Hey guys i been checking all these work pic threads out for a long time and finally got around to joining. I just turned 28 and have been working for a small outfit for the last 5 years or so. We do mostly farm type work, building site prep, demos etc, but try to take on any job we feel we are capable of. We also do a ton of snow plowing in the winter. Il try to post some pics i have on my phone of some of the projects ive done, but i havent been real good about taking pics of our work. I realy look up to all you guys on here and have learned a ton!! Im always trying to get better at every aspect of our line of work so feel free to post any comments or suggestions you may have, im all for constructive criticisism
And they are sideways..il try not to do that again! I was building a waterway with our 6n, the first pic is pushing out material to the sides. Other pic is when i was grading it end to end
160d 700j D6n
Where abouts in Northern, IL are you?
Outside the quad city area, how bout you?
East of Rockford, south of Lake Geneva, Wi.
Right now it aint real fit for any jobs we got going so im starting on my shop work. Im giving our 700 its annual service and clean up..ive got most of the not fun stuff done just have to paint the track frame covers and finish waxing the whole machine. I try to keep all our equipment in as good a shape as i can. The heated portion of our shop is pretty tight and hard to keep neat when im working on stuff, but i aint gonna complain about having heat to work in during the winter!
Here we were putting a driveway in to get to the back of this property, and shaping everything up so it was mowable. I didnt take any pics but there was a big hump on the one side that i used to fill it in
Love the Deere equipment. Are you anywhere near Fulton, IL?
Heres what it turned out like, we did end up putting rock on the driveway also
Yea im only 20 min or so from Fulton. You know any anybody from that area?
I'm from Albany and my wife is from Fulton. My dad has a small machine shop/repair shop in Albany. I'm in Peoria now, but will probably make my way back there someday.
Hell yea man i live in Erie, most of our work is more port byron area
Good to see some of your work, thanks for sharing, Browning. Especially so close as I am from Prophestown, own the old lumber yard in Springhill. In Florida right now enjoying the better weather.
Crazy how close we all are lol!
Cool. It's different working in the river valley. We have some rough terrain compared to the rest of the state. I'm down in the Illinois river valley and it is similar.
What kind of work you doing down there? I deer hunt a public piece down there on the Illinois river. Very neat country
I was gonna say, that 6 sure sticks to a slope good! Nice work, and thanks for posting.
I have a CNC machine shop. I also work on various equipment.
I put in a new field entrance on this project so the farmer could get bigger equipment in. It was a thick wooded creek bottom, but i didnt get any good pics before i took all the trees out. The first pic is when i dug out for the tube to be layed in. Last pic is looking from the other side when i was finishing up. Its not perfectly straight due to the way the creek winded thru the bottom, but i tried getting the top to go across the tube as straight as i could to get it as wide as possible. I also put big rip rap on both sides of the tube. You can see in the last pic, over to the left is where i stole the majority of my dirt for fill
Got the 700 finished up. Had a zerk not taking on the blade so i had to replace the bushing in the tilt cylinder rod eye. Didnt have time to touch up paint as much as i wanted, but the waxing sure made it look good. Not too bad for 8 years old at least
Welcome to the Forums Browning.270!:drinkup Nice equipment that is taken care of with good work to boot! Glad to have you on board. A D6N is one of my favorite dozers to run.
Thanks CM!! Glad to be here and be able to learn from guys like you. A 6 is hard to beat thats for sure
Heres a building pad i did for a pole building to be built on. There was an old barn i tore down and took out all the concrete. It was tough to get drainage on the one side but i was able to cut around it and get the water to stay off it. These are probably my favorite type of jobs. I dont remember the building size but i think it was 80' long. Nothing huge but fun I noticed some rock on the far left side that i hadnt knocked down yet before i took the pic
Somehow i posted the wrong pic
Hopefully these are the right pics. You can see on the left side of the pad edge about halfway the grade started cutting into the exsisting so all of that i shaved down so it could drain around both sides of the building. You just cant realy tell in the last pic
Pad looks good, nice and neat. Rebushed the blade on my D5 last fall, it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be, the old ones came out without burning them. Made a world of difference as it always does, we operators get accustomed to the slack of a machine and compensate for it. From the pictures of you're work I don't think you'd learn much from me that you don't already know.:thumbsup
Thanks CM..i have kind of gotten the hang of most of the type of jobs we will do, but theres always a nice challenge here and there to make me learn. Where i have no experience is in pipe and underground type work. I see these types of jobs going on where theres pipe and manholes laying everywhere and hoes swinging realy getting after it and im like man, i would kill to be a jam up hoe hand on a job like that! Now i realize the only way to learn that type of work is to be around it, im just saying i dont consider myself to be well rounded because theres lots of jobs like that i would struggle on. Those guys would probably look at me working and wish they were out clearing trees or cleaning a ditch lol..the grass is always greener i suppose. Thats kind of why i like this forum so much because theres guys on here with so much knowledge and seat time under their belt its ridiculous! Not to mention the mechanics that are here also! I do all of our maintenance and small repairs that i can handle. Im constantly learning in the shop too. Some of the threads in the shop talk forum are just crazy on how good some guys are with a wrench
Welcome Browning, You posted some really nice pictures. I can almost smell that Midwest Top soil from here. I thought I was the only guy that waxed equipment. This I probably going to sound a little crazy to most of you but wax every machine the first day I have it at my home shop. Then once per year there after with good pressure washing in between. This equipment is do expensive that I can stand the thoughts of it looking like CRAP and I also think it helps me get more business by having all of my stuff look its best. It's getting hard to keep up with be uase on the sheer volume of machines I'm building ....Anyhoo, keep posting these pictures. I love to see Rural dirt Works. I work in very similar places and conditions. Looks lime great deer hunting There ! Farmer
While I never thought of waxing the equipment at the quarry where I work, not sure I would have the energy to do a 773G Cat truck, always tried to clean them as much as I could. I hated the attitude of "Why wash it, it's only going to get dirty again!" I can't tell you how many times I found small problems while washing a machine, small oil leaks, broken ground strap, missing hold downs, loose bolts, missing exhaust stud, rust pits on brake cooler tubing, and so on. Problem is if they had someone else do the washing they just hit the easy to get at stuff, you know make it look pretty when boss drives by in his pick up. Not the get down on hands and knees and clean the underside where it really matters.
We try to wax the machines at least once a year in the winter, one of the nice things about a heated shop. When its a wet spring its almost useless to wash the smaller stuff, gets muddy so quickly. Once it dries out though and gets into summer then it stays clean for much longer which is nice. The excavators don't seem to get that dirty compared to the track loaders that sling the mud everywhere.
Thanks for the comments It probably does sound silly to wax machines to some, but since we are small and plan to keep our machines for a long time, i like to baby them realy good. Every piece we have gets brought in to the shop once a year in the winter time and gets a good clean and servicing. I take all the panels off that are removable and wash every square inch inside and out that i can get too. After everything dries i go over all the exterior except for undercarriage with Mothers cleaner wax. I use a buffer on all the open areas and hand wax all the tight spots. Its a lot easier with most of the exterior covers off as i can put them up on the bench and buff them out much easier. I also try to touch up paint any main areas that need it, just helps things look neat. Like the one guy said, i find so many things that need adressed by doing this that its worth it in my opinion. i can see how a bigger outfitt with lots of equipment wouldnt bother taking these extra steps but for now my OCD wont let me not keep everything neat as possible. Pafarmer, i could go on for days about deer hunting as i eat sleep and breathe it. Mostly bow hunting. I will say that Illinois is nowhere near what it was 8-10 years ago. Lots of factors have made our deer herd get worse and worse every year. Over harvest, habitat loss, coyotes, EHD are a few of the main variables, but its not looking good. Luckily theres enough guys throughout the state who have started to work together to keep what little bit of good hunting we have intact. There is baisicly isolated pockets of good deer numbers in places and 5 miles down the road theres nothing. Hopefully things start to go the other way soon.
I'm not a biologist, but it seems like the biggest issue affecting deer antler size is that everyone wants to kill the big antler deer before they can breed. Human deer hunting kind of works the opposite of how nature intends. A normal predator would kill the weak and injured animals first because it requires less energy. Humans have the luxury of waiting around for the big guy to come along and killing him. So we take out the good genetics and leave the smaller and weaker animals to procreate. I don't know if issuing less antler tags would help. I know some places that lease out to hunters require them to take 1 or 2 does before they can shoot a buck. I don't think there is a shortage of total deer. There are tons of deer.
Finally got some more snow to mess with, wish it would keep coming. 544 with a 16' Protech pusher with rubber cutting edge. Very productive setup. The square tubing on the outside of the box is there so we can off-set it to one side or the other and be able to go under the front of semi trailers in big storage lots. It actually works realy slick
Nice clean equipment and good looking work. Looking forward to more pics.
So I take it that you have to move the pusher plow manually? Using the chain binder to hold it one side or the other?
Yea you just back out of it and move over to whatever side you want then hook the chains back up. It realy dosnt need a binder in my opinion i keep the chains somewhat loose so it has some room to float
Heres a ditch that i cleaned one side out of to straighten it up, they wanted me to only do the side that was the worst lol
Crazy clearing job we did on an island..tracking onto their barge was a very uneasy feeling as we had to build a ramp from shore onto the deck. It felt good to get it done and both pieces back on our side safely. As you tracked onto the barge i swear it felt like it was gonna go right under once the full weight of the machine was on