I have just finished reading all the threads in the Motor Grader forum! It took me two weeks of reading 2-4 hours every day. May I have my operators license now or must I do a ride along test also? After reading all that information, I am sure I am qualified! Wish I could remember it all. Many of you have said that also, "I know that information is on a thread here somewhere." Ha! One of the benefits of having read the forum, is getting a sense of the comradery among operators from all over the world talking to each other as if they were next door but probably have never met face to face. Thanks for this forum. John
Hi John, Can I assume your awesome on other tractors and just trying to learn the motor grader? Just reading posts can't hardly be enough to operate a grader. If you have a training site nearby, try one and see what you can do. Good luck.
Dozerman, Thanks for assuming I have good skills. Truth is, that I am at the beginning of everything. I wanted to be a heavy equipment operator as a youth, but I chose a different career path (Industrial Arts Instructor) so now that i am retired, I am doing what I wanted to do just for fun. I found Ole Gal (a galion), bought her, and have gotten her back in working condition. She was quite loose in the "joints" but I am getting her tighter as I go. I am sure you would have been amused at my first four hours trying to grade a dirt lane. I was having fun but the blade was drifting seriously. After having the cylinders for left, right, and front wheel lean rebuilt, I did much better. This was an encouragement to realize that my grading problems were not all my fault but the machine also. There is a local school for learning to operate equipment. I do intend to get help there. Their equipment is much more advanced than Ole Gal I'm sure, but it would be fun anyway and I could gain basic skills for grading. I am not planning to make a career of grading, but working just for the fun of it. At this point I am happy to turn and look back down the lane and say, "It is much better than it was before I started." When I bought this galion, I began the search for documentation and manuels. I am pretty sure the grader was manufactured in 1944. This was the beginning of my real attachment to this grader as this is the same year I began life! She got a name, Ole Gal, being old and a galion. Although this forum has way more information than I will ever need, I enjoy thinking about the practical nature of solving problems and getting helpful tips of grading. One tip: When backing, lean the front wheels in the opposite direction that you would when going forward. I went out and tried it right away. It was like power steering, just like when leaning the wheels when going forward! Very exciting discovery when your machine does not have power steering, especially for my old shoulders. (No need to go to the gym now.) Sorry to get long winded. Thanks for your patience, John
Yes in the forum are interesting tips for grader operators, I'm only a fan, but when I read some postings, I think this forum is a good community for learning additional things.
Hi John, Just keep challenging yourself. Put up some obstacles, try grading close to them without breaking any thing. Stay in low gear till your comfortable with all the levers. Think of drainage after your done. You can get a small magnet level for the cab to help. Good luck
I decided to add a slope meter to my old machine this year. As I decided to build my own, I also relearned about grade in terms of percent. A two to four percent grade from the crown to the ditch is not much, (think one to three degrees). Because of machine vibration and my experience with trying to use a torpedo level for this function, I found that a good dampener was needed to avoid the indicator jumping around. I used hydraulic oil to dampen a bearing in a plastic tube with good results. Much better than using my "butt in the seat" for feedback and gives far more consistent results. I'm surprised that slope meters aren't standard equipment in most graders.
Here is a photo of the conversion of degrees/percent/Ratio. I thought is was helpful at times.
I posted pictures of a slope meter I made this week. I guess I should have put them in a slope meter thread but could not find where I was reading about them. The pics are in the "Austin Western model 55 grader" thread. I don't think I am supposed to post pictures twice so I won't post the pics here. Maybe a moderator will move them where they belong. Radrock, I used this table which had the inches rise figured for the given slope. I just multiplied the pitch by 10, because my blade is 10'. Slope Conversion Table Percent grade....Slope..........................Pitch 0.5....................1 ft per 200 ft.............1/16 in per 1 ft 1.......................1 ft per 100 ft.............1/8 in per 1 ft 2.......................1 ft per 50 ft...............¼ in per 1 ft 2.5....................1 ft per 40 ft...............5/16 in per 1 ft 3.......................1 ft per 33 ft...............3/8 in per 1 ft 3.3....................1 ft per 30 ft................7/16 in per 1 ft 4.......................1 ft per 25 ft................½ in per 1 ft 5.......................1 ft per 20 ft................5/8 in per 1 ft 6.......................1 ft per 16.5 ft.............¾ in per 1 ft 7.......................1 ft per 14.3 ft.............7/8 in per 1 ft 8.......................1 ft per 12.5 ft.............1 in per 1 ft 8.33...................1 ft per 12 ft................1 in per 1 ft
Doing it in metrics is much easier, 1% = 10mm per metre, 3%= 30mm per metre, 2.5% = 25mm per metre, much simpler and quicker when in metrics
Now you just need to apply them on a curve where each station changes. Lots of fun. Here is a picture of a Super Elevated Curve. Not the best but maybe you know what I mean.
Here in Missouri they decided to go to metrics and I do think it is easy as everything is in 10's tenths etc. A lot of people couldn't get it straight in there head. In the picture above, we had two jobs going at the same time. The job on the north end was in Metrics and the job on the south end was standard. Talk about trying to keep things straight in your head #&@*$) The state highway department decided it was wiser to stay with the standard system, but it didn't matter. I did have fun with a grade checker one day. We were on the Metric job and I had him convinced that a 2 to 1 was different on this job because it was metric. He still hates me..
I agree about metrics. So much easier. (I don't have a metric ruler though.) When the powers that be decided to go metric in the US, I was told as an Industrial Arts teacher to begin teaching it. I did but to no avail. Our culture is too ingrained in foot and inches. Radrock, liked your super curves. I suppose that is all programed into a GPS system? Does it take a lot of time to program the grader to do each job? Your grade checker story reminded me of my fathers story. He was a dozer operator for a time and was working on the machine. He sent his helper looking for needed tools. After some time he came back to ask what a metric adjustable wrench looked like!
Actually this picture was back a few years before we had any advanced goodies to play with. It was a grade checker on the ground using his finger and paint on the base rock, after pulling stringline across from pin to pin at every station. The only level that was used was the level in the seat of my pants. Believe it or not if you do that for a long time you can tell if there is a bust in the grade. The last 10 years of so we have used sonic system (reads a string line) It is pretty much autograding but you have to get it pretty darn close before you can just turn it loose. When you come to a super like in this picture I would put paper cups on top of the pins with the percent of grade written big on them so I could read it from the grader. You have to manually dial in the slope change for every station. Even this is old school now days. GPS or total station pretty much does all of the changes for you on the go. My experience with that is that you still can not just turn it on and go. You still have to get it pretty close first manually or dialing in a grade slowly. I've always just wanted to read it and do the cutting manually until I get it close. It has always been fun stuff no matter what.