What methods do everyone use to clean out existing ponds that have silted in? I have a customer that has 2- ponds that have a couple feet of water and full of silt. I have cut the dams to drain the water and let them dry and will either use an excavator and a dozer or trackloader to remove the silt as long as we can get in it or if that won't work will get/rent a long reach excavator and try it that way. Just wondering if there are other methods or any advice anyone would like to add to get this project done...
Have you considered a dragline?
Yair . . . JBGASH As I have mentioned on here many times silt scoops are effective and simple to make. I think Pedrick are overstating the HP requirements. http://www.pederickengineering.com.au/ScoopsRippers.php It is very small but this is the only link I can find to a unit in operation. Infinitely better I believe than putting a machine down in that crap. http://ktsfarmlife.blogspot.com.au/2013/01/its-all-about-water.html In the "old days" all the stations had a silt scoop or two and they were operated by horse teams . . . tanks or dams as we call them were cleaned out on a regular basis. Cheers.
Scrub, I will look into that scoop method. Norite, I have a couple of excavators and a trackloader, a dragline would be nice, but trying to use what I have to keep from renting if possible.
Depending on size so things vare from everyone.You will find most of them have a hard bottom under the silt.Unless there was an old ditch that didn't get cut out to bottom when pond was built.I usually take an bench out a place for the excavator to set on the dam the get a place started with the excavator down to bottom where it is clean to stsrt pushing with the dozer. Then corner into the silt and start pushing up to to the excavator on the dam if reach isn't a problem then let the excavator operator swing it over the back.If i get a head of him then i start refacing the front slope of the dam with the clean clay bottom where the silt was.All the silt needs to be out before you reface the dam.Might have to back up farther to get extra dirt to reface also. Start across the dam flipping from cleaning silt to refacing and making top wider again because of cows narrow up the bam over the years.If silt is deep in the middile might have to start again on the other side then work back to the middle. Sometime have just cut a big opening in the middle enough that you can push silt through the slot,but need to work togather with the ecavator getting a path dug through the silt so the dozer can have a clean path to run in.Sounds all good and well ,but things can turn to crap fast.Main thing is trying to corner in with half blade because silt will running around blade a lot of the time. Will have to use the pie pattern at times to get done what you need to do.If all else push out to the sides and the move it again up to the bank to be move over the back.Or push out of the water line to dry and spread later. It's fun (cough,cough!!!)Good luck
Use a ditch cleaning bucket if you can, makes life easier.60" Baldson here.Water silt runs around the smaller bucket a lot and the ditch cleaning bucket leaves less of this problem.Again good luck
We are cleaning out a silt pond in a housing development right now that hase about 7 feet of the nastiest mud you could imagine. To start with all the mud on our job has to be hauled away so we are just dumping it over the other side and pushing it ( if chasing windrows of pee soup is pushing) into a pile to be hauled out. To get the mud out right now we are taking a excavator and walking into the pond bottom and tossing the mud into a corner then getting ontop of the dam and throughing it out. Once we get enought area opened up will start feeding the excavator with a dozer but for right now it's just slow going.
We do more than I can count every year and we do everyone of them with a crawler loader ....... Best way I found is to bail off in them with a 963 and start packing muck out, however plan on going through a set of rails in 2500hrs so charge a lot more than regular hourly rate Pj
I like to load it out as I go, whenever possible, I want to load and move the dirt to where it needs to end up right from the start, rather than shove it over the back and let it dry and then reload it later on, but it depends on where the dirt is going and how wet it is when its dug out. I use a dozer to shove the mud up an excavator so it can be loaded out into a scraper or what we're using to move it with.
We usually just cut the dam and push water mud out through the cut. But you must stay on solid ground. Just use a dozer. We use a track loader if the mud can't run down hill behind the dam.
I've done it a number of different ways, and sometimes one way would not work at another pond due to size, bottom conditions etc. On one such pond that had a dam that had blown out years ago we were able to take an excavator in, cut a main trench and many branches and got it to drain, then pushed up onto the sides, dried out and then hauled into field with scraper. Another had natural springs throughout it and thought we could just get in with the excavator and bail twice and push with the dozer....started turning up blue clay which in our area indicates NO BOTTOM...spent 3 hours just trying to get the 312 back out..and was successful but needless to say I didn't go back in...ended up getting a long reach and bailed it out in about a weeks time(much quicker than I was doing with our own machine). Years ago I remember dad getting a swamp dozer and pushing a ton of muck out with that..don't recall the efficiency of that though. No matter what, will be a challenge, good luck to you. Trbo
We tried an excavator one time.....believe it or not my best hoe hand is the one that did this, to this day I don't know why he was going about it quite like this also hard to believe but it took a d5N and a 8wheel FWA tractor to get him outta there, luckily they were both setting on the job.... He shoulda stopped and called for help but he kept at it till it was to this point :beatsme So after jumping his ass I was put on a de-muck job because the customer wanted to keep the water in the pond for cattle and I don't own a long reach,,,,,,, and well a pic is worth 1000words lol...... Oh and yeah I was responsible for the 200 mishap, but in my defense all was going well until the bottom gave away and she sunk to the cab and shorted out the pilot circuit, luckily the good folks at roadbuilders was working on Saturday and they talked me through bypassing the "lollipop" tree I woulda took better pics but I was kinda trapped on the machine with 20' of water all the way around and I dint feel like swimming just to take a pic Pj
Scrub: how is that rigged? Keeping the box upright must be a trick with deep silt?
Yair . . . FarmWrench .We just used a bridle and the height of the attachment point determined how hard they dig, they have some arrangement on that farm blog I don't quite understand. One type rolls over or you can pull them back empty and take all the slop and mud out one way. This link shows a different type http://www.hoopersengineering.com/catalogue/scoops-0 . . .as you can see it's a pretty simple setup. The couple I made over the years were in fact two scoops welded back to back . . . some folks used to hook them back to back with chains. There were once contractors that travelled around desilting on a full time basis. Their preferred method was by winch using a couple of ex military 4x4 Ford Blitz wagons or Studebaker/GMC 6x6's This is a schematic as to how the scoops work which is similar to the Sauerman scrapers . . . think of a small tractor or a 4x4 pickup in place of the haulback http://www.ramseycoinc.com/ Cheers.
When possible I like to dig a hole next to the pond if you have decent dirt, deep as you can, put some silt in it about 1/2 way up and carefully cover it with the dry dirt with a track hoe evenly. Should harden up enough to drive on. Then haul the dry dirt away. I worked on many golf courses with this method.
I do them with a track loader. Cut a hole right in the middle of the dam and start cutting a slot up the middle being sure to keep down on solid clay. Once most of the way up the middle you have to be careful and start pushing down threw the slot. This works in the clay we have in northern Missouri real good. I try to reline the whole pond once done getting it clean. You just have to be careful with one machine. I really don't like doing it. Mud suks.
I cleaned a pond out last year with a D8h and 435 But we were in a dought Only got stuck once when i let the tracks spin a little tomuch had to unhook the scraper to finally get out. What i would do is come across side ways loading in thrid gear its a 36a with the scraper about 4-6 inches deep then a got over half way across whould shift to 2 gear and finish filling the scraper. It was only hairy in the middle of the pond didnt want to spin or you whould be in trouble. Took out 2 feet.
The ones I've cleaned had 6 to 10 foot of mud in them. Had cattle running to them all their lives.
Ive done it in mud and water with mats and just keep throwing and piling behind and moving back and doing it over again until you can reach it from the bank. I think Ive seen what scrub calls a scoop some of the gravel pits up north use a saureman bucket that rides on cables from a machine that has 2 winches and goes across the pit to another machine that the cables are tied off to one cable holds the bucket at the desired height and the other cable pulls the bucket back and forth, wide pit just use longer cable
Powerjoke & gwhammy, do you cut the dam and let it drain a while (week or two) first before getting in it with the loader? Or do you bail right in it?
Actually the wetter the mud the better. It slides a lot better and the machine doesn't get as bogged down with sticky mud. Seems they are never dry if they have had cattle running to them.
We cut the dam to drain the water then set the excavator where we want to throw most of the mud. I start on one side pushing to the excavator with a dozer. Generally takes two days to clean the mud and rebuild. We cut the dam where we will run the stock water pipe out and throw the mud on the other side.
Just Jump in balls deep! A little water will help you more than hurt your, it keeps your tracks clean and helps keep the stuff sliding. And on a side note if your not going to wait 2-3yrs there is no since letting it drain....... Trust me a week or even a month or even 6months won't dry it enough to help you out at all. Pj
Like powerjoke said waiting on a pond to dry is futile, the top few inches might dry out but it'll go to slime as soon as you break through that. Cleaned a lot of them out with a loader, and run a hoe if for some reason water is short and the property owner doesn't want to lose what little they have. Done that way you cant re seal the bottom or dam though. I do quite a bit of pond work and have a 953 with single bar lgp pads to wade in the slime. They don't bridge like a three bar will and they keep pullin. Cut it to good solid ground on your approach and keep it there, then its just a matter of stacking up the slime to dry for a year or so. John
PJ, Bruce & JD88 - This will be the first pond cleanout for us, will bail the 953C in the slop and go for it. I think to be on the safe side I will have the winch truck handy and tied off to a big tree just in case the need arises. Prolly have an excavator close too. Because that slop / mud looks deep to me.
Yair . . . As an overload of information . . . In the "old days" on the stations dams and tanks were constructed with "pounds" in effect low levees to contain the slop when silt scooping so it didn't ooze out and bog up the area where the horse teams or tractors were working back and forth. As mentioned up thread regular silt scooping was seen as normal maintenance. No longer the case. Modern folks seem to think the laws of gravity have changed and think they can build tanks and dams in awkward inaccessible places with no thought at all as to how to clean them out . . . in fact talking to some clients they don't even realise the dam is going to silt up. Incidentally those pounds of mud once dried a bit were the most fertile soil in the paddock and traditionally they were fenced with netting and planted to pumpkins and particularly to water-melons for Christmas. I can well remember we were walking three Twenty Ones backwards into a mongrel northerly, the dust was like you wouldn't believe. It was stinking hot and we happened across a dam with a crop of melons growing in the mud pound and I tell you never has a water-melon tasted so cool and sweet. Cheers.
Lol scrub there is definatly a difference in our mucks, i have never seen pond muck in my area that would grow anything for.........well forever lol, it is normally discarded in a ditch. They grey nasty crap gets so hard you can't plant a tomato with a pick axe after it's dry..... Black as coal and looks like the best stuff in the world but it's not the case, Reminds me of a funny story, one time back in the late70's the local town cleaned out the city lake and everyone came and got picup loads and dump truck loads of this stuff for the garden.....well the entire city of harrisonville about starved to death that winter because nobody had any vegetables haha Btw, gash harrisonville isn't too far from where you plan on working so don't sell it to a little ole lady for her garden she's liable to beat ya to death with a broom when she figures out where you got it at lol Edit: I should add what we end up doing with it most of the time is trying to stack it against pond slopes (it's like trying to stack flour) and then tend to it at least twice over a year or so and flip and fluff it, after a couple years push it upon the dam and cover with black dirt. Just a word of advise to your customer, make sure he fences off the spoil because cows can get bogged down very badly and I have found them dead before in it no joke! I think mainly what happens is they'll get adventurous about the time there's a thin crust on it and fall through 3' and can't get out and end up freezing in it because we always clean out ponds in the summer time and by the time it's about 6mo later before it's solid enough for a person to walk on the top 4-6" layer. Pj
It's a blue mud up here in north Missouri. Nasty crap. Like powerjoke said, we let it lay then push it back up into the back slope on the dam or into a gully behind. It takes forever to dry. If you jump in balls deep it's going to be a long futile job. Keep solid footing, don't go in at hardly any angle on the slope. That's why I cut threw the dam to keep the machine flat. Been stuck several times not paying attention to what I'm doing. Six inches of the wrong move will hang you. So far I've been able to pull it out with the rubber tired backhoe, just don't keep trying if it won't move.
The ones that are the most fun are those that have been fixed sometime. Work off of both sides down about eight feet to the waterline building up the dam. Makes the bottom look like a large M. We let the mud set at least three years before knocking down and smoothing up. Still find soft spots. I have found thet the bigger the dozer the less trouble. The 6H XL's we use now are far better than the old 10K's we had.
Balls Deep aint the place to be in pond slime!!! Keep solid ground under ya. Several years ago we had a 941 on the farm. My dad needed a pond cleaned out and I didn't have times to do it right then so he decided he would try it. My dad could drive the 41 but was no operator. I told him to start on one end and start working his way in. He decided the pond was "dry" so he could jut cut about 4" at a time out of it. He made it about twice the length of the machine and then it just sunk!!!! He came to the house that afternoon to get help and when I got down there the platform was even with the top of the mud. Thank heavens for 200 horses of JD green and all the chain I could muster around home we pulled it out. The next day I made time to clean out his pond. Start on the side and keep clean ground under ya. Never run off in the goo and you'll be fine. John
But just think of all the good memories from those days when you look back
I do it like powerjoke and gwhammy. Cut the dam and start crowding the mud. You'd be supprised at how much mud you can move in one pass if it all starts to slide. Sometime its only a one day job. Some ponds here are rooted out and the backside of the dam is higher than the core. These are a pita. You either cut a long channel to drain it or push up hill which is a loosing proposition.
I wish some of the ponds we have cleaned out were like what you guys deal with. There all in housing developments surrounded by houses with crappy access. Everything has to be hauled away and it is never done when it sould be. Mostly when the inflow is under a foot or two of silt and we get a bunch of crappy weather just to make it interesting.
Pushing mud below a dam would not fly here in California. Salmon lay eggs in streams and salmon are barely surviving compared to the good, old days. They'd fine you hefty for that technique. But I can see how it makes sense to cut open the dam. I hate pushing mud and I hate getting stuck even more. Most likely it'd start pouring rain after I got stuck.
Most excavators around here cut the dam and await a year of dry out prior to accessing the silt, they then use older large dozer to push the softer silt out to one side then a loader to either dump truck it or reposition it where the farmer can disperse the good soil elsewhere. Big mess cleaning one wet, saw a company with D10's pushing the slop out of a pond bottom, ate up the running gear and almost broke even doing it that way.
Yair . . . Desilting dams then and now. I have been banging on about silt scoops on HEF for years. The first picture taken in 1938 shows eight feet of mud being taken out of a little stock tank . . . about 1500 cubic meters total at 500 meters per day with a horse-team for haul back and I believe a Fowler crawler (single cylinder, about twenty hp) in the distance hauling out. As you can see nothing got wet or muddy. The second picture of course is the modern way to do it As I have said old technology works and it beats me why anyone would put machinery into that muddy crap.
With you there. I bet there's a lot of outfits wish they'd kept a dragline at the back of the yard instead of going for the scrap money.
Yair . . . ih100 That too. The problem with draglines though is they are a large and complex piece of kit and have to be transported to the site . . . the silt scoop being pulled back by that horse team would weigh maybe 300 kilograms plus a couple of rolls of rope. There is a need and an untapped market for cleaning out dams in dry times. The problem is that using "conventional" methods it's so expensive and, folks in general, don't know these old tried and proven methods exist. Just to explain what I assume is going on in the old black and white photo. . . . The crawler has hauled the scoop of mud out, you can just make it out against the pile of mud in the windrow. He has been waved to a top by his off-sider and is waiting for the teamster to hook the horses to the return line which was dragging along behind . . . you can see the bloke bending over behind the team. There is a spare team for rotation. Notice how tidy they have kept the site and how you can see the depth of mud and how it's slumping to the scoop . . . these days, with tractors or pickups and two way radio you would just run back and forth. Cheers.
Scrub Puller do you have any close up pictures of that silt scoop?
Yair . . . 245dlc . I have been looking for better pictures of units in operation, no luck so far . . . this is what they look like from new . . . . The second unit can be rigged to roll and scoop both directions, I always thought it better to make two units and work them back to back. Less things to go wrong and have worked all day and never stepped in mud . . . same too with the D4 it was going back and forth in dust. We pulled back with a Fordson.
Ahh I see much like a slack line setup just a little less complicated. Don't see anything like that around here if you dig a hole it'll fill up with water for sure and never likely run out it seems. lol But this is a setup used quite a bit for dredging gravel from below the water table it works in a similar way but with more cables. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5pSMw9-Qi8M http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kExM4eVJg2w
Yair . . . Exactly 235dlc . in the picture I posted above with the dozer and excavator in the pond you could clean it out with a little scoop and a couple of 4x4 pickups. Cheers.
I agree with Scrub Puller regarding the use of a silt scoop to clean out dams/tanks etc. A lot of older dams are a real trap for a dozer as they can drop away sharply near the bottom resulting in a very badly bogged dozer. Have a look at www.starkeng.com.au there is a video of one of their silt scoops being used. Click onto Products, then Scales & Other Products.
Yair . . . Good morning and thanks for the link 22a , I have been looking for a decent video to show the folks on here. That is a different style of scoop again and seems to work pretty well. As I have said, with such inexpensive simple tools available it beats me why any contractor or farmer would put good machinery down into the crap. As some have mentioned it may be necessary in some cases to build a bundwall or levee to hold the slop. Ideally these units are operated with a couple of winch trucks which makes it simpler in confined areas. Cheers.
Interesting, similar to the old Fresno, well kind'a... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fresno_scraper http://www.hcea.net/Default.aspx?pageId=1547740 Now Scrub, you are NOT in that picture... right??? ...:lmao OCR ...
Yair . . . OCR . I don't go back that far . . . I did build my first dam with a "tumbling tommy" though . . . "tumblebug" in your lingo. (he grins) Cheers.
I am finding this a very interesting thread as some of the things done elsewhere in the world would just be a complete no no in my books here in Australia.Firstly would be a definite no to knocking out a gap in the bank to drain the water you would have make sure the soil that went back in was the same and compacted the same etc. otherwise first big storm and it could be gone.Totally agree with you scrub on silt scoops as to why more aren't used.I owned one myself for many years a three section one which is even more effective then a single scoop as in the pictures as it can go up and down contours banks etc. and not lose its load of silt.The other thing with cleaning with this method lose very little water out of the dam and also,in my experience, within days the water will, in some cases be clearer than before desilting and cattle will drink it no trouble.I have tried to desilt dams with just a dozer but amongst the the obvious problem of getting the machine bogged, you have the keep a very close eye on the tracks, because if you dont keep the mud away from the tracks then they will bind up that tight that it will make it hard for the machine just to move let alone push silt.I sold the silt scoop only a couple of years ago, why I don't know, could have used it half a dozen times at least since.
I'm kicking myself for how some of our farm ponds were dug! They will be a mess to clean out. I may need a jin pole at theedge to get up the steep banks. OK with my welder getting twitchy. 1. Width vs length vs height ratio 2. Width of cutting edge to pulling tons or hp? 3. Height of attachment? 4. Suck? Does the cutting edge stick well below the side rails?
Sounds like you intend to build one , shouldn't be to hard . If you let us know what HP you have to pull it with we maybe able to help.
20,000# 160hp Case 7120 or 180cvt tractor. JD 6000# MFA 60hp toy for pull back. Although it is such a handy machine I may build a little one for it as I have a bunch of 1/2 cable and will haveto by bigger to be safe with theother machines. I am fixated on an old fuel tank that just needs a little strength for a starter. If if hangs on a stump men... I am hunting for my first dozer.
Yair . . . brucew . Gudday mate. Good to see another local on here! It is always amazing how folks do things in other places. Like you I could not believe it when the fellers mentioned cutting the wall to clear the silt . . . an absolute major reconstruction job and lose all the water too, beats me. Even here though the silt scoop and tank/dam maintenance has been forgotten, it was once just part of normal yearly "jobs to do" on the Stations . . . you are dead right about the water clearing and we had no hesitation in dragging even if the dams were full. It was better if they were down a bit but they didn't want to be too dry. FarmWrench . As 22a mentions if you intend to build one it may be possible to come up with some dimensions. As shown in those pictures I posted in basic form they are a pretty simple fabrication but it would be a shame to have to start from scratch and reinvent the wheel. Some one may be able to come up with drawings, dimensions, or more detailed photo's. I'll have a look around and if anything useful pops up I'll post it here . . . a good New Year to all Cheers.
Happy new year! We are dashing through the snow for dinner with friends. As long as you don't burry the thing or hook a big piece of rock or wood it should notneed to be indestructible. I am looking forwardto what you find . Manure pits may make me so money......get it built first.
Yair . . . No dimensions but a bit of description and general arrangement. May be of interest. http://www.google.com/patents/US2812596 Looks like there is a bit on the net. I don't have time to look much at the moment. Cheers.
Can remember using a Fordson Power Major or a John Deere R to pull one loaded. Here's some specifications from an old sales brochure. .75 cu/yrds 3ft wide 1.3 " " 4ft 4" wide 1.7 " " 4ft10" wide 2.2 " " 5ft 4" wide 3.0 " " 6ft 9" wide These scoops would have been designed when 60/70 HP would have been considered a big tractor . Larger scoops would been pulled with a crawler. From another brochure. Sizes 3ft, 4ft, or 5ft(cutting width)x 3ft deep x2ft high.
Looks like a good way to get it done. I am glad to learn new tricks when I can.
Me too, I was around 9 or 10 years old... made me feel just like a King!!! Lol... I really did love that little tractor. http://www.tractordata.com/farm-tractors/001/8/2/1828-fordson-power-major.html We demoed one of these for a month or so, now that was Heaven... well, I felt transcended anyway!!!... http://www.farmphoto.com/thread.aspx?mid=869815 We never pulled scoops with them... just farmed and hayed. OCR...
I've said it b4 and I'll say it again listen to scrub.He hit the nail in the head go 4 the silt scoop mate u won't beat it. If that is not an option loaders aren't a bad option either.however if u don't have a good operated on the loader it go south very quickly. If the dam is more of a rectangle shape u can use a dozer go in from one corner and nibble away at the edge. Blade tilte is a must and this method is very painful not to mention hard and 1 wrong move can b disaster. Something else to consider do u really want to put ur undercarriage through that sort of punishment.
A question on the silt scoop method, can the pond be dry or almost dry and still be cleaned with a silt scoop?
Yair . . . JBGASH I remember doing a couple that were dry and pretty much crusted over. It took a while to get the scoop to bite. Once we broke the crust there was enough moisture for the thing to work although the sticky blue mud would hang up in the scoop . . . much better a bit wetter. Cheers.
Just a few things if any of you were thinking of building your own silt scoop I suggest a good place to start would be to look at the scoop being used in the blog that scrub suggested.Basically main part of the scoop is three sided with the back edge at a slight angle with a cutting edge just sitting a few inches below the bottom of the rest of the scoop.The scoop in the picture appears to be a two section one, that is, it has another section at the front that is bolted at the bottom on each side but able to pivot on it with another bolt at the top which sits in 6 inch slot which lets the front of the scoop follow the exact contours of banks.I actually owned a 3 section one which meant you could deliver silt up and down a couple of banks with very little loss of material.The other important is how the rear connection is made to drawbar that is sticking a in the air in the picture on the scoop.This drawbar is more of a "J" type arrangement so that when the tractor pulling the scoop back into the dam it lifts the rear of the scoop just a few inches above the ground so very little silt is actually pulled back into the dam.Also it makes it fairly easy going for the tractor to pull it back in.We used 1/2 cable to pull it back in and 5/8 to pull it out from memory.The main section of the scoop was about 5ft wide 3ft high by 3ft long plus another 2 sections about 2ft long each.I dont know how many cubic yards this made it, as the front sections were much lower, but we pulled it out with Cat d4d and pulled it back in with a 3020 John Deere and both of them did it with ease.
After yesterday I am more convinced than ever that a silt scoop is the way to go. With a D69u I assisted an excavator in cleaning out a small dam. There was a lot of double handling with the excavator, also found that the dozer could only move a very small amount of mud up the batter, which had been badly constructed in the first place. A fair amount of mud had been removed with the dozer before the excavator was brought in and this was a credit to the dozers owner. Taking into consideration the time taken to do this, the dozers time would have been far better utilized pulling a silt scoop, there would have been no need for the excavator.
Interesting thread...more that one way to clean one out. The silt scoop looks good if you've got room. Most ponds around here are on steep ground with not much room to work so it might not be as good as in some other places. Most ponds here will have a solid clay bottom below the silt that will give good traction if you can stay just below the mud. I've been told by one experienced operator that they didn't like to breach the dam....said that "the water is your friend" when cleaning one out with a dozer. From what experience I got cleaning out one pond I can kind of understand him....there's a sweet spot where the silt is not too wet and not too dry where it was much easier pushing. From what he told me, they cleaned them out with a couple of feet of standing water....just started working in from the edges keeping your tracks on solid bottom. I'd like to see it done as it seems to me that it would be awful easy to get in just a little too far.
Just a couple of things I have seen done as far as cleaning ponds/dams over the years which may give some food for thought. Many years ago, I was still going to school that's how long ago it was my father had some contractors come in with two ex world war2 blitz trucks fitted with winches. The obvious advantages of this is you would use a fraction the length of cable and the other advantage was one machine sat on top of the bank on one side while the other just sat where the silt stopped running to on the other side. All I know is my father was more than happy with the job that was done and the price it came to but I have never seen or heard of it being done that way since. The other thing I have done many many times over the years with dams that have a good clay bottom and only have a small amount of water in it, is to walk the dozer in frontwards till the the front idlers are in the water drop the blade and reverse out and go about two thirds of the way around the dam like this. If you get rid of this lot of silt over the back of the bank then go back in again you should be able to just about get the whole machine in the water providing the batters aren't too steep and get another lot out. Then you may be able to start pushing the third of the dam that hasn't been done this way on a face as most of water will be on the other side of the dam.
Yair . . . brucew . Good one mate! In previous posts on here I have mentioned contractors travelling the western country cleaning out dams with Blitzs or Studebaker/GMC 6x6's, it's nice to know someone apart from me still remembers. (big grin) The way these seasons are going if I was a lot younger I would seriously consider setting up a plant with a couple of 4x4 Hino's or even the Mitsubishi Canters. You could put a backhoe on a tag behind one and a CTL on the other which towed the caravan, be a real good earner I reckon for some young bloke and his Missus . . . . and not a lot of upkeep on the main rigs with hydraulic winches. Cheers.
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