Helped my brother clean out a pond this last week for the first time. He breached the dam to drain it and reached what silt he could with his excavator, then I started pushing along the edge and out the spillway. Lots of really sticky peanut butter mud until I got down a ways then it got lots looser. At that point I started pushing to the excavator sitting on the dam and he threw it over. (In the 1st pic you can see the mud spilling over into the cut) Had no idea it was that deep, but once I got down a ways the top of the mud was at eye level sitting on my D6 and it had settled quite a bit by then...at least 8 ft deep. The far side in the pics got really steep and the mud turned very greasy so he decided it wasn't worth the effort to get out the last 10% of the silt. Fortunately the weather didn't get cold enough to freeze the mud on the tracks or it would have to sit until spring. Took a while to spade them out when we finished. One neighbor that used to clean ponds said he always left the water in. He'd cut a low spot in the dam and push it over. The water kept the mud soft and he'd usually run out of water before he got it all cleaned out. I'd like to see it done that way....don't know how you could tell if you're down to solid footing when running in track-deep water.
Yair . . . D6c10K You did well not to get stuck mate. As I have mentioned on here before it would have been easier and less expensive with one of these....... http://www.pederickengineering.com.au/ScoopsRippers.php Cheers
Scrub Puller, I'd like to try one of those silt scoops....don't know of any being used in this area. I was very careful to keep below the mud as I worked my way in...underneath it's all solid dry yellow clay.
Hey Scrub, how does that silt scoop work, you pull it w/ a dragline?
There's a fine line between having the mud too soupy and too sticky. I'd error on the side of too soupy. Lots of people think its best to cut the dam and let the mud dry before you clean a pond, but it's far better to drain the water right before you start moving mud. I use several different methods depending on the situation. The best way is always to get that chocolate pudding headed downhill then it just moves itself.
Yair . . . mitch504 You can pull them with most any thing . . . first one I ever saw was worked with horses. We used to scoop one way with a D4 and pull back with a Fordson . . . you can pull both ways if you have to suitable tractors. They make them up to about twenty yards but you'd need 300-400 hp to pull it I reckon. There used to be contractors with Studebaker 6x6's set up with winches but I haven't seen a tank desilting outfit for years . . . all the stations used to do it regularly and keep a log of silt removed, direction and the dates. Apparently things have changed and silt scoops are too "low-tech" and its all the go to get a bloody great loader in shagging around and getting stuck at around four hundred bucks an hour. As I said D6c10K you did well . . . I can see that nice yellow clay. Cheers.
Scrub- what is the size of an average silt scoop for say a 120HP dozer? And how long would it have taken to clean out the pond in the picture above? Is it best to pump out the water or can it be left in? Thanks
D6C10k, I knew a guy whose tractors regularly lived in mayonnaise that packed their tracks full like that and he said he kept a water wagon on site with a 3" pump on it and used it to clean the tracks at night, said it was very quick.. I did not see this in action, but it sounded good.. I agree you did well not to get sucked in sideways and get mired down.
CDUB, I agree about keeping it more soupy....the choclate pudding was easy working and it slid down hill about 75' once we got it over the dam, but that sticky stuff is a bear to move.
Been a while since I shoveled muck like that out of swing frames, I've sure done it though, even have the twin to your spade. A shovel full of that stuff must weigh 50 lbs, probably sticks to the shovel so you bang it against the push arm to get it off. Only thing worse is getting tangled up with barbed wire.
Me too DPete. We used to have to be sure to clean the entire swing frame clear back underneath lest it freeze solid and risk breaking the swing frame.
We cleaned out nine of them this summer. Excavator on the dam while I push mud to it. Doesn't take long to learn to stay flat and pay attention to what things feel like. Wouldn't care if I never seen another.
Yair . . . JBGASH I reckon a 120hp dozer would handle a two yarder. Always best with some water. The idea is to cut a slot through the crud and you need enough water to keep it flowing to you. It can go surprisingly quick in good conditions . . . depends on the amount of mud of course but with our old D4 and Fordson I reckon we would have pulled a couple of feet out of that puddle in about a day. The thing about this "old technology" is that doing the job is no big deal . . . just deadly boring. If it is done every five years or so pulling from different directions the tanks are kept pretty clean. In the old days on the Stations earth tanks up to thirty thousand yards were constructed with wings called "pounds" to contain the mud and stop it flowing out and bogging up the teams. The opportunity was sometimes taken to clean out a tank and put a temporary netting fence around the mud in the pound in which the Christmas water-melons were planted. Cheers
I work in grey mud like that fairly regularly if I'm in it for days on end I usually just keep the top rollers clean at least when the temperature stays above freezing. If things don't freezed and things start drying up I chip it out as the mud dries. During the winter I keep the tracks packed with snow as much as possible to keep mud from getting in and freezing. If the tracks do freeze up on the job we use a tiger torch around the rollers and the idlers until we can get the machine back to the shop as the floor is heated and that thaws out frozen tracks fast and it dries them out quite well too.
Yair . . . how do you reckon this blokes gonna go? http://www.flickr.com/photos/interutes/4644515616/ Cheers
Hope the bottom is hard. lol Never seen a wheel loader with rippers on it is there a story behind that?
Yair . . . 245dlc I don't know that machine mate, it's just a picture I found on the net. The loaders with rippers thing came up on here recently. They used to be fairly common over here in the bush. I have seen them on largish loaders like that winning 'run of the ridge' gravel instead of pushing up with a dozer . . . the loader could get there quicker than a dozer. Things are changing here I suppose but once floats were very rare. Many bush machines such as D6's and 7's were hardly ever on a truck. I used to like to truck them if it was over fifty miles . . . you could mostly get a few little jobs clearing fences and tracks and what all along the way. Cheers
Here is a video of a cat wheel dozer with a ripper. It is at 26:18, they explain why and i guess that why it is on that Clark. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YDv0RuImQRQ&list=PLB1__tNZTxCoJ6Bw8fZsykqIoSjOsLXeH&index=42 BTW, watch the whole video, it is pretty informative.
I skipped through most of it just watched that wheel dozer with the ripper, to much propaganda for my liking.