkeys go my dad spent a few summers starting at about 10 working with his grandpa in a gold shaft no mind you his grandpa first experience with dynamite was when he was 15 so about 1910 they found a mine shack and tried using some old sticks to fish with the gliserine had sweated making it very unstable dads grandpa lost his hand from that after that he took up mineing and did a lot of shooting for contractors
Most of the blasting I'm exposed to, they try to blast to relief. Unless that would send material towards the golf course (or something similar, but likely less important ). Being respectful of the possible dangers, and doing your best to avoid "fly rock" are critical in my opinion. I'm running brand new hammers on brand new machines. I do see things that will be stressed due to the hammers but, over all, the hammers don't seem to be any worse than digging through rocky soil. The jury is out on pin and bushing wear. I'll need more time to asses. I hope that you can find a good machine for your farm. It's tough these days as used equipment is now bringing premium pricing. You may have to go with a "perfect hammer" machine just to get an affordable unit.
Thanks! Starting my search process, and trying to "get smarter" on excavators and what to look out for. Never been around tracked machines growing up on the farm so a large learning curve.
We were discussing code language at supper last night. The discussion came up what is a shelter "Lab Mix" a euphemism for Pit Bull. In the case of excavators, another term is "good farm machine", a machine too rough to make a living running, but a great shade tree mechanic can get SOME use out of it.
At my last employer the sales force would use the term "good farm or ranch machine" trying to convince us that the machine had a market because they wanted more money on the trade to try to sell a new machine. My retort was usually to ask where anyone could find a farmer that would pay anything for a used machine.
Keeping the correct charge in the hammer accumulator and having it adequately lubricated appear to be key factors in reducing vibration transmission to the excavator based on what I've seen.
Another part is especially in the bigger hammers is the dampener design some designs use rubber bushings on the holster to dampen the impact transfer others us an internal dampener in my experience internal dampeners are garbage
I guess I need to find the "sweet spot" between brand new and scrap iron, where usability, my mechanical ability, and my budget intersect
Likely not a factor if budget is a priority. Avoid the failure prone emission systems, & for my benefit, I wish I did NOT buy a computer equipped machine.
Lol hammer machine around here usually means one track motor is dead and you have to limp it along with the stick, both sides are missing half the track pads (the remainder are bent up, loose, and missing bolts), it takes 15 seconds of cranking and likely some liquid glow plugs to start, it’s so loose you stop swinging and it takes another day for the stick to stop, the front glass is replaced by crazed $30 sheet of plexi from Lowe’s that is so yellow and scratched you can’t see through it, top hatch is missing, back glass is too, and you don’t worry too much about checking engine oil or hydraulic you just add a gallon and three buckets each day respectively. The hyd pump compartment door is ripped straight off and the radiator door is U-shaped. oh and there isn’t a surface on the machine that doesn’t consist of three to eight inches deep of dirt/mud/oil brownie baked together. The swivel area is a foot deep and that’s what you get to work on today…
Agree, when I first thought of getting an excavator, my focus was pre-emissions. But I think the other computers/electronics are probably even more of a headache. Just read about a guy who got a new CAT 325 and had the computer reflashed 3 times. Scary if that happened to a machine out of warranty or worse with no parts availability.
That’s a three way formula, I was never any good at trigonometry.
Computers, and electronics in general, are always a possible weak link in my opinion. That being said one must go a ways back (dependent upon size and brand of machine, of course) to get pre-computer. Even my '03 CAT 315C has a computer on board (probably more than one). In the 19 years that I've owned that machine it was re-flashed only once (relatively early in it's life, and not related to any sort of performance or reliability complaint) and has not had computer issues. BTW, the issues I was having on my new 325 have been resolved with the latest re-flash. Furthermore the (3) re-flashes have been on different computers. The mechanic told me that there are likely (8), or more, on the new 325 (now THAT ought to scare you!). I'm not trying to tell you to get a machine with a computer....I'm just suggesting that it may not be the best advise to eliminate anything with a computer from consideration.
I have worked on many machines with computers in them that were built in the late seventies. They still move dirt and rock at least weekly. The real issue right now is the emissions components and that has begun to have somewhat better reliability once DEF started being used.
Thanks for the input! I'll keep an open mind. Thinking of the cars I have had. Practically all have had computers and only one really acted up. That one even dumped a replacement computer in the lot before I drove it home. Minor inconvenience when under warranty, but possible major cost on an older machine. Glad to hear all is good with your 325!