My new total station, tablet, licensing and supporting items just got dropped off to me. If you are wondering, this equipment is costly. I have been working towards it for 3 years now. When I paid for my initial machine control I went with a 3D system. After the guys had it in there shop for about a month, they had to scale the system back to 2D because there was no where to install the rotation sensor on the turn table safely. They thought it was not possible without major surgery. It was up to me to figure out how to get it centered on the table above the mold board. All that stuff on top is in the way of center and the junk on the bottom moves. Not only does the rotation sensor need to be centered and oriented in the correct direction all those precious cables and connections must be safe from materials damaging them. Most of the time this means building a new blade assembly designed for machine control or doing what most do and not getting it. After much thought i came up with a way to do it. I ended up taking the mold board or blade off and welding in a lower protected housing to carry the sensor and it's supporting wires. This took me about a month to figure out and do then my grader went back to the dealer to make sure the tilt sensor, rotation sensor, and slope sensors worked as they should. We had more issues with the junction box so 1000s more in work and the machine is ready to be used. This left me needing a gun(station), tablet, measuring sticks batteries and all the licensing to use it. Due to tariffs and shipping disruptions almost all machine control parts are back ordered and stuck some where in limbo. It could be 2 months to get a part you need. They have a line of machines waiting on gps right now. My machine can also run gps and laser. I am going to use the 3D for some large scale cement paving work on roads and parking lots. I previously have been doing string line grading the old way on smaller roads and what not without issue. It is just slower. Our soil cement crew is rocking and rolling and the mixing is moving fast, they are behind on timelines. They are laying it down with GPS and I will be cleaning it up with 3D. I have completed 27 2D and sloped pours on this job. I have been on this project since November. Rain, weather and soil issues have made this job, one to remember. I am on call 24hrs a day, 7 days a week. I am heading out to start programming tomorrow for Monday grading and concrete pouring on Monday night. Hopefully Mr Murphy does not show up because a lot is riding on my work right now. Tbc...
Who's 3D system did you go with?
Leica, ICR80, cc200, icon. I used an older version around 4 years ago and got the basics down. This equipment has improved, it seems to track me faster. I know the basics such as, making a project, making control points, making a grade file, and how to use it. The software can do more than I know or probably need. I think you can do property line surveys with it, but I don't know how to do it. Today, I am measuring and staking out my next 2 pours. Friday night they poured right at 2000 yards or 2 pours on one extended night. We are attempting to get something done around this cycle of high winds and rain .... I just ran to the truck, had to get everything up a severe storm just hit. Waiting it out. I am on site a day early to have extra time to set the grade file up. Normally I can do it first thing and move on. But this being new to me, i did not want to fall behind if I have issues.
So much for an easy day. Above you are looking at measurements I have taken along the curb and gutters. Typically you measure your highs and lows and then put in points if you have a flow problem. The elevations are what I am concerned with. That's what controls water flow and concrete depth.
Yeah that curb line is relatively flat. Is it a spill curb?
That was the building side measurements. Which was close to flat, it has a little curling of the concrete on the building side. It's drainage is at 1%. Below is the outside spill curb. I set it up with colored contours to help me see the sub grade changes for my break lines. It is a type of topo profile. I can also use a grade checker to mimic water flow. This area is a little too long for my liking on one setup. Pushing 1000' long. Checking drainage below electronically. This was a test grade based on my as built model. Part of my job is checking everything is working together correctly for drainage. Some times the curbs are wrong and sometimes i stake it out with nothing on the outside, maybe if the curb guys are late and then they do curbs to match me. Once you can understand what your measurements mean then you can find the problems. Most common problem is manhole covers too high or low. The curb guys on this job are just as capable as me. They are top notch have not found any problems yet and they use the same tech.
They claim it pays for itself in the time it saves A good base and rover here are in the $35000 range, and i know some set ups on a grader can be close to 100
This system with taxs and licensing was 55k. My old employer had the full software package. I did not realize that they were nickle and diming the software now and that they had changed what capabilities it does. They sold me a basic software. The different features they now call apps so they are getting some more money out of me for a more expanded version. The grade checkers are pretty tuff on me. They run strings line and tapes and check my work and every pour is looked at based on yields. Lots of little things can happen that make my job harder. Sometimes the base material will swell in the heat and I wonder why I am cutting an area after it was already cut to grade. A lot of times they don't check it till the end of the day if I have a problem it can make a late evening. I have gotten pretty good at my job and can feel what the tractor is doing so I rarely dont know what is happening. Mostly it is super hard material that pushes my blade up and you think you are cutting to grade but your not. One pour recently went over 100 yards and they were looking at me. That much over can cause them to find someone else. I knew it was not me. I checked the slab after the pour and it was off a 1/2" up in places. The screed guy was not dialed in good. The nice thing about having a robot is I can be just as accurate as any surveyor. I could set pins and stake lines and so forth and practically lay out the whole job. I don't take it on because I don't want the liability nor woukd i get paid for it. But I can double check so and so and see when the 3 grade pins are out a 1/2" and know what is happening as the work is moving foward. Control points get ripped out and driven over a lot and sometimes I am waiting on a surveyor for a day or 2. Now I can keep working and "know" that I am good with my work. It gives me another system of checks and I don't have to worry so much. Most all dirt guys are running GPS. It sometimes does not work well near walls and inside buildings. I help fix those bad places and problem areas. Sometime I cut grade and they dial in on my grade and follow it up with a dozer. The best think a station does is you can see what is happening with water and water is the job site biggest issue.
The tech pays for itself. It was a little over $100K for our base station, rover and full auto on a D3 with the licenses and such. That was in '21 and the investment is now in the pay back stage. Yeah CP's get tore out all the time. Usually what we'll do is once our grading model is localized we'll set a base station point in our lay down area that is protected the best it can be. Total station is by far more accurate however it relies on line of site which makes it difficult on grading a large site or sites with obstructions. Sometimes GPS accuracy depends on the time of day and how many satellites you have when working close to buildings and such. All in all it's a game changer for us cutting and filling to +/- .10'. For what you are doing a total station is the only way to go to achieve those tolerances.
Do you run stinger bits on the grader? I find that they really help with fine grading. Most of the time I'll lay down the material and fine grade it at the end. Most of the time they hire enough trucks, that by the time the last truck dumps, you get about 20 to 30 min before the first truck is back. Between water and traffic, it is packed pretty hard. Stingers make cutting high spots way easier.
I am not sure what you mean by stinger bits. I use serrated cutting edges.
Everything you said is true. This week went pretty well. I graded 3 new pours and had to repair a surface. The tolerances and yields were spot on. Cut and fill numbers were good. I did not use any break lines across the pours. I was not sure how it would turn out until I shot the actual finished project as in dirt. It did amazing. We had 1" of rain that morning. 4 pumps going .
Like the changeable teeth on a milling machine
Looks great!
Is there not a thing they have that works with your phone now for smaller jobs. Can't remember what they call it
I think there is an Earthworks GO that Trimble has but not sure how it works.
We have been using a laser on our 140 for a few months now and it is accurate within a quarter inch once you learn how to compensate for the wear in the mold board guides Not quit ready to jump to 3d machine control but its on the list for now the laser works great
How far can you go away from your laser before laser scatter becomes an issue?
Earthworks GO it is a good system and is cheaper than the 2D or 3D systems but you can't expand on it like you can with the 2D/3D for example you get 2D later you could add a laser catcher to get 3D you have to add some wiring and the receivers or to use with a total station you would add the prizm and a "all code" to communicate. So if you are planning on going further with technology you would have to sell the GO and start fresh
Depends on the quality of the laser for one After 300 feet the margin opens up to 3/8ths and inch at 400 feet from the laser you vary a half inch that's way outside our tolerance for a floor so we stay at 300 or less If we are cutting sub and not finish 600 feet is fine but this time of year afternoons get really warm and the heat waves keep you closer to 400
Gotcha. We're running full auto GPS Earthworks on a D3 and 325.
CM what does "full auto" mean?
Well weeks are quickly passing by. Another 10 hours on the grader. Today we were prepping for another heavy duty pour. 8"s thick, calls for 1100 yards. Main site guys were high 3"s. This was on soil cement also. All turns have gravel ontop of the soil cement so it is some heavy duty roadway. Proof roll was set for 100. I did not get it close enough until 400 they were raising the eyebrows at me. I had to call in a p61 dozer to help I just could not cut the soil cement. My serrated blades had 1/2" rubbed off today absolutely ruined. I caught a buried metal plate, I believe someone else's belly pans that was mixed into the soil cement, It cold turkeyed stopped me, I was moving pretty fast almost threw me into the grader controls. Then the material that was stripped off was a lot. So a wheel loader and a 30 ton truck came and picked up who knows how many loads. Probably loaded for an hour. The dang dozer did not want to cut the soil cement so it was pass after pass after pass. With some areas over cutting and some not wanting to budge. Of course I have to follow him up to make sure it does not get cut to much. The first few hours of the morning were spent making an new as built model to load into the grader. They are hauling in off site fill and the quarrys trucks were driving to fast onto the site. They got warned 3 times. I have never seen this done before but they locked the entranced down and sent all the trucks back even loaded and shut down the hauling for the day. Needless to say it was a bit tense for a hour or so. I was happy that I was on the back side and not in the middle of that. My yields have been spot on. It is very stressful keeping up with a dozer cutting, a skid steer and a back hoe moving material. They other men don't have anything to go by other than gps on the dozer so they can strip too much and I am rushing to get it put back down to correct height. By the end of the day tablet battery and both robot batteries are gone. It takes like 4 hours to charge the robot battery so I was sweating bullets because everything was empty.
Means when we get to the last couple of tenths the dozer will cut the final grade with no operator input. It has cut our finish grading time by at least 70%+. Most of the spec's for the jobs we do require final grade to be +/-.10'. We have had very good success with our GPS set up in hitting that tolerance. 325 hoe is the same. It will automatically cut a trench to grade, pull a slope or cut to grade. It's really nice when making a deep cut on big excavation job and being able to hit grade and still keep the trucks rolling with no grade checker. We can set offsets vertically for asphalt/concrete/finish surface depths in order to cut to subgrade and horizontal offsets so we can grade subgrade 2-3' behind the proposed curb line for example.
If by robot do you mean the total station? My guys got tired of charging batteries on our GPS base station so we got a small lawnmower battery and a small solar panel from china freight with the little charging mechanism. Works great and no more small battery charging. The base station will run all day on the mower battery even if it's cloudy.
This was a game changer for fine grading Our quarry gravel is like concrete between water and traffic on public roads. Trying to cut an inch with a regular cutting edge was almost impossible. I've probably fine graded 10 miles of road with them with no signs of wear. Initial purchas is expensive after that you just buy the teeth. They take mine off and only use them for highway work so they should last forever
Gotcha, basically same principles as what I use. Yes, total station. It spins 360*s and tracks my machine so it can't have any wires going to it. Uses an expensive battery which i think is about $375.00 ea. Pops into the side of the station. In addition to all it, today the temperature got high enough that my station had a temperature warning accuracy. Maybe. 105* plus what ever was coming off the ground.
I started grading inside the hockey rink today. When I'm finished, they will lay down the lines for the chillers, then throw 9 inches of sand on top of that. They bought some type of machine control for the bobcat for that lift. Talking about bringing it down to try out on the lift I'm doing. Ill see if I can get some pics if they do
We set our base up on our job trailer, and have a 12v automotive battery with solar panel charging. We can leave the base on 24/7 without issue in the summer, but we usually turn it off at the end of the day. Winter time we charge the 12v on the weekends.
Those are nice and heavy duty. I don't believe I have enough weight to run them.
Some of the big highway contractors around here are using tracked skidsteer mounted auto units for prep of center divider grade, and some other areas that are narrow or short.
@Georgia Iron , maybe @CM1995 will respond to this with his opinion, but we find that cut-to-finish works much better than trying to fill to finish. By that I mean that on automatics during a fill you will find that your material seems to disappear. It is more efficient in my experience to lay fill material out .2' high or more and then trim back to finish grade. The trick is to go back and forth from. +.2 to grade in a relatively short area so that you don't have to chase material at grade a long distance. It doesn't take long to realize what you lose to compaction.
It depends on how hard the material is and the size of the material. Loading and moving the same amount of material is the trick. Keeping the same size windrow with the material moving across the blade is best. Digging and cutting material is not my goal on a final pass. I would undercut everything and bring it back to grade. I can take a slight fill using fines with water and bring finish grade to within a 1%, typically they are ok with 5%. Good fines are expensive more so than gab. Running in a 100 trucks on a pour and keeping grade right takes effort and learning how much extra to leave. A poor form crew can cost you 10s of thousands, a poor screeed man can cost you 10s of thousands. Every quarter off is money. Lots of variables that need go be controlled. This is typical 3d grading, I must bring in grade to match each side. The right side is practically flat with a 1% side slope pitched towards the left curb. The curb side has highs and lows that vary about 7"s up and down. I match a 1% side slope bringing in the highs and lows to send water to the drains keeping the correct concrete thickness. From the building to the curb line is roughly 200 wide. It takes 3 pours in width and 2 in length. So 6 nights of pours per side roughly 1000 yards each pour. A concrete plant is running all night onsite to keep up with the pours each night. Pours are done in a work your way out fashion. So every day is the next nights work. Approximately 40 or 50 men is what it takes to do this working 24 hrs a day. Main site grading contractor support, pour crew, finish crew, form crew, sometimes a steel crew, concrete truck crew, cut crew, soil cement crew if we fail a proof roll, my close support crew, (water truck, backhoe operator, skid steer operator, roller operator, sometimes an additional back hoe operator or wheel loader operator, possibly dump truck drivers), engineering and testing (yesterday it also took an off road dump x2, a wheel loader operator, a dozer operator the attention of 2 additional surpervisors) and lastly me and a mere 12 hours to do the final preparation.
We use something like that for ice on roads
grading sand today. They put it on with the d4. Did a perfect job. But someone messed up the grade, and it's all 2 inches too high
Yes that's exactly how we do it with dirt. Over fill the final subgrade and cut to finish. This leaves a nice hard finish. We don't do a lot of finish gravel surfaces but the ones we have done our locally sourced DGB has to be .15' - .2' higher than finish in order to hit compacted grade.
This surface is to be finished within 10 mills. Like .39 of an inch. I have no machine control so it's going to be tedious with a 4 wheel grader. I wouldn't mind at all if i had my big volvo as it is more stable. They will lay the chill lines down then 9 more inches of sand Then they will try out the machine control on the bobcat
The Cat box blade set up we have with auto laser controls would slay that sand. We are able to get 1/2" tolerance easily with DGB - dense grade base which has particles up to 1.5". Once you figured out the compaction ratio of the sand it would be very easy to grade.
As long as they keep it wet it's not too bad, but as it dries out it gets unruly. It's the same ssnd we use for winter but no salt
I doubt I'll see it in action. I guess they had to order another harness. I wish I had the cash to throw around. They were going to buy the box and grade control. And the fuel man just told me they bought a new bobcat and system. Something about the machine having a 9 pin connector, and the grade system needing 22. Good toy for one of the young lads
Well if you get to see one in action it's way more than a toy - It's a money maker.
Did you keep it 2" high or need to cut it out?
No I cut it all down story is that it was supposed to be an inch and a half high. Compacted, then I could cut an inch or so off. Tech raised the grade , then the rod man raised it again. In the morning, they will soak it, then roll it. Then I will cut and fill as needed. It's pretty close They want to start laying down chill lines monday
Interesting. My favorite thing in life, is to do something once, then get to do it again for free... Yesterday was a 15 hour day. Today is the same. Yesterday they had such a hard time everyone was too shot out to do it again tonight. Holding the pour until tomorrow night. They are pushing the size of the pours to the max. Grade was so far out yesterday , after I graded it for hours and came to the conclusion that I was not going to hit grade. I called for a dozer at 5 pm, of course you can imagine how tired the dozer man was at that time. If I had taken the time to shoot the sub grade before jumping in the grader. You think you can get it with a back hoe, then it turns out to be 5"s too high and super hard. It is really the GPS system being a royal PIA. Today they were ready no body wants to stay till dark. 2 dozers and a hoe on stand by. I shot grade and guided them to target. Superintendent asked me how's the grade. I said I'll know in 15 mins. 30 mins later how's the grade.. I need 15 more minutes.... I thought he was coming off the buggy to get me.... Anyway 45 hours in, in 3 days with an additional 11 hours of travel. Rain is going to catch us again so off till next week.
Today I did a cool trick with the software. My support crew got pulled and had to help finish last night's pour. So grade stakes and lines were not set. I was stuck with out what I needed to grade the area. I was able to take the site plans and do an as built model. I then made an a line which matched the existing pour. I moved the line 72' out and dropped it 1%. They wanted me to grade a 2d slope and 3d contoured area. With different concrete thicknesses. I divided this line into 50' points and bam. I now have my duel area ready to grade. They got to me around 1:00 and set stakes. I was within .01 pretty cool.
I guess the guy installing the unit on the bobcat can't get the bobcat and the blade to communicate with each other
It's not the GPS system, it's the people operating it. Garbage in = Garbage out. Now that can be faulty equipment or the more probable reason the humans operating it. 5" too high is human error be it the operator in the seat, the one who built the model or whomever set up the base station and localized the site. I have so many jokes about Bobcat in general but this one made me laugh.
They love their Bobcats. They even have an old girl at the crusher cleaning under belts
Are you running gps and uts, or is someone else running gps? I agree with CM1995 GPS typically offers a tolerance of +/- 1.5 to 2.5cm (0.6 to 1 inch), while UTS, used for final trim and fine grading, can achieve tolerances of +/- 3-6mm (0.12 to 0.24 inches). I Google that cause I could remember the exact numbers.
That is one roller coaster of a curb line.
They use there own GPS. On most sites I check the accuracy of gps and it is about 2"s. 1" up or down. As buildings are built up it interferes with the system. Corners and close to walls can throw it off. Sometimes the base stations won't stay on and connected and they just "grade it close" this can cause it to be 5 or 6" off. Also more than likely they don't worry to much about it because they know someone else is doing the final work. They probably just simply don't do a 100% job. Problem is when the soil cement gets hard even the dozers can't get it to cut without lots of passes sometimes with only the edge corner ripping a small area. In some places they are putting it down twice at 65 lbs. On the last few pours maybe 5 or 6 acres the foreman constantly was having problems with the base station. They had to shut it down and he just graded by me directing him. Soil cement work needs either a grade checker working with good equipment or a fine grader running with the crew. It is much harder to fix the grade after the fact and the main motor grader operator can get over stretched and not be able to recut or add if it gets slightly off, because there is not enough time to do it if they are mixing a lot. It is an art to get it right, especially considering it can swell. If it gets hard to fast it will grab the blade and scoop out areas. Basically it starts to cut but over cuts because it breaks threw the hard top as it is drying.
If you are curious, think of an inch of dirt this way, that is about 134 cubic yards of material or 1"s thick on an acre 43560 feet. That is about 270,000 lbs of dirt that needs to be moved. So shifting it, digging it up and or adding just an inch of material can be a big job to tackle in 1 days time. When it gets to be 2 or three inches it is an ordeal. Skid steers with grade box's can fall behind and that is why they are a second choice on these sites to a motor grader. I can cover larger areas faster and more accurately.
I love when we people say oh it's only a *insert low number*. I do some work for people and I know many contractors that don't see value in the grade controls. How much time/effort/labor/ machine and man hours, fuel wear and tear not just on the machine but the operator it takes to move that extra inch and add all that up over a year you could have easily paid for the grade controls. I am working on a state park, they are building camps sites and they are doing everything with lasers and math all at prevailing wage. It blows my mind. I bought my 2D system to save me time and separate myself from the competition knowing that I would be limited in what I can do with it. I primarily do underground utilities with a focus on power. If I was laying pipe on a slope all day I would definitely have went the gps route instead of the 2D, catching the laser ever time you move is very inefficient but it is better/cheaper than having a guy there all day checking grade or having to get out and check myself. I bought the grader blade to open doors, and to be more accurate grading, I could spend all day trying to touch this and touch that and would still probably not be where I should be and get hit with a charge back from the concrete guys without the grade controls. GPS and UTS was just too much to spend just to be able to say I have it without having the work lined up to pay for it. But with it I am way more productive than my counter parts and I am accurate, no rework, if I was there it is at grade/depth. I am now trying to meet like minded individuals/companies that see the value in it and this will ultimately help me expand my 2D into 3D
I'm wondering how many use a reversing rod for grading. It saves so much time and there's no math involved. No need for calculations. I see they're called direct read or true elevation rod.
I will have to look that up, there are only 2 contractors on this job the electrician (I am doing his digging) the other company is doing everything, this thing was basically a forest, they are tearing out trees, grading(it is not a flat site) sewer, water, concrete and asphalt. At any given time there is a dozer, a 963 a 317 hoe and 2-3 skids all running around with tape measures and grade rods. There are survey stakes with C/F but... I understand that GPS is expensive but they do these all the time or stuff that is similar and you don't need it on every machine but a base,rover and data collector for lay out would speed things up and watching the foreman trying to do all this and second guessing himself or trying to remember months later is agonizing. But his boss obviously doesn't know about the stuff or is unwilling to invest in it. And I am not saying go broke trying to get set up, which is what your salesman will try to do to, telling you all that you CAN do with but if you don't have the jobs that you need it or can make do without it but these cats are doing this daily and if you pencil to paper it would work out real quick in their case and could help them win more bids because of the efficiency that comes along with having it.
I'm slowly getting sucked into using metric more. Government work has been metric for years. And I've always made the conversions in my head, but all the surveyors are young and use it. I still have a survey rod in inches. And a metric standard combo tape
I also am trying to switch, I was a flooring installer by trade and some of my tools from the UK and Italy that had rules on them only came in metric, so I have been using it on a small scale for years I can glance down at a 1/16 rule but a 1/32 scale I have to stare and sometimes count but with the metric system much easier to glance and if you a mm of it isn't the end of the world even a cm in certain situations is ok. I was trying to learn 10th when I first got the system,I should have focused on the metric system but like you there are people that are not using it unless they have to, so figured I better get proficiant in both. Earthworks has both and now that I am digging all day I have been setting up in metric to just keep looking at it. It is when I have to switch depths that I have to double check but I think once I feel comfortable with it,it will be faster and easier to convert
Can't believe you guys are using inches in the civil construction world. All we use is tenths. Much easier to calculate. All the civil plans that come across my desk are in tenths of a foot. Super easy to convert inches to tenths and after a while it's memorization. Just divide the inch by 12. 6" is .5' for example.
I bought myself a couple of engineers tapes with them on there with the inches as well. I have a few tapes that have metric and imperial and a couple from the UK that only have metric. And some folding rules that have metric only but I don't use that in the excavation side of things I downloaded these when I got my grade controls I have to reference them once and a while or I will use the calculator like so.
Company owner used to use tenths. But other than that I've never seen it used. I think i am the only hold out with an inch survey rod. I only use my instrument for small private jobs. Anything else, we have 4 survey techs and 2 engineers and they use metric for everything. Kgs and meters. Only thing imperial is me and the asphalt plant
way better than tenths CM
Had a young surveyor put some grades on for me last summer. Every number on the rod is 0.1 of a meter. So if I see a stake with C 0.1, in my mind it's 4 inches from the line. The line might be a couple inches off the ground, so it could be a 2 inch cut. C 0.2 is 8 inches, 0.3 is a foot. He marks one stake as C 0.002 so like 0.07 of an inch. Ill call that one grade. Ill probably always convert it in my head, and keep my foot rod, but asking for them to put grades in inches would be confusing
Metric and tenths of a foot are the same concept with the decimal point math wise just different units of measurement. Used tenths for so long that I'll use my 25' tape measure in tenths for projects around the house that one would otherwise use inches.
I use the metric system in a few design programs and I am trying to use it everywhere as a immersion of sorts. I proficiant under a foot, just need to use it more for measurements bigger than that
Feet and inches are what I know in my head. But I'll do the conversion to find cubic meters and multiply by 2.2 to get tonnes of gravel.
It wouldn't let me type a message. The one single picture is the other side of the one on the left
This is our reversing rod. Let's say your benchmark is 8.00. You loosen the tape and roll it to 8.0 at your laser eye. Now when you want to shoot say 9.0 put your laser eye at 9.0 and that's it. No math involved. When setting up the next day you don't have to refigure all your numbers. It's great for beginners because it's so simple. Seasons guys used to the old ways get confused for a bit because the rod reads backwards.
I showed that picture to a friend of mine he reminded me of a conversation we had years ago, he said he used those in Florida when they were doing sewers and how much easier it was. Yet this guy doesn't own one, he has the same rod that I have in my picture in inches. He is one of those that scoffed when I said I was going to buy the grade controls and said if he did more of that type stuff he would get grade controls also. . He builds houses does all his own utilities and dirt work, He has twice as many hours on his machine than I do. I am not sure how much you have to do before you wake up and realize that the technology is worth the money. I guess we have seen the light
When I worked road construction 30 years ago, a lot of DODGE contracts specified laser grader controls for the state road jobs. Our main grader operator was so old, he had pictures of him with horse pulled graders from the 20’s and 30’s. He refused to use the laser set up but got pretty good at faking it. Man could cut a line. He used to go through a new moldboard in about 2 months.
A properly set up GPS machine with a good model and a decent operator will smoke anyone trying to grade by eye, butt, stake, string or grade rod. Does not matter how good the operator is. Robotic total station and laser controls are even tighter.
I like the story about the old man, lasers, hell back in my day we did this **** with horses baaahahaha
Linker rod?
not sure of the manufacturer. it's probably 30 years old.
Lenker rod, they seem to be around $250+/- LaserLine Direct ELEVATION Cut/Fill LENKER Grade Rod For Laser Level - Construction Rulers - Amazon.com LaserLine Direct ELEVATION Cut/Fill LENKER Grade Rod For Laser Level - Construction Rulers - Amazon.com a.co
Yeah that's it. I don't why it's not used more.
I would guess people not being aware of them and then not wanting to spend that much on a rod the guys are going to tear up, break,lose
Unfortunately there are lots of people that they made lots of money, they can afford it
I set a bench mark point of reference on my grade rod at top of concrete. Measure down with a tape measure put reference marks at 6" 7" 8"s. I then check sub grade or gravel and go up or down. The other numbers don't really matter for finish work. Trying to cut soil cement with a wheel loader. 6 passes later. Could not get an inch out. Brought in a big grader, took 3 passes to get the inch on a full front roll. Hard material. I had already hit it twice with the Volvo, it just laughed at me. They have such nice new expensive equipment, I feel honored that i was still chosen to bring in final grade with my 30 year old tractor.
Well from what I'm seeing of their "work" they need someone with some finesse. That's some of the sloppiest curb backfill I've seen in a while.
I bought a 140 last year to do finish fine grade for concrete best investment we made especially the laser system its way tighter than GPS one day I will spring for 3d so we can do a total station or GPS but with laser we can get within a 1/4 inch consistently. After the first 40,000 sq ft of grading I went shopping for a scrapper cause you can cover an insane amount of ground cutting out 2 to 3 inches with a blade and on scrapper to chase windrows
Sorry if everyone else knows this but what is a 140?
I'm guessing a Cat grader
It's a grader. https://www.cat.com/en_US/products/new/equipment/motor-graders/motor-graders/15969811.html
That sounds like a great idea. Do you have any pictures of your work and this combo?
Out west no one runs a blade without scrapers Everyone gets on a blade and toys to windrow across a job after 2 passes cutting pushing up a windrow your mold board is full and you are out of weight to push the windrow and cut doesn't matter what kind of material it is this is the problem A 613 cat scraper is the best tool when doing finish work cause its nimble I bought a 615 cause it was dirt cheap and needed to get by and didnt want a 623 because of the size there really hard to do finish grading in a tight tolerance because of there weight. There are lots of videos on you tube showing this set up in action My uncle has been a finish blade hand as long as I have been alive I remember riding with him at a very young age in a blade anyway he is the one running my 140 his requirement as soon as he came on with me was I had to have a scrapper or he was going to retire I could not imagine using a dozer to move dirt on a finish job I have used a loader and that works until your muck bound scrapper is the tool with a blade keeps the windrow small when your cutting and you just move on across the grade
I have been on 2 recent jobs that could not have been completed without at least a 750 sized dozer. One was for a 4 story building ( 1 million square ft) that had limestone gravel put down that turned into concrete. Another one in the photos you have been seeing me post. They are mixing powder cement into the sand and rough grading it. They are supposed to cut it a 1/2" low, they measure and measure with a rover but it is always off. Probably because the base station is too far away. This site is 300 acres. The dozer sometimes take 5 passes to remove 1" of material. The tracks digging ruts at full power and speed often does more cutting than the blade. They have one of the autonomous rollers working all day long on this site, that CM was talking about in his tread. We just had a major rain event that caused possibly 100k in damage. It washed out the road, concrete curb, soil cement, concrete pipes and filled the lake which was not ready yet for water. The lake was around 60' deep and it was 25' straight down to the wash. After I left the whole road washed away. That was about 50' of bank that washed away first. They left a break in the curb and it was supposed to be a poured concrete gutter into the lake. It was not done yet and it all blew out. All that water was ripping into the lake from the upper gutter and the lower 48" concrete pipe. Must have been a 5" or something rain in 2 hours. I don't see an easy way they can fix it. the water level is now over the pipes. The access to the area is almost impossible now. And all that water, it was something to hear and see 48" pipe blowing out as much water as could fit through it. The site contractor put a earth berm to block the pipe it was not supposed to flow. Too much rain and the earth berm got washed away. Then every thing else. I was the only one there to witness it, picking the grader up to head to a 100k sq ft parking lot job. It will be interesting also I will try to get some pictures. I am sure this damage is going to set us back weeks. Things happen on the big jobs so often unexpected expenses, if you don't have a CYA in your contracts stuff like this can bankrupt you. It has been raining here almost every 3 days...
Holy ****! That's more than $100K worth of damage.
300 acres seems like a big area for one site. What is it going to be? The geography around here doesn't allow for anything that big.
5 Buildings, a rec center, not sure what else. Most of the tiltwall Buildings are used as distribution centers, storage etc. I have heard that if they build say a new car factory say it is 5 million square ft, then they will need 10 to 20 times that amount in offsite warehousing. The manufacturer get a tax incentive on the main plant all the other buildings get taxed. The scope of construction is large and the money I suppose can go into the billions of dollars. The geography around here can get expensive also. This site was built in a swamp land they were moving 4 thousand cubic yards a day for months. The next site they are moving 25,000 yards a day... and they apparently will be at it for months.
The GC and/or Owners builders risk policy should kick in unless the carrier determines the damage not covered. Then it's all parties involved GL policies that will kick in. Or the GC is making so much money they just fix it at move on. Either way that's a mess. Are these buildings for the Rivan plant?
I don't think they are for the plant. I have not even seen that plant yet. I believe this group is related to port shipping. I know that each tractor trailer load of powdered cement is about $7000.00. They went way over there estimates and had to remix large areas, and too many men on site for too long. Over time hours has been stopped. There is a lot of different ways that money can get over spent. Having too many rental machines on site can add to quick.
Yikes $$$$
Working in louisville, Kentucky. Heavy duty concrete 8" for an equipment company parking lot. Main site contractor left and there is pumping soils, and about 8 surveyor stakes were ran over and gone. You know the important inner stakes needed for my drainage. The surveyors marked top of curb on one side and top of concrete on the other. 500 tons of gravel on the ground 1000 trucked in so 1500 tons to spread and make a model. With no support ... borrowing the plumbers equipment to remove wet soils. He wants to move the mountain with the skid steer. Need a wheel loader or 2 backhoes. They only contracted me for 2 days... Main site contractor left a mountain of top soil right in the parking area so it is also in my way. Another words lots of problems to make a hard job that much harder. I made a model of the site when I arrived. The software wants to connect side to side and fill the drainage area. I had to come up with 6 or 8 elevations to tie in the inner flume. Got some factory help on how to set up a better contour view. It is easy to make mistakes on the model. I had to tweak this model 4 times. Points 51 through 55 are not a measured point, they are points i made up to keep the gravel fill and drainage correct. It was wanting a foot of gravel, too much. They paid the surveyors and engineers to redesign this drainage channel... surveyors can't get back out while I am here...*** They left me no way to tie into there plans other than the edge stakes. So I had to remake the channel. They actually wanted me to grade this out using a laser....
Do you have any concern that you are creating the final design therefor taking responsibility for it? Or do you have an exclusion in your contract?
After listening to the GC back pedal, ask if what was being done was correct and his inability to work towards fixing his site issues you realize how some people are clueless and or looking for free work. This building project was 4 months behind schedule when we got called up. I am not involved in it in any way, just a silent observer. This particular job has turned into a big problem for them They made an agreement for the paving company to remediate the failed areas. Luckily, the company I work for had terracon sitting on site for 2 complete days. After digging out the soft areas 15" to 24" his probe rod still went all the way in. They stopped remediation work and called for more approvals. The cuts got opened up, the gravel yard stopped sending gravel and then a 2" rain hit. Everyone left the site, I was told to plan to come back that they would have it ready next time. Stupid thing is it would have been completed with no extra cost had the GC done his job correctly. He should have never mobilized till they were ready to do the work. Now the grading and paying prep is going to cost double. Liability is always a concern, what i am always worried about is workers walking across the work area behind me. The machine does not always stop how you think it would or should. As far as my work I provide my services which is simpley to put it on grade 1 time. Sometimes I get a grade pin and it's straight foward and then there are situations like this which would take there surveyor saying it is wrong etc. I asked for there surveyor and brought the issue up front and center. He was not available. It will be brought up again in writing on the return trip. The people I currently work for i know and have worked for years, they have deeper pockets and lawyers help getting them paid. I sub out to them. I don't take out of town work for new customers unless they want to pay me when the work is done. Too many graders don't get paid. What I do is highly technical and most dirt site contractors don't want to be responsible for the final product. Too much back and forth over who is paying for the extra concrete. I walk hand in hand with the paving crews to get it like they want. I rarely regrade for free. I have a few times. In every case it is because they decided to change the pins after I left. Now I watch for that and don't rush away until my work is checked. As much as I don't like grade checkers I do because when they clear me I am done. 3D paving work they can't always check. They have to know to follow my profile or their concrete yields will go way over. They must pour it as I built it. At this point a lot of times they ask me how to fix it or what would I do. When you go to as many sites as I have and almost everyone has its problems, repairing the soft areas really is not so complicated, some make it out like it is. Remove wet "whatever", install material that is more dry, water it, pack it and proof roll it. Problems always come about.... we don't have water, we don't have equipment, there is no good dirt left etc..we are out of money .... These guys I work with are pros they use an engineer, document everything, write reports and clear repairs before they happen. So that everyone gets paid. Straight from that one to this one. Some 2d work in Gainsville GA. Seems easy after the 3d ...
A lot of the water and sewer jobs we get here. The underground work is designed, but they get us to design the road profile. One of our engineers just loves that stuff He would rather do on site work and pound stakes than sit in the office but he spends the off season at his desk doing design. I saw him this morning doing the days layout on a water and sewer. But he's an engineer that will show you the layout then ask your opinion
Totally understand that. Terracon is on our current project monitoring UC in a building pad. 6.57' cut below FFE then bring to grade with structural fill. Alot of contractors treat the testing guys like an enemy and it's the 180 opposite if you have bid the job correctly per the specs. The testing guys are there to represent the owner in a QC position which will cover a contractors butt if something goes wrong after the project is built and the engineers signed off on everything. Preaching to the choir on that one. Absolutely hate when we have to be on a job when the finish trades are there working on the building(s). They will walk right behind a CTL or dozer with their face planted on their phone and expect the world to revolve around them. No doubt. Your scope of work is in concrete column which is getting the final stone to grade. We dirt guys scope it to take a rough site from trees, buildings or parking lots to within +/- .1' of finish grade with all the underground installs to go with it. The last thing I want to do is be responsible for the finish stone grade under concrete, we have enough to be held accountable for.