Took a trip to Hawaii last week to help resurrect a big machine that has been down for quite awhile. Lots of sun, some heat to go with it and a great bunch of people to work with. I even had some time to look around the island when the machine was back alive.
Thats a beast! Looks like they are partial to Komatsu, or is that a graveyard full of them?
I understand it will all run when they need it. They had about twenty pieces of heavy on a construction site with a various mix of makes. All the material they work with is lava rock and the salt air is all around. It was an amazing operation to see.
helluva pineapple picker
That is one big jackhammer its carrying. That should shake the ground.
That's cool!!!! Wait a minute..... you go to a volcanic island with a bunch of iron and only come back with one pic??? what gives
The hammer was one of the issues that went with the trip. The machine broke down while the hammer was being rebuilt. In their current project they need the hammer and the machine. I worked with them to get the machine running and install the hammer to test. It didn't work. The hammer never fired. The customer called the dealer who sent a rep to confirm the unit didn't work. It is almost funny how dealers will fight to push responsibility on the customer. First they tried to say the machine didn't have the flow. We had a flow meter there to adjust the pumps and the flow to the hammer was past their spec. Then they turned around and said there was too much flow. The manufacturer was called and turns out the specs are only for minimum flow and not maximum. My part of the project was to help calibrate the machine hydraulics so I haven't heard so far if that part of the project is back to running. The customer also has a ripper and two large buckets to go with this machine so I'm sure the machine will back in use while the hammer is being fixed, "again." I don't have photos of the operation. I do have some photos of the type of stuff this company is working in. First all sunsets in Hawaii are beautiful. The rest of the photos are lava flows on Mauna Loa and the mountain in the background is Mauna Kea. Last photo shows hardened lava down by a black sand beach at the south end of the big island.
Sorry for the double post of photos.
You have to wonder how long it takes to turn lava into black sand.
Depends on the size and quality of your equipment
That is a very good observation. If you look at the lava on the mountain you will see there are two colors. The brown stuff is older than the black stuff and both those eruptions are a lot older than me. The black sand beach was southwest of the current eruptions and the ocean was working pretty hard a busting it up. Photos of the black sand beach are on my wife's camera so I'll try to find them.
That was a long haul service call John . Well done ! Love the photo's ! Hey , you did not buy chance spot and old IH TD-30 dozer ? One of my favorite episodes of Hawaii Five-O . Filmed on location . " Strangers in Our Own Land " First season 1968 . HeavyEquipmentForums Be interesting to find out where the machine is now . Might have been scrapped years ago or could still be setting somewhere on the island ?
The only cast away I saw was an old Terex truck on one of the many single lane road we explored. With the rate of growth on that island I'm guessing it might take less than a year for the plant life to swallow a TD30. Here is the black sand beach.
The crew sent me a couple of videos of the machine working together with a smaller excavator. The big dog is on the left in the video and has a custom built D11 ripper shank installed. A big thanks to Jason, Craig and Kalani.
I got a couple more video clips so I edited them into a short program. They do things big in Hawaii.