We have always started stripping the top soil from the farthest point and push it in from there with a dozer. i have seen it done by started near the stock pile and working back. Which is the better way we are in southern New England so soils very a lot.. Just trying to be as efficient as possible thank you.
To sum it up in one word....... Scraper lol. Seriously tho, we normally start farthest Way from the pile, cut/load the blade and then slide it xxxxx number of feet....dunno why but that's the way we do it ? Pj
All depends on distance of push, where the dirt needs to end up, and how much you are moving. There are many variables that can play into this. Someone else will have to refresh me on this...but I do believe in the CAT Performance Handbook, it has you pushing in a slot...starting close to your pile and working your way back further from it. Growing up we always moved our scraper to job sites first to strip off all black dirt and pile it away from the project, was a one man project that could be completed before any staking done, etc. Trbo
That's what I am talking about two different ways..We mainly do residential developments or small commercial places..Guess I am going to have to fool around and see if starting close to pile is actually more efficient thanks
Yair . . . Absolutely no need to fool around jazzyjeffer . Work slots front to back and cut the rills out back to front. Maybe not so critical if you are just taking off a few inches but if you work a dozer according to that rule you can't go wrong. You can't always do it due to terrain and circumstance but it has been proven time again that in bulk pushing the more you deviate from that basic premise the more inefficient you get. Cheers
Slot dozing is about 20% more productive, very easily, in conditions that are applicable to using the method. Being able to carry much more material down the slot compared to having the material spill out the side of the blade is quite advantageous. Heavy cuts are what makes the most sense, I usually figure if the cut is about 30-50% of the height of the blade, go ahead and start a slot. Get the fat trimmed first while slot dozing, then come in later and tune it up making traditional clean up passes.
I only like slot dozing if your in a tight area to keep dirt away from buildings, curbs, or anything important. I like starting at the highest point first, then the farthest point back. I center the windrows every time, you are creating a new slot without dragging in old slot. You get a full blade and what is falling off is falling off closer to your stockpile. Slot dozing you are only moving 1 blade full at a time nothing else is moving towards stockpile. I have gone side by side with operators using the slot dozing method. I have never lost using centering windrows method in 40 years, even when I had the smaller tractor.
Yair . . . Your problem dozerman400 is that like so many operators you don't understand what slot/front to back dozing really is. Your comment about moving one blade at a time is incorrect and proof of that lack of understanding. If you have been centering windrows for forty years you have been costing some one (perhaps yourself) a lot of money. This is a thread on stripping top soil, not really a slot dozing application. Take case of pushing out a hole one hundred and fifty feet square at the top, ten feet deep, three in one batters (slopes), all the dirt to go one way. The site is flat and the material is tight gravelly clay. Such holes were common for mud and water storage at oil rigs and I have seen supposedly competent operators take nearly twice the time to do the job by using poor and undisciplined technique. There is only one way to do that job and I can assure you, starting at the furthest point and pushing out the rills isn't going to cut it. If you would like to start a thread on production dozing I am sure there are folks on here who could refer you to some actual Caterpillar studies and explain the technique in detail. Cheers.
Use a slot any time you can, you will gain 1/3 production. Begin the slot in the front that way you create it on the way back and are often able to load the dozer downhill toward the slot, take out the berm from back to front this way you can use the slot to remove the berm. Only way to bulk dirt.
Scrub Puller, With all do respect, did you read that I have never lost with comparing centering windrows vs slot dozing. (post #7). I had a 955h vs a 977h, we split the site in 1/2, I stripped my half and helped the #1 operator of the company on the 977h finish his half with his slot dozing. This was a long time ago and I have been doing the same thing with newer machines all my life. I realize centering windrows is not popular with the majority of operators, but the ones I have worked side by side with are believers.
Yair . . . Okay dozerman400 . Slot dozing is very well document technique for obtaining maximum production with a dozer. It would be impossible to use all the specific nuances of the method with a trackloader. You may well be able to work a loader in a slot and get some increase in output, however that isn't slot dozing. Such a loader isn't going to compare with a similar sized dozer when it comes to production. Cheers.
Dozer man, anyone can put a claim like yours on the net. Cat tend to do their homework before recommending a method, as do the SeaBees, the army, Allis Chalmers, every textbook on earthmoving I've ever read. But tell me, using your method, you must be cutting all the time, whereas I and Scrub and all the other know-nothings cut until we have a blade full and then just drift the material along. Who burns the most diesel and wears tracks out the quickest?I'm sure with your 40 years you'll understand what I'm saying. I have competed with someone with equal abilities to myself, i.e. Me, doing it all ways and slotting I can outperform myself anywhere from around 25% to 50% depending on soil type, depth, gradient etc. but what do I know after 36 years? Scrub, don't often find myself in the opposite corner to you, but on a topsoil strip or any job where you aren't taking too much depth, there isn't clear water between a tracked loader and similar weight dozer in terms of output. That bucket contains a lot of material when you doze with it, and not needing to push right up and over the stockpile saves quite a bit of time. Downside is it's all but impossible to steer in the slot. It isn't fashionable nowadays, but slotting with a loader used to be a recognised method, as was cutting and drifting. You'll remember that was where the term skid-shovel came from. I wouldn't argue that the dozer is the cheapest way to do, though. Too much to wear on the tracked loader.
Absolutely... :thumbsup Absolutely... :thumbsup OCR
scrub.. what is "yair"? I see you use that a lot and I have no idea if you just cussed me out (many times I deserve it)..
I agree on the start at the pile and work your way back method. I have a friend that moves dirt for housing developments and he swears that using a cleanup bucket on a 460 Volvo excavator and a haul truck is the best way. Cann't say I agree but that's how he does it.
Yair . . . ih100 . I don't think you are in an opposite corner really. You will note in my comments to the O/P in the #5 post I mentioned slot technique not so important when just taking off a few inches. I always used to stress to my blokes though it was important to maintain discipline and stick with proven methods, work from front to back for instance and then push out the rills. On this interesting thread I have perhaps broken my rule of not on commenting on subjects I know nothing about. I know nothing about tracked loaders and also tend to think of "dozers" as machines with wide angle blades and tilt. I would be surprised if a loader stripping (say) six inches of topsoil would out produce an equivalent dozer so equipped but would like to keep this thread alive with further discussion. Cheers.
There is a Yair thread in the TGIF section
Even when stripping topsoil with a dozer, I still slot doze. However if the sub soil is soft, I'll sometimes start at the back of the slot and work forward instead of starting close to the pile. I usually do that because the surface or root mat will hold together better and keep from beating topsoil into the subsoil forcing me to strip more. Just my experience and what works for me. Harder subsoils and cut fills I start close and work my way back.
ih100, I am cutting most of the time. That is moving dirt from where it was to maybe 5 feet closer to the pile as it rolls off to the sides. When I get to a point where it's to much to push, then i will drift for a while till I feel I can take more again. I keep it smooth with out gouging so when I back up I can back up in high gear. I have read some techniques on moving dirt, I agree with most everything but slot dozing. I am just telling jazzyjeffer the way I do it. When I was young my dad always said if an operator can grade an area in 10 passes, I better do it in 7.
I completely agree with all that have mentioned slot dozing working your way back with on caviat - if, as is the case many times around here, your topsoil is sitting on gravel, it is slower but easier to keep from digging in to the gravel if you work from the far end toward your pile. If you have mid soil that is not going to compromise your topsoil quality much if a bit gets mixed in then by all means slot dozing working your way back is the standard to follow. After typing this I realized that JimBruce42 suggested the same thing. With all due respect dozerman, in my opinion you should NOT be cutting all the time, but rather load the dozer and go. Any time I see someone boiling material over the blade for long stretches I realize that they have yet too learn some of the finer points of production dozing. It is far more productive, in my opinion, to load the dozer and lift the blade just to the point where the machine travels free and your speed increases. This is where maintaining a smooth surface in the slot is so important, because after loading the dozer and heading for the pile one should'nt have to chase the grade. There is a fine line ofcourse between losing material and maintaining a blade full.
The dozer's cutting edge has to be replacing the lost dirt slipping off the blade while drifting .... so I can see how the slot helps....but why wouldn't a crawler loader outperform the similar sized dozer in all aspects: qty of material, fuel, track wear. Loader fills the blade with soil and skim it along the grade while drifting a bit more....
Yair . . . As I often do I suppose I have taken this thread off on a tangent . . . the original poster asked about stripping topsoil and we are now discussing elements of production dozing. We also have ventured into the area of machine comparisons when dozerman400 mentioned he was talking track loaders with a bucket and not a conventional blade. I have never struck conditions as mentioned by JimBruce42 and Oxbow but, here again, it comes down to experience, a good thoughtful operator adapts to the situation. This discussion though has resulted in the following profound statement from Oxbow which I think should not go unremarked . . . . "Any time I see someone boiling material over the blade for long stretches I realize that they have yet too learn some of the finer points of production dozing". I have been hammering this point for over fifty years. In my experience very few operators have grasped the basic principle of pushing slots and the concept of loading the blade and pushing on the hard ground . . . not always possible it seems with some of the soil types in the U.S. but in Australia and P.N.G. I have never found conditions where I couldn't dig and drift. With due respect to the O/P I won't go into it here but if any one wants to start a production dozing thread it might be interesting to hear some views. To any of the folks who have PM'd me . . . I have issues with my computer and can't seem to reply. Cheers.
Dealing with top soil The first thing I do on bigger jobs is mow it down short with a bushhog then disc up the ground with a farm tractor. This helps break up the sod & grass allowing it to mix in the dirt better and spread real nice at the end of the job.Then lay out the job & decide if you want one big pile or multiple smaller top soil piles around the job site. Dont push the piles any further than you have to but make sure they are out of the way for operations. My favorite method is discing with the Moline & hauling with the Wabco.
Yair . . . Good thinking, you got it made there td25c . Never heard of the discing caper but it would make for a sweet operation loading out and spreading later . . . it's a bit late for me at this stage but a bloke never stops learning on this site. Cheers.
TD when you strip topsoil in what was once a wooded area do you still disc it under? What size disc and machine do you use to pull with? Do you do this to save time or to make the topsoil a better product? I've never seen this done that way before but if it makes things go faster it might be something we should look into.
Yeah Scrub.... I feel the same way. Always interesting to see different methods & techniques used in the heavy equipment world. I enjoy reading your stories clearing land & moving dirt in the remote outback. buckfever, I might disk over the once wooded area before stripping although its not as important as if it was a crop field with corn stalks, soybean vines, or fescue grass. I do it mostly to break up the sod or crop residue on top so it all mixes in to the top dirt. But it also cuts the first 4 to 5 inches of ground loose so I suppose in a way it might help production when time comes to blade it off. As for the tractor & disk we use some of the latest modern equipment. G1000 Moline & Kewanee disk.
Seems to me that the discing would make for a good depth gauge. If you want to peel off 6 inches just disc down accordingly and blade off whatever is loose. Nice old Moline. I do like tractors from that era.
Good point wilko . I also like farm tractors from that time .
I agree with scrub and the other guys, slot dozing is the best way to push dirt even with a track loader! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pDFFFm2U-OA
jazzyjeffer, If you look at the video vapor300 put up, the operator is 1) backing up to far, he goes forever before his bucket is full. 2) if he would hit the center of the windrows his bucket would fill sooner with less effort. 3) He goes to far at the end of the push, when your bucket is emptying out in the fill area, just stop, dump and back up for more and get the pile maybe the next time through.( I did see the operator in the video do this once). I don't think if you were getting a bucket full out of a stockpile (to say load a truck), you would keep going to the same spot over and over, you find the weakest part of the pile and there you will get your bucket full the fastest. In my opinion it's the same concept.
Yair . . . Thanks for the video vapour300 , but while the operator is to some extent working in a slot he is not "slot dozing" as defined by the term As I have posted before I really do have strong views on this and have probably taken the concept a little further than described in the text books. If anyone is interested I can start a discussion over on the dozer thread. I am not trying to be a smart ass but in my experience most dozer operators do not understand the concept . . . if they agree with it and follow the basic principles when they do understand it is a different thing again. Once shown it is very easy to get lax and slide back into bad habits of pushing out rills, side cutting, "getting a good boil going in front of the blade" and all the other sloppy technique and B/S one sees on job sites. As I have posted wayback when discussing pushing up ring-tanks the best way to stay focussed is for owner to be paid on weekly cross-sections . . . it clarifies the mind when a D7 using the optimum technique is out producing a D8 which is not. Cheers.
I agree with you slot dozing is the most productive way to push. If you constantley taking the windrows you are always losing dirt creating new windrows where as a slot the dirt stays infront of you in the slot. Say you have a D10 and your pushing 150ft you will start your cut right at the cut fill line starting your cut damn near vertical (the steeper it is the easier it is for the machine to cut) you get a quick blade full and push it 50ft, back up again to your cut fill line grab you another blade full and push it 100ft doubling what you would push, back up one more time grab you a blade full and this time you take 3 blades of dirt the full 150ft. You cannot possible take that much dirt when you take your windrow every time since the the slots keep the dirt infront of the dozer in the SLOT. People that have never really been on a production push dont know the correct way to do this. And you will see a huge increase if the dozer has dual blade cylinders with the ability to carry dirt. I dont know about that vid didnt really watch it. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rk5K6_IAREY http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NlW3ALRyk_M
Yair . . . vapor300 . You are pretty much on the money. The key to it all is having the material conditioned so the blade will penetrate to the full depth of the rip in one pass. The material does not roll and the grousers are getting maximum traction on the next floor down. On a D10 I would imagine you would be taking out three or four feet of depth every pass. The steeper you can get that start of cut slope with out having to teeter totter backing up the better. Some material will "flow", you can shift up to second and the machine will start to boogie pushing a whole "train" of dirt . . . is that what you find? Cheers.
As Scrub has said, this should be a thread of it's own, however; I have had little experience with track loaders - they just aren't used around here much. The comparison between a track loader and dozer regarding stripping topsoil is, well, no comparison really in my mind. Take a 973 at about 60,000 lbs. versus a D7R at about the same. The 973 has about a 4 cy bucket heaped according to the Cat performance handbook, and a D7R with a SU dozer has about a 9 cy capacity. I don't belive that the 973 has an advantage unless it is a pick and carry for long distances. Again, I have almost zero experience with a track loader, so I may be completely wrong. In watching the video of the D11, I would think that that much track slippage would be grounds for dismissal. Get a blade full, quit digging, grab second and go seems to me to be much more efficient and much easier on the undercarriage then grinding your way throughout. I have never had the privilege of operating an 11 either, so again I may be completely wrong.
Yair . . . Well there you go. Flapping my jaw again. I cannot imagine dirt tractors not being equipped with rippers as the D8's in the second clip. That is pretty nasty material and I imagine rippers would just drag through it to no real effect never seen stuff like that . . . it doesn't look like it would be hard to get the blade to bite. (he grins) It looks like the boys are doing okay and it is a different kettle of fish completely to cutting out floors. As Oxbow mentions we have hi-jacked this thread completely and I'll start a production dozing thread tonight. Cheers.
I agree and disagree with some points being made. In topsoil, it will depend on the goal behind stripping the topsoil. Typically, the stripping I have done was not allowed to have contamination from the subsoil, and with thin topsoil layers, that dictates starting at the back of the cut, so you can bed over the soil and not contaminate it as you go, while still cutting to the subsoil layer. If you had boatloads of soil to strip, I can see starting at the front of the cut, and working back until you have the majority of the material carved away, then cleaning up from the back. Now, on the production dozing side of things, I agree that in most cases, starting at the front and working back is the way to go. However, I can say with all certainty, that it is not the way to go in every case. Nor is cutting only until the blade is full, and then carrying the material the best choice in all situations. We have an application where we have our dozers cut down for our shovels, and in that case, you need to evenly cut the whole work area, or you will screw yourself in very short order. You also can't take full advantage of slot dozing and it's benefits. You can however use a modified version, and it works quite well, but once again, it requires cutting over the length of the cut evenly. The application I speak of is a unique one, but the reason I mention it, is to show you can't paint every situation with the same brush, and say that slot dozing is always the most efficient. Or that it's always the most efficient to start at the front of your cut. Or for that matter, to say that you shouldn't ever cut the whole length of your push, or you don't know what you're doing. Like was mentioned earlier in this thread, you have to adapt to the conditions to find the best way to push.......and not every situation is the same.
The video with the 8T's i was running one. That material was HARD to cut we had to corner blade it a little just so the blades could penatrate. Both of those dozers were bought for that job to assist in knocking down the fill and finishing slopes thats why they had no rippers, the one on the left actually had wider pads just for the 2:1 slopes on that job. I have been doing some production pushing this summer with a 10R and its a good machine but you cant push near as much in 2nd as you can in first so i usually have to push in 1st until i get towards the end of my fill. But it might actually move more dirt if i carried less dirt and pushed in 2nd??? Havent really tried it, i just know when the boss comes around and you got a big blade full hes smiling. I was actually pretty surprised at how much a D10 could push in a day. But your right there is no one right way to do everything.
Right on Alco!
That's the way i see it for my operation here.Works for me.Thanks for the reply
Yair . . . Well haven't we gone around the subject. I think good points made by all, particularly by alco . I don't quite understand the issue of cutting down for shovels but starting at the back to minimise contamination of top-soil makes perfect common sense. I repeat a comment I made early in the thread . . . . . . My problem has always been that on a conventional bulk dirt job such as a mud-tank, pond, levee or a road cut the majority of dozer hands don't know how to set the job up and push to best advantage . . . and in many cases they and get pi$$ed off and obstoperous when gently told. Cheers