Well I would like to start of with how much I enjoyed the winter works thread, lot's of pics and good reading, hoping we can continue with this Spring/Summer thread, I have one heck of a pile of work to do to my roads with the soft mild winter, pretty much a wrap for Winter works, will be starting to remove my wing and tower hopefully next week.
Hoping we get lots pics in this thread, love hearing about what your working on and your projects, any of the new operators have any questions there's lots of experience on this forum that will point you in the right direction, so guy's bring it on!!!!
Meeting with a MODOT (Missouri Department of Transportation) right of way inspector today. Have four sites where my Township roads meet State Hiways that need work. It's MODOT's responsibility to maintain the culverts if needed and the drainage area within their right of way. MODOT doesn't support my area very well. We are a long distance from the State Capital and sparsely populated. So to get anything done the Township volunteers employee (me) hours and grader hours. All we ask is that MODOT buy the culverts if needed. Site #1 doesn't have a culvert but needs one added. A large farmer is building a grain bin setup a half mile from the hiway on one of my roads. They will be going in/out a lot with semis. The intersection needs widened along with adding the culvert. Site #2 doesn't have a culvert and doesn't need one. The intersection needs widened. Site #3 has a culvert that's rotted out. It also needs lengthened and widen the intersection. Site #4 has a culvert that's been buried for 10 years at least. Too short, ends collapsed from driving over. Stands water against my road at the intersection. I don't expect any serious resistance. I've not worked with this inspector before but he seems eager to help. As MODOT has gotten poorer, they have gotten easier to work with. 25 years ago I added an intersection to a hiway. Called the inspector, he did a site visit, approved the project and said he'd mail me a permit to post onsite. That was on Wednesday. On Friday the dozer showed up and we started working. I was clearing the roadbank of sod when the inspector came driving by real slow. He stopped in the middle of the hiway and got out. I got out of the grader and approached him. He calmly said "Richard did you receive the permit in the mail?" I said no I had not. He calmly said "Richard stay off my right of way until you have that permit." I said yes sir I will. He left. I went back to work. 4 years ago I was again working against MODOT. I called for an inspector, Steve Tarr. Great guy. We discussed the work I was doing and he blessed it all. He was walking toward his car and I said, Steve if someone stops and asks to see my permit what do I tell them. He pulled a business card out of his shirt pocket and handed it to me saying "If some A hole wants to see a permit have them call me."
Its a major to do to get anything done in regards to putting in a new intersection or expanding a original one, so many players in the process that everything gets constipated it seems with red tape, enviro guys get involved with the DNR and your shut down because they found frog eggs in the ditch or something to that regards, its crazy, getting a culvert put in is not a problem as long as its a old one not working, we have box culverts that were put in back in the 30's that need replacing but as long as a few drops of water is still flowing it stays, I like how the new Trans Canada highway project that is going on here that is in the works has these Turtle crossing built in to the road every 6-10 miles apart for about 80 grand a piece to build , its amazing how the turtles know how to go there to use them to cross the road, lol
My meeting went as expected. Site #1, no existing culvert, MODOT will let me put one in and improve the intersection, but they won't buy anything..... Site #2, MODOT will let me widen the intersection if I add 10ft of 24" culvert to theirs that goes under the hiway. So I can maintain the necessary 3 to 1 slope, which is wayyyyyy steeper than that now..... Site #3, MODOT will buy the replacement culvert at the existing length. They have no problem with me extending the culvert and widening the intersection, but they won't pay for that part..... Site #4, MODOT questions whether there was ever a culvert there, sure can't see any evidence of one, but logic says there is one. MODOT will purchase a long culvert and let me widen the intersection. So,,, bout what I expected.... No frog eggs found though.....
LOL, Your lucky, are enviro guy's are insane, You would blow a gasket if your enviro guy's were the same as here, Yeah everything is a go as long as they don't have to pay, LOL
Well guy's that's a wrap for winter works, back on regular day shift Monday to Friday, glad to see this winter behind us, the department will have to pay now to get us out at night for the next few weeks till the weather settles down, the removal of plow gear starts tomorrow for my grader, glad to have it off.
The old cedar box culverts here are still in good shape. Kouchibouguac National park has the turtle crossings. They are like an open top culvert with barriers all along the ditch to direct them to the pipe
I can only imagine the difference carrying all that weight/gear and not carrying it. Bad enough for me when I pick up the V Plow....
You can lead a turtle to the crossing but you can't make him cross. Sorry, couldn't help myself.
sometimes I wouldn't mind having a weighted push block up front. No dozer blade, and the extra weight would be nice for the front wheels. I'll be back on the little Mauldin starting in May. Private driveways. They tell me I have over 25,000 tonne of gravel to go down between a couple road jobs they have already snagged. One has a lot of overhead wires on it which is always nice. Still a lot of end dumps around, and they always seem to show up at the wires. I keep hoping the new guy will step into the big grader, but no luck thus far.
That's a fair amount of gravel to lay, we put about a ton a meter on a regular width road.
One of these jobs is pulverizing and paving. I think it is around 15,000, and the other is a couple bridge approaches, so it would be a full 24 inches of gravel. 18 inches of 3 inch, and 6 of inch and a quarter. Probably includes shoulder material on the new build. The pulverizing job will be shouldered with rap. They'll mill enough for that before they pulverize.
LOL
Well we are getting some wintery mix weather tonight and into tomorrow, 4-8" of snow, ice pellets, freezing rain then rain, looks like I will be on a salt truck plow tonight.
I don't want your Winter weather. But I'd sure take your gravel allocation. I get 65 Ton per mile. But then you are probably talking about building a road versus annual allocation?
That sucks.....
No, that's the amount we use when graveling a road, building a road would be alot more
In my dreams.... I'll try to snap a pic of a freshly graveled road.... It's pretty meager.....
How far do they have to go to get your gravel? New Brunswick and Nova Scotia are pretty much solid rock, so it's easy to come by. Most secondary roads in my area are chip sealed if not paved. There are a few short lanes that might not be, but they are mostly pit run, or sandstone, so there is never any graveling, just grading.
I have a quarry 10 miles South of the center of my Township and one 10 miles North of the center of my Township.
A young man I know bought an old Case 580C hoe. Never ran one. He asked me if I'd hire him to do some Township work? I said certainly. Today he met me at a culvert location to dip out the bottom end which was silted. He arrived at 8 a.m. Should have taken him 20 minutes max. 3 hrs later he was finally done. Went to the second site where a culvert needed extended. Should have taken an hour max. 4 hrs later he was finally done. He wore me slick. I was patient and offered operational hints frequently. Which he handled very well. He has no operator experience at all. It was horribly painful to watch all day. I'm not sure he'll ever get it. He seems to not grasp multi tasking with the controls. Rarely had more than one cylinder moving. At the end of the day he still couldn't get the hoe bucket full. Doesn't grasp how to place the machine for most effective digging. At the end of the day still couldn't reset and get the right distance from the dig area. It's an extendahoe which he doesn't appreciate at all. I'll use him a couple more times but if he can't show improvement I'll cut the string.
I delivered a load of drainage stone to a fella this winter. He was not from the area and had bought an older home. He was really concerned as to the hardness of the rock, and if it would degrade over time. I assured him that it was from a hard rock quarry, and there should not be any issues. I'm thinking he must have come from an area with lime stone maybe. But yeah, your quarry is closer than ours, so it's just a budget thing then?
We have like 4 quarry's in our area, some have good gravel some is garbage, the first blast off the face is usually the best, its softer stone with more fines, the further they blast into the face the harder the stone less fines, I have a few roads they graveled using pretty much rejected gravel, just like glass beads, no fines and will not bind and stays alive, I will have to tear up what's underneath and mix it to get it to bind, their specs for gravel now sucks compared to the old days which packed like cement and lasted, now it seems the department buy's the cheapest gravel and adjusts its specs to make it pass.
They test our base material almost as much as our asphalt aggregate. If it won't pass for government work, we use it for private. I find the government spec stuff too clean, and it segregates bad if you don't keep it wet when grading it.
Yes the government specs are to clean, all manufactured stone with very little fines now, when they used to use bank gravel when they crushed was way better gravel for graveling back roads, lots of fines and bind together like cement, the gravel roads lasted alot longer with bank gravel for crushing, the stuff they pass for back roads today is almost like chip seal stone.
We still use bank gravel. One of the only government roads I ever grade, goes into the pit. The province will only grade into the last house. Around 14kms. I have to the the other 14 into our pit when the truckers start complaining. That district has the only 2 long roads I can think of that need grading. They are built in gravel country, so no need to add any. There is a km or so on the section going into our pit that I wish they would gravel. It has a bunch of bald men's heads sticking up every where. I used to try and pull them out, but there are so many. If it's not too rough, I'll skip it. The road to our quarry is chip sealed, so it just stays rough.
Yes, a budget thing. I have approximately $1,100 of annual income for each mile of road. Nothing available here but limestone. It wears quickly. I grade my roads app once a month. I always try to leave the loose rock in the traveled area. I sometimes think that's a mistake. It gets ground up more rapidly.
This coming week I'll start on a project to build .3 of a mile of road on a ridge thru a corn field to a house build site. The owner ran a vertical tillage tool over the area to chop up the corn stubble and loosen the top soil. I'll windrow it to the sides and then elevate the roadbed a foot or so. Then put the top soil back. Will build a roadbed app 12ft wide. He'll seed grass on at least 6ft of shoulder/slope. I'll take pics. I can see his build site out my kitchen window to the North of my house 3/4 mile.
That sounds like the kind of grader work that would be a lot of fun but I'll likely never get to do. Closest I've gotten was to ditch and finish a mile of dirt logging road on a lumpy hillside behind a D8.
This time of year I'm mostly fixing up roads that have become badly potholed over the winter till the roads dry up a bit more, spot grading is the term they call it, gets the water out of the potholes so they will dry quicker, depending on the weather and dryness of the roads will determine when I go into full swing grading, thinking more towards the last week of April is the norm, spot grading makes the roads better to travel on but is a temporary fix, you can fix the roads up faster this way for now , be glad to get my wing and tower off, our mobile went to Disneyland, lol, not allowed to remove anything without him being present, been taking it off for over twenty years, anyway its coming off this week one way or another. lol
Great idea to start this thread I definitely enjoyed the winter works one we have melted a fair amount of our snow here only snow left is in the trees and the big banks but they have shrunk to half of what they were so that’s great I took the wings off my cat machines going to start blading my townships today got 5 of them to get over I figured I’d show you guys my wing stand I made can have wing on and off in 15minutes very handy plus don’t have to break much apart other then top and bottom brace.
Great idea to start this thread I definitely enjoyed the winter works one we have melted a fair amount of our snow here only snow left is in the trees and the big banks but they have shrunk to half of what they were so that’s great I took the wings off my cat machines going to start blading my townships today got 5 of them to get over I figured I’d show you guys my wing stand I made can have wing on and off in 15minutes very handy plus don’t have to break much apart other then top and bottom brace. View attachment 283629 View attachment 283628 View attachment 283627
I've built a lot of short driveways. Never one quite this long. But it's all on a ridge with no culverts required. Should be pretty simple. I'm waiting on a rain shower to move thru this morning.
Great idea on the wing stand!!!
Is that your tow behind compactor to the right?
That stand is a great Idea, we store everything out side in the elements, is there a mount still bolted to your grader after the wing and tower is off?
It’s not a towable it pins on to my ripper so I can raise it up and down I love it extremely handy.
Yes the mount is still on the machine but it’s not in the way so we leave it on.
In Western Kansas/Eastern Colorado I've saw graders with a drag on their rear ripper. Very handy for them on their wide, relatively flat roads.
MODOT is resurfacing some roads in my area. Overlaying asphalt. At the bridges they "mill" the surface removing previous overlayment down to concrete. Then lay asphalt to match the road surface at the ends of the bridge. So they end up with a couple dump truck loads of millings. At a bridge in my township they decided my road a couple hundred yards from the bridge needed millings. So they dumped it there. Okay, I had just applied our annual rock allocation. Okay, I'll deal with it. Then under closer examination I found a LOT of this. So I contacted my Township Board members and had them each go look at the road. They all agreed it needed removed. Contacted the contractor and got no argument. Also required the road be graveled. No argument. So to prevent a CTL ripping my roadbed all to hell trying to capture the millings I piled it with the grader. Then had a dump truck load of gravel applied. Much better. Our State Tax Money at work......
Looks like they tried to give you a load of rack at first, they tried using the recycled asphalt here on a few roads, just a disaster, glad you got some gravel, I have been busy grading with the good weather I'm having, its very very dry, bit of rain coming in tomorrow so we will do some shoulder recovery for the next couple of days in the rain, pretty good gig. thanks for sharing the pics
The thing is that you could spread the millings, and do a good job, but then those chunks start to move as the cars drive over them....boom instant pot holes. I did a road on a reserve. We had just paved a section of the main road. One lane about 350 meters long had an issue with dust in the plant. They had to mill center line to white line 370 meters about 1214 feet, 2 inches thick, and repave. That was paved 2 days ago. They trucked it to the reserve and I put it down. They wanted to go a little farther, and got some old unscreened stuff we had. To this day, part of that road is just like the day I put it down. The rest....potholes a plenty
We did a few roads with screened millings/Rack and we found it would not settle down and would go to washboard and then harden up back to asphalt in spots all over the road, some have good luck with it but we have not.
The stuff I'm talking about was almost still warm though. I always advise against using rap, even screened. Keep it on the shoulders where it belongs. My biggest beef is that once it packs down, there is no regrading it.
I've had a disaster the past two years with my Township Board. No malicious mismanagement. Just incompetence. Not completing the quarterly Unemployment Contribution report to the State for example. Have been sued by the State 3 times. $400 penalty each time..... So I got a new board on election day, 4 April. They had their first meeting on 11 April. Got a lot of paperwork mess to deal with and get back on top of things. 14 April we get this milling mess. They are being initiated by fire. So far they've stood up well. None of the three have ever been on a Board. 30 something years old. I gave them the Father/Son speech about unity. Discuss the issue. Make a decision. Stand by that decision in public. In the case of the millings the Board contacted MODOT. MODOT gave them the contact information to the Contractor. The Board contacted the Contractor and stated the road needed restored to it's original condition. The Contractor didn't argue. I volunteered the Grader time to pile the millings so the Contractor wouldn't tear up my road. The Board might finish their two year terms without having another issue. But it's good to get started with something early so they don't get lazy.
Might get some grading next week. Been on excavator, which I hate, and doing some trucking (running scales). Another safety course today Hazard ID and Controls...boring!!!! Still need Fall Arrest, Rigging and Hoisting, and Confined Space. Lots of BS just to make driveways ready to pave. Going in in the the morning to haul gravel for a couple days. Sweeping parking lots coming up as well. Couple regular customers wanting some grader work done before I get too busy. Might be able to post pictures this season. Safety consultant says my old flip phone won't cut it as I need the construction safety app. I refuse to get a smart phone, as I don't want to become a phone zombie, but I guess I might need a company phone.
Yes we have to go through the safety courses BS as well, Between my wife and I we have a flip phone, that's it, for traveling for the most part, I also refuse to get a smart phone, every body at work has a smart phone but me, they need to get a hold of me then call me on the radio, department paid 24 million of tax payers dollars for radio upgrades they can dam well use them, we have lots of phone Zombies at my work, was thinking the other day what this department looses every week in hours worked lost to personal cell phones activity, thinking 2-3 hours a week for every employee with a smart phone, and some employee's its more than that, our mobile has three smart phones on the go at one time, 1 is the work phone other two are personal, they ring non stop when he's trying to work on the gear, drives me crazy.
I got a Cell phone 15 years ago. Mostly to reassure my family. They worried about me running the grader at night in a storm if something went wrong. 30 years ago I had a breakdown and had to walk 4 miles in a snowstorm for help. I've gotten used to carrying a phone now and I use it often throughout the day. Saves a lot of unnecessary trips. Makes me much more effective at what I'll do today. Cell Phones are an addiction for our society, no doubt about that. The invasiveness of them concerns me. But that same thing concerns me about desktop computers and the Alexa/Google systems in homes too. One time I was hanging out with the gang offroading. During a Beer stop the discussion turned to phones listening to us. The boys had a five minute conversation about Carhart clothing. Intentionally. The next day I got on my shop laptop computer to check out this site and a tractor site I frequent. Several ads for Carhart clothing appeared. Coincidence?
If you have Alexa, it's always listening. My brother and his wife were having a conversation, and she said I wonder what....something, and Alexa answered without being asked. My daughter hates Alexa, as that's her name. I have been hauling gravel for the last 2 days, going back at it in the morning. Fired up my little grader and roller before I came home. Have to grade for superior manufacturing. There would be a spot to have a phone with a camera. They are an American company and they build crushers. Saw a new Metso cone, and a double box screener. And a big *** stacker belt in their yard on the way by today.
Have been busy, we just finished up about 110kms of shouldering, back grading again, the roads are very dry now and is looking like a very nice week ahead weather wise for us here, was talking to a buddy of mine that lobster fishes, he was having motor troubles in his boat with his brand new 430 cummins, he was flipping out at the wharf at the dealer that sold him the motor, poor diesel Mech was trying to figure out what was going on with the motor to get it running right, Lobster prices are 13 bucks a pound and most fishermen are landing 1500lb a day, that's big money a day he's losing out on, lots of pressure on my buddy, one of my roads I grade loops around run next to the government wharf, lol
The road job where I was hauling gravel is in the heart of lobster fishing. They are doing the pipe part. New storm lines. Once they are done, it will be pulverized, graveled and paved. I ran 6 trailer loads down from the shop today so they would have som ahead for monday. DTI makes them backfill and compact 2 feet of gravel all around each pipe. The boys at one end of the job are only getting 5 or 6 lengths of concrete pipe a day. The blue hat stands over them all day checking the spec. Last fall they had to backfill the hole each night for safety. Took 20 loads every morning just to uncover the pipe. Now they can leave the hole open, but they have to set up traffic lights and barriers. The boat hauler was moving boats steady followed by trailer loads of lobster traps. We did a base a couple years ago for a guy that bought a big tent for his boat and traps. Like 60 wide by 180 long. We said you should pave it, but he said he didn't make any money that year. His brother said when he says he didn't make any money, he means he only made $275,000, not $350,000. Not bad for 5 weeks work., and most of those guys fish Herring, Gaspreau, fish the fall lobster season as well.
LOL, Can't count how many Fishermen stop me and want their road graded right away, they tell me that they have to work for the next ten weeks and will be traveling back and forth to the wharf, lol, I guess they think everybody that works year round is on hold for ten weeks while they go to work, I just tell them I will get there when I get there, Its funny, the local fishermen went from rags to riches in the last 15 years, when they didn't have much money and had to work year round, they all got along great in the community, even had a general store which was a great spot to stop and get a coffee and get the news, now.. nobody gets along anymore, the general store is gone now and greed has taken over the community, very sad indeed.
I started my spring work today started discing shoulders will let this material sit for 4 or 5 days then I will start pulling it in and incorporating it in the road
That looks like a pretty aggressive disc. I'd guess you can vary how much by raising or lowering it? The little wheel in front looks like it would just sink in the ground.
Nice, we have the same discs but on a loader, we did about 65miles of shoulders on our pave roads this year, took us two day's, not alot of money in the budget this year for shouldering, we usually go at it for a week, thanks for sharing, great pics
It can be a very aggressive disc ideally I’m only cutting a 1/2 inch to an inch of material with it the way I use it it’s a big time saver and yes would think the small wheel would sink in ground but long as road is hard it rides right on top of ground.
Can you run it on "float"? Our State uses one. Their operators don't seem to care much about details. I've saw driveways that they "plowed" right thru. Man that would irritate me..... I dream of having open, relatively flat country to grade roads in.
They sent my grader to Volvo to get tightened up. The service guy was up to do some stuff to the loaders, and he was going to adjust the circle in our shop, but he figured the main teflon bushings between the drawbar, and circle needed to be replaced and figured it would be easier for him at their shop, about an hour and a half away.
Yes you can run the disc itself in float the block the cylinder is tied to if it’s in middle it will allow it to float you just change the disc aggressiveness with your lift group here is a video I did on how to properly use the retriever disc on my YouTube channel
Yes you are right, you do not want to be to aggressive with the disc's, some area's here leave a huge trench on the edge of the ditch from digging to deep and not filling it back in, what great vid, thanks so much for sharing.
Your roads must be open now. Southern NB opened yesterday, and we open on the 7th. Earliest I've ever seen. Still lots of snow in the woods though. I'm not even done my sweeping, and they want to start prep on Monday or Tuesday.
I can't say for sure if there open, I have been busy grading so I haven't had much shop time to get all the news, lol, there's no snow here, very very dry, this round of rain is welcomed for sure, we did not get what they forecasted though, hard to believe, lol
I started pulling in my edges that I run the retriever disc on really working up nice
Nice job!! that turned out real good, I see a little windrow on the side of your road, did you say you leave that there for later, now that's a front blade, I like how you have the stinger blades on them, great pics, thanks so much for sharing.
Thanks and yeah I leave a small maintenance window on my roads from the start of blading to the end of September then I lay everything down going in to winter and yes I love having the front blade with stingers on it handy for cutting washboards with I’m also running stingers on my moldboard right now for the spring I will take them off in June then but my carbide edges on.
I didn't realize you had a channel. I am now subscribed.
Yeah i decided to start a channel to hopefully share my knowledge with new and experienced operators I’ve had a lot of good responses from doing it so I’m happy I can help others out thanks for subscribing hopefully you will enjoy the channel.
I washed the Grader today. Found an old nail in a tire. Had been there a long time. Tip finally breached the steel and started a slow leak. Worked for an hour trying to get a plug in the hole. No luck. Had to call the tire shop to come fix it. Assume they'll take it apart and patch it but don't know for sure. Haven't had to have a leak repaired in over 20 years. Have plugged half a dozen in that time. Mostly I find a nail and pull it without any leak. The steel turns them.
Finished my sweeping on Sunday. Started driveway prep Monday. Did a 1000 foot lane for a fella. Not going to pave, just gravel. 12 feet wide, steep climb, and no place for trucks to turn at the top. Long way out of town, so they sent tri axle dump trailers. I'm thinking no way. If they could back up it without spinning out would be one thing, but tail spreading for 12 feet wide.... Not a chance. Old house next door. Gravel yard, flat, no wires. Looks abandoned, so I made the call to dump the trailers there, and reload it on our tandem, with my grader. My guy knows what I want, so I start loading him and sending him up to tail spread. Get 3 trailer loads dumped and spread, and the 2 more loads I needed wouldn't be there before quitting time, so we pack up and leave. Get back in the morning. 2 more loads dumped, half ton truck blocking the driveway to the stock pile. Angry woman walks up the road.... who's in charge? Me.... Who in the square faced f..k gave you permission to dump on my property? After a long rant, it was easy to see that she didn't get along with the fella getting the lane done, and figured he told me to dump. I bit my lip, and said it was my doing, the place looked empty, and I didn't want to risk upsetting the trailers on the hill. At this point, I didn't think we were getting out gravel back. Her face changed to a big smile, and she said, you should have asked. Everyone knows this was my dad's place, and I just live up the road. I told her I didn't mean any harm, and I would not leave it a mess. She said thank you, jumped in her truck and left.
We had something like that happen to us one time, we stockpiled shouldering close to our jobsite, we had permission from land owner and paid a fee for land rental, after we were done stockpiling 500 tandem loads the owner wanted more money and seized our stockpile and blocked the road, we knew the owner at the time but didn't sign any paper work on the lot rental just on good faith and a handshake, we were a year settling it, you were lucky
I think his demeanor went a long ways in defusing a sensitive situation. Kudos on you cuttin edge.
Younger me would have flown off the handle. One of the things I have learned from being put in charge, is that everyone is quick to point you out as the white hat, even though mine is grey. Good news on the road building front. I can no longer be boss over grading, shouldering jobs for DOT. I guess the district engineer didn't like the idea of an operator looking after the job, as they are not readily available for discussions without shutting down production. My feelings are not hurt one bit.
Well I only have a couple more roads to do and I will have a round on my roads, the weather has been real good, very dry though, once my roads are caught up I will be prepping them for dust control, very dusty this spring.
This morning was beautiful, then flurries this afternoon. Gotta love maritime weather. Heat and AC in the same day.
Just wondering, do any of you guy's have to put sign's out when your grading your roads, they have come up with a new policy with our department that they are pushing now, they want a construction ahead signs put up at each end of each road or no further than 2kms apart, we never had to deal with this before, we just used safe grading procedures when doing a road for the last 50 years, this will be a major pain for me, where I can do up to 7-8 smaller jig roads in a day, I have over 60 roads to do, prepping roads for spraying will be a big pain also, wondering if you guys have to deal with signs every day. thanks
For a while, DOT graders had racks for signs, stands, and cones. If I go to one of our road jobs on a weekend, and it needs grading, I don't even turn the signs. If they can't work a windrow, and a big yellow machine.... mind you that would never hold up in court.
I am just wondering why the change all of a sudden, we have got along fine for 50 years or more using safe grader procedures and common sense, a grader is not like a half ton to get in and out of, this is going to be a huge pain for me, now that I will be prepping roads for spraying dust control I can do up to 10 smaller roads in a day, I don't know why decisions like this are made without talking with the operators that it will affect, most of these people never sat or operated a grader in their life, if they want us to be more visible put high intensity led strobes on the graders, every other piece of gear we have has them, most people ignore the signs anyway, there's my Rant for today
The only time I have to use signs is when I’m doing major reshape work or doing a new gravel project I started pulling shoulders this week I have one township I do pick 4 of our worst miles and I pull shoulders in on them and rebuild the road top then put 3 inches of new gravel on them this year they rented a water truck so made huge difference in finished product I also have a 3 point rotor tiller on our mowing tractor to pulverize and mix material works great here our some pictures.
What a awesome job, well down, love your material you have to work with, roller make a difference for sure, I agree with putting sign's out on bigger jobs like a road recovery or training purposes, not every day road maintenance grading, thanks so much for sharing
Crazy hot weather for the first of June. Frost warnings in the mornings, and well into the 90s in the afternoon. Lots of fires your way 20/80. Hope this thunder storm doesn't start anything. Super dry in the woods
We were crazy hot in Alberta in May with multiple wildfires. Finally got some decent rain but not everywhere. I had a big fire go through my property in 2010 so glad I got rain to lessen the risk.
Man its dry, the Dept pulled us off the roads till it rains, there are to huge fires happening here in NS, western district, and central district, both are out of control, nothing in my area the eastern district as of yet, but give it time some fool will start something, rain in the forecast for the next few days which is welcomed, but just before these fires started here we received 2" of rain, didn't take long to dry up, very early for it being this dry, by August it will be crazy hot and dry.
My area was the hottest in Canada according to the weather channel. Today it went down to 8 (46). Been raining on and off all afternoon. Got shut down early. Broke my new Mauldin yesterday. Took my old one back for a while. Forgot how hot it is in the cab. Can't even touch the steel beside the seat. The valve banks are fastened to the bottom of it, and it gets really hot to touch. I wish I could have the power and traction of the new one, but the controls of the old one. Hate the single electronic joystick. Even the guys on the crew noticed how much happier I seemed running the old girl.
My machine has been working great, no complaints, you have to be careful cutting roads, the machine can pull a lot of material up when in 6 wheel drive at a time, starting to like the machine more and more all the time now, but I do find my hands get pins and needles a lot with the joysticks, I keep adjusting the arm and wrist rest to find the sweet spot, I stop more now to, seems to help with my knee's and get out and stretch my legs, these machines play hell on your hands and knee's over time, scratching up my roads now for dust control, rain coming in so will be back in action.
Here's a little woods action for you guys. It's been unusually dry in western Washington with no rain to speak of in almost a month. I was able to get on dirt with no wet spots anywhere this week and finish some logging roads. I pushed two in with a JD 550G dozer and another was existing, just needed ironed out. Normally we do everything with a D6 but this job needed the grader anyway. Putting in ditches is way easier than with the dozer, plus I got to play with sloping the banks. These roads will not get rock as they will be logged this summer. Some before and after pics:
Nice work, make the water run, doesn't look like alot of big rock in your material, more topsoil looking, thinking it would get a bit greasey if it rained, again great job, thanks for sharing
Thanks! I pushed all the topsoil to the right side in the top pictures. This job has more than usual and though the road is on a side hill, it's piled up on the downhill side higher than the road.
Started putting new gravel on the roads that I pulled shoulders on everything is working up really nice we’re putting 3 inches down so a 27 ton belly dump goes 70 feet so 75 loads a mile
Nice job, the roller really packs it, looks like good gravel with lots of fines in it, makes for some easy grading down the road, thanks for sharing
Might have lost my full sized grader job. Hired a new fella with some grader experience. I have been super busy with private driveway prep, so I suggested giving him a chance on the Volvo, doing some of my early season grading jobs. He seems to be doing ok. If he can fine grade for the up coming road work, I might never have to do a government road prep again, and to tell the truth, it wouldn't hurt my feelings one bit.
Hard to find a grader man these day's, the new gen operators need the GPS to function it seems, old school operators are slowly dying off, hope he works out for you.
Don't get me wrong, I still prefer the production sized grader over the little maintainer, but I find doing government work has changed so much. Most of these inspectors are still wet behind the ears. I have put down about 800 tonne of fresh off the milling machine, not screened rap, between yesterday and this morning with a maintainer, and not my new one. Old girl was working hard for her money. We are doing a road resurfacing for the city, and the engineering dept decided to cover two parking lots I can see from the job. Not real big junks, but junky enough. Miller broke this morning around 9. They got it going enough to get it off the road. Then the flaggers had to stand out in pouring rain untill they brought another machine up from Moncton to taper the cut for the night. There is an outfit that is going down hill,,Miller group. Guy on the pulverizer last year told me that since the europeans bought them out, they don't fix anything until it breaks. I guess Northern group is in the same boat.
Sad really, a lot of companies run that way now, no more active prevention, just reactive prevention, parts are hard to get also, most suppliers don't stock much anymore, had a air to air elbow hose rubbed a small hole in the hose, was a week getting it from Cat, was coming out of Germany, one would think Cat would have one in North America, I was told Irving bought out Miller group.
Colas Group France. Northern Construction was bought by Vincy, Also from France. They ordered parts for the shaker on our asphalt plan in the fall after the season was done. Just got the plant going last Friday. One of our super dutys needs a set of warn hubs, They were put on the truck 3 years ago for a price of 350 bucks. They have lifetime warranty but Napa can't get any for a month, and they are now almost 800
Not sure how people are going to live, the price of everything has doubled, interest rates, and this new carbon tax coming into play has put yet another strain on families that were just getting by to begin with, your wages has not doubled though that's for damn sure, the new immigrants coming in to the country will work for next to nothing, that's why the government is bringing them in in droves it seems, you will see them on graders soon, we just don't seem to have that working class anymore, kids today are computer driven, just want to sit in front of a screen or are phone zombie's with no work ethics, heavy equipment operators are fading fast, you see Dexter's all the time at fairs or exhibitions with a booth set up looking for new recruits, just look at some work sites, hard to find anyone under 50 years of age, not sure what the next Gen will bring.
Good day all, seems to have quieted down a bit , everybody is busy, I have been busy also, second round on my roads and most are sprayed now for dust control, I'm going to be taking part in some grader training for some new operators in a week or two, Always look forward to helping out new operators and sharing some info that will help them along, It has been wet this past week with the weather, we call it job security at our shop , lol
Nice to see experienced operators willingly pass on their knowledge. Have seen some guys feel threatened by new guys coming into their neighborhood.
Ovrszd hasn't posted in a while.
He may be busy or on Vacation, he's a hard working man
Yes been very busy just finished up putting new gravel on the four miles I pulled edges on this spring also did a little spot graveling now time to get caught up on maintenance blading and mowing ditches I’ve also noticed ovrszd hasn’t posted in awhile hope all is well.
I have no problem sharing my knowledge with new operators I know I’m not going to do this forever and what good is all my knowledge of I don’t share it with others I feel privileged to pass my knowledge on to new operators that way they can do the same.
There are old blade hands out there that won't show or even help a new operator, Very sad
Still on the Volvo. They subbed out the grading behind the pulverizer, and the laying down of the 1 1/4 on the job. They pretty much just went in and out as fast as possible. The graderman had never worked with grade stakes. I cold tell by the look of it that it was going to take a lot of sculpting. Once they started putting the fine grade stakes in, the truth was unveiled. I've never seen so many C 0.1 (cut 4 inches) stakes on a gravel job in my life. They were looking to start paving Thursday. Don't think so. They have also subbed out to these guys for another job. But they promised their a team. Transmission started acting up. Wouldn't go forward, only reverse. Volvo guy traced it down as a broken wire inside the harness.
Sometimes it's better to do things with your own crew. Not all contractors are competent in the jobs they take. A great example is just about every contractor who has worked on the Edmonton LRT extension. Bad signaling, cracks in a majority of concrete pillars, corroded signal wires before they're even used. The list goes on and on. It's only a $1.8 billion dollar job a couple years behind schedule. I think the penalties are $10,000/day but not positive. 'Profoundly disappointed': Two-thirds of concrete pillars on new Edmonton LRT line now need repairs TransEd LRT CEO Ronald Joncas revealed 30 of the 45 piers will need reinforcement, up from the 18 initially estimated. No timeframe was given for completion of repa… edmontonjournal.com ttps://edmontonjournal.com/news/local-news/edmontons-valley-line-lrt-needs-cable-replacements-no-opening-date-set
These guys are a big company. They do our milling and pulverizing when Miller Group is too busy. Ticket man told me today that their foreman pretty much said as I figured, they were just there to knock it down, and were not worried about grades. With the amount we have been moving this week, would have be easier if they had just stock piled it on site. On a sadder note, a former co worker died yesterday, he was 67. Retired last year. Was doing some work at his daughter's home. Got stung by a bee in his neck, and didn't have his epi pen. By the time the ambulance got to his location, he had been without enough air for 20 min.
That's terrible. I don't understand why people who need an Epi pen don't always carry one. It's like they figure they're a weaker person because they need it.
I’ve gotten majority of my roads in good shape now just continue to maintenance blade and mow ditches I took the afternoon to wash and wax the one 2017 140M3 I operate did a full detail on it I want my equipment to look as good as my work does so want machine to look like new.
Refreshing to see an employee take pride in the machine(s) they operate as if they owned it. Sadly some just know how to put fuel in them and abuse them and then blame the machine when something goes wrong.
Just got back from a week of putting on some grader training for the Dept, first few day's were good but then heavy rain moved in on us, had to deal with muddy conditions, training went well, the trainee's were very happy and eager to learn which helps, I forgot to bring my camera for some pics for you guy's, but I will be doing another session in Aug and wiil take some pics then, hoping it will be a lot better conditions.
There are probably a lot of discussions on here already, but What is everyone's favorite scarifying blade system? I'm fine grading a road for paving. Another company was hired to shape behind the pulverizer, and to spread the gravel. As I suspected, they laid it down and left without concern for anyone coming behind to fine grade. With water and traffic, the material is like concrete, and the government inspector is holding firm to the half inch high, or half inch low spec for string lining. Yesterday, I floated the fine graded section, and moved to the un graded section to try and remove the pot holes for the weekend. The only down side of a stinger system, would be having to remove it for shouldering paved roads. Once this job is fine graded, and the base is put on, a regular cutting edge would have to be installed for fine grading the paved shoulders for seal. In terms of cost, maintainence, durability, and ease of swapping out for different jobs, who likes what?
I really like the stingers for reshaping and regular maintenance blading in the spring after June I take stingers off and put on my double carbide edges there an inch thick carbide insert with hard facing on the front of the insert for the rest of the season really like them I also have the cat style triangle carbide bits that don’t rotate they do a nice job but are super aggressive only use them for first couple of times over the roads in spring then go to the double carbide edges I’ve tried the sharq system and it is convenient but rotating edges 5 times a day to keep them straight got old in a hurry
I have a mid mount scarifier, which I find useless. You can't get close to grade stakes. Our 1 1/4 quarry packs so hard as the cars drive over it. Especially with the water truck. Compaction tester was there on Friday, she could hardly drive the pin into the ground. Under normal conditions, I can fine grade about 800 to 1000 meters (2624 to 3280 feet) a day, so you're looking at 4 or 5 days of fine grading, they start paving behind me on the second day, so little to no maintainence required before everything is covered. With this mess, I have been 3 days getting enough done for them to pave for one day, then pull out and go back on private work. I can only cut about an inch at a time with standard blades, so a 3 or 4 inch cut through a station can take 3 or 4 passes to get down to grade. Meanwhile the road gets beat up. I'm thinkin this may be the time to convince them it's time for an upgrade. Wear is not a factor. They don't seem to mind changing edges that are done. We never rotate, just cut them when they wear. I do find cutting takes the hardness out of them, and they wear faster
Here is the million dollar question. Reading PDFs, looking at photos, all these systems seem to have an angle of attack, and talk about road maintainance. Are they good for spreading, and carrying material forward? In both situations, I stand the MB back as far as it goes. This seems like it would cause the shank to run along the ground. Would that be damaging to the system? Mind you you are not cutting. We still have a lot of end dump trailers here, and this job I am on, is full of overhead wires. There are a lot of times when I have to do a lot of pushing. In fact, I think that is what the sub contractor did, but he just went over it enough to make it drivable. Most high spots are at wires
I use I use the stingers for everything to do with road maintenance, I'm not a fine grading operator, MB rolled all the way back is called the mixing mode, roles the material better machine pushes easier, you do get some more wear on the bottom of the stinger holders on the blades, but pushing gravel wouldn't wear them to much, I get three to four years out of a set changing stingers out as I need to, interested in what Cat 140 AWD has for blades, the straight blade with carbide looks interesting, also never seen these triangle carbide bits from Cat
My Volvo is a 2011, and there is only a bit over 5000 hrs on it. We don't do much road grading besides a few jobs I have mentioned here and there. I'm thinking I would get a lot more wear out of them than someone like yourself that has miles of road to look after. The most steady use are the 2 or 3 DOT jobs we might get every year, and I would have to remove them for shouldering
Here are what the cat style non rotating triangle carbide bits look like I like them but like I said super aggressive so only use first couple of times in the spring on the roads I love the double carbide edges very durable I’ve been getting 2 to 4 years on them very happy with them only down side is once they get older them can chip from rocks but just part of the game
Thanks for sharing that, wondering do those bits have to use the Cat blade or any blade that fits the Cat MB
It will mount on any machine just have to have the mounting boards that hold the bits ik blackcat makes the same as from cat I have the blackcat ones and work good just as the cat ones do
I cleaned up some roads for a logging job. The finished product may not look like I did a whole lot but they're hauling logs off it now. I got a shop day so I put on some lights I've had squirreled away for a few months. Replaced the stock lights with the brightest LEDs I could find that weren't unreasonably priced. It probably will be a while before I get to try them out but initial impressions are good. The old ones were ok in pitch dark but a little twilight and they were useless.
This is the same road now.
Nice job, don't take much if its good and dry to open a road, led lights make a big difference over factory floods, I put a light bar on mine for plowing at night, thanks for sharing
I'm not against logging, but. When it was guys with power saws, they left some trees. Now they take everything. The province I live in is being mowed down. It shocks me driving along the road sometimes. Places that were wooded areas are gone. I mean it makes work. Logging, trucking saw mills paper mills. But they sell all the number one stuff to the US, and sell the garbage to us. It's even getting harder to buy fire wood.
There's a lot of trees left behind. They have to leave buffer zones along the creeks no matter who it is and the state likes to leave small patches scattered around on DNR land. They have a tendency to blow over, though. Trees grow fast around here. In ten years you won't be able to walk through the replant. We get stuck with a lot of garbage, too. I built a house a year ago and paid top dollar for lumber that's only good for firewood.
Bad day at the office. Government survey crew has been working the road job I'm on. Every year they have some summer students. This year they had a young man and a woman from Kenya. The man was in his 20s, and the woman just turned 30. They were here for another month then they were heading back home. I spoke to them a few times, see them every day for the past 3 weeks. They left the job at noon today and headed to another job about 45 min away. They got hit head on by a semi. The man died instantly, and she died at the hospital. I didn't really know them, don't even know their names, but my heart goes out to whoever is going to get the call back home. They said the girl had 3 young kids. Keep your loved ones close, cause you never know.
Like isn't the right response but how tragic. I bet they were impressed with Canadian hospitality and you talking with them. Very very sad to hear. Condolences to their family and friends.
We Had one heck of a rain storm here this past weekend, alot of roads washed out in the western area with lots of flooding around the city, we Had some bad washouts in my area, been busy fixing up the back roads, crazy weather
Appreciate the comments about the different cutting edges, I been looking for options because we have a lot of Calcium treated road and it’s hard on regular summer edges. We started running regular scarifier (ice blades) to cut that hard cap and it’s working pretty good but it takes away a lot of your ability to carry material down the road. Looking at the bullet stingers now. There’s some interesting concept with short 2’ Changeable blade sections and you can also swap out pointed bits with fat teeth that make a solid edge if you want. On the fun side - Dad gum beavers!! Homeowners were getting flooded basements so they got a mini ex and busted out their handy work. Of course middle of the night here isn’t dark. You guys get much of this action?
I use the stingers year round, they do a good job on hard pack and you can carry material easy, Beavers, we have our share of troubles with them, they like to dam culverts and bridges and end up flooding the road way, we put extended cages on our culverts now and that seems to work, as far as bridges we usually bring in a trapper to get them, We find the fall is when they're most active, these Beavers are non union, they work day and night with little pay, lol
I've read beavers can sense very small currents and plug them as leaks. One of the solutions is to bust the dam and put a section of pipe in the break. On the upstream side of the dam use perforated well casing. The flow through the perforations is to slow for them to detect. The beavers will quickly bury the tube through the dam.
Kinda quiet lately, Mother Cat is coming today to have a look at my machine, my machine is throwing a Articulation fault code, when this happens I loose all my Hyds in my mouldboard and Articulation, have to shut down the machine and turn master switch off to reset, also the return to center for the Articulation is acting up some times, won't center, not sure if anyone has had this problem happen before, our New Cat backhoe is having issues also, Cat will have a bust day, other then that my roads are staying good, just touching them up here and there, has been really wet this summer hard to get any ditching done, ditches are staying soft
Our stretch of road is paved. Base and seal. My volvo has been parked for a week on the next fine grade job as I use my Mauldin to prepare paved driveway tie ins, and shoulder. It's in a village. There are over 300 driveways/ parking lots to be tied into the new road. 87 are paved. They did wide paved shoulders, and put manholes along the edge of the road, so that is a nightmare to try and grade past when shouldering They raised the road up so high when they widened it, some people are getting their whole driveway paved. One old fella got 60 tons of asphalt. Never cost him a cent. Meanwhile the next job has been pulverized, and graveled for about 3 weeks, so I can just imagine how hard it is packed for fine grading. On the plus side, it seems the sub company did a better job on this one. Didn't see any 8 inch cuts in the gravel this time.
Well Mother Cat came and looked at my machine, he looked into the Articulation fault code and looked it up on Cats list of fixes, there is no known fix at this time for this code, if the machine articulates more then 30% without a command this code is thrown, so I will have to live with it till they find a fix, they also replaced my articulating angle sensor where that was having a issue also, machine was returning back over center when you pressed the return to center button, starting to get some glitches with my new 150 Awd, oh yes my rear camera was having a issue with loosing the rear video to a blue screen, they replaced the cable, hopefully these are the only issues I have.
Is it normal for the articulation to wander a little bit? Not registering a code till 30% seems like a lot. Does Cat use pins or have a way to lock the articulation straight so it can't move at all (like if the articulation was acting up)?
Some machines will wander a bit but has more to do with your bushings being wore on the articulation rams, yes they have a locking pin to keep them pinned straight, mine does not wander but the ecm thinks it is that's why I get the code every now and than, that's the glitch i'm having, there is another new 150 grader in the province that is having the same problem according to the Cat mech, not sure what Cat will come up with for a fix, seems I have to wait it out, hope it doesn't become worst
It's actually law here in NB that an articulating machine have the safety pin or bar in when floating them (no one does it). Our float man asked me once how I always get the grader on the float so straight every time. I always have my lower mirrors set to see the bottom of my front drives, handy when working around grade stakes so you don't run them over. I run the front wheels up, and when I see my back tires at the edge of the ramp, I use the articulation to square her up. I have a bad habit of never centering the rear wheels. Probably why he can never get it to line up himself.
Cat is suppose to be back today to finish replacing the final piece of the wiring harness for my rear camera, he may have some more info on how to deal with this code, we are going to have another rain flooding/washout event in the next day or so for here, 4-6 inchs of rain to fall in a short period won't be good, more road repairs.
My mistake, its 3% movement not 30% without a command from the joy stick to throw the articulation fault code, so that's not very much, machine has not done it sense we changed the articulation return to center sensor.
Moved on to second fine grading job. Last one is all done, just waiting for them to come paint the lines, then the signs can be pulled. This one is a bit longer, but no paved shoulders. Subbed out to the same company as the last one for pulverizing, and placing the gravel. They did a better job this time around, and so far, not a whole lot of cuts. This road was opened up on the 24th of July, so with all the rain, and traffic, it is pothole city. As per every other job, I scarify out the potholes every section before we string line. Can't go too deep as most areas have only 2 to 3 inches of gravel over the pulverized material. I have the useless mid mount scarifier, like 5 feet wide, can't even get to the stakes. Of course all this does is replace the potholes with teeth marks. Never an issue before, and then she came along. A little over 2KM ready for asphalt, they started paving base today. She does not like the teeth marks, and will not let them pave any further until they are gone. Last night I scarrified 200 meters, graded it off and re laid it. Brought up all kinds of crap. Asphalt inspector said, don't worry about her, pave it. So she comes today. Spent the last 3 hours of the day trying to cut the material out without using the scarrifier. Only got 250 meters from where they stopped paving today. My new stinger blades are supposed to be here tomorrow afternoon.
The weather here is hot today, hoping my roads will dry out, but rain in the forecast for Monday, and to add misery to the pot we may be looking at a cat 5 hurricane next Friday to hit us dead on, sure hope it goes out to sea, lots can happen between now and then, Monday they will have a better forecast on Hurricane Lee's direction, hoping for the best
My new blades are at the shop. $5700, and replacement teeth are $25 each.. Not bad if they work well. A local contractor that has maintained logging roads for years has them on his fleet of graders. He says for what we do, it should last a long time if maintained. He says his operators carry an old style oil can with fuel in it, and put a couple drops in the hole on each tooth every night. Keeps the from rusting, and they stay free.
Those blades is all I use year round, I would recommend you hard surface the back of them along the holder bar and on the ends, there are stinger blades that will come that way but I am running the bottom of the barrel for stinger blades, the DOT buy's only the cheapest, so hard surfacing the rear and ends makes them last alot longer, I use a litre jug of tranny fluid with a small hole drilled in the cap to lube the bits, just run a bead along the top of the holding bar so the oil soaks in the holes, dust doesn't seem to stick to tranny fluid, works well
These are from LSW wear parts, so I'm guessing Sandvik? I've seen hard surfacing on the front face as well on some. Hoping it helps as I have been asking for them all summer.
The first thing you notice is how they alway's stay straight, not like the straight wear blades of the past,this really play's a part when you are spreading, also not having to change them every couple of day's cutting hard surfaces, takes a bit to get use to, blade angle is your friend also do not be to aggressive with them, again it takes a bit to get use to them, once you get it figured out you will love them.
I'm guessing it will be hard to get used to fine grading with them, I was almost 5 hours Friday cutting off enough gravel to get through the scarifier marks, and re laying it on 500 meters with the regular cutting edge. I did 200 the other night with my mid mount scarifier, going full depth, but it brought up the pulverized material and they didn't like that. I've got about 3km left to string line ahead of the pavers. They are about 1500 meters behind me.
Any roads left in Nova Scotia? We got a lot of rain, but not much wind. The road job I am on is on the coast right by a major marina. They hauled a lot of lobster boats out of the water Friday just in case.
We lucked out here in the Eastern part of the province, more like a fall storm then a hurricane, very little damage in my area, power was out of course for a day, western part got more of a impact with downed power lines and trees on the road and some coastal damage, most roads held up though, this hurricane could have been a lot worst, it isn't over yet for hurricanes in this region
So my new blades did job. Not sure what brand they are. They have a rough face the bits have a plastic retainer that hold the steel ring closed until they are in, and there is a small plate with a lock nut on top. They are what Irving buys for their woodlands devision. I bought a little parts cleaner sprayer, and put fuel in it. Spray the tops every night. The outside tooth on each end is wearing odd. One even has a flat spot. The carbide is fine, but the part above it is flat in one spot. Could it be from pressure from front and side maybe. I see sandvic has corner edges, wonder if these do as well
There's a good chance your stinger bit is not rotating, that's why the flat spot, they will do that, I sometimes move them around a bit which helps but you will get that with the stinger bits alot, if they get to bad just replace the bit, takes a while for them to wear down though before replacement
Well guy's its that time of the year again, have been quiet for abit, now I am full swing into grading again, removed my tower and wing last week and I'm concentrating on my graveled roads first off the line, the none gravel roads would turn to nothing but mud if I graded them up now, usually wait till end of April to start them if we get some good drying days, snow is all but gone now, had a bit last week but nothing serious couple of inches, So what's everyone up to?
I believe spring has sprung here also now have all my wings off getting blades ready to start spring work going to start discing shoulders middle of this week about to get really busy trying out some new edges there a sharq carbide serrated edges I like that I don’t have to rotate them and can still switch to a solid blade pretty quick going to see how I like these compared to my double carbide edges and stinger bits here are a few pictures of them
Do the keepers interfere with the rolling and sliding of material across the moldboard?
They do build up with a little bit of material but nothing that bothers you while grading never had it become an issue and I’ve been grading some really sticky wet high clay gravel with no issues.
Some operators in our sister shops have used them, and like them, but I never seen them used with 3 blades sandwiched together like you have, we just used 1 blade, but yours looks a bit different, the ones we use look more like a screen that you can flip them as they wear using the same wedge type holders, same Sharq company just different style blades, How do they wear and do they last long?
I gotcha your talking about the thinner p300 edge from sharq I’ve used them also they work good but have to rotate them a lot to keep straight these edges I have won’t have to rotate very often since carbide I run a 16ft moldboard so I use four 4ft edges to make 16 and so far I got about 200 hours on the set and there holding up very well and that’s been doing a little bit of everything so I’m interested to see how many hours I get on them will keep everyone updated.
we were right down to nothing, and then got almost 3 feet one storm, and about 16 inches on the weekend. It went up to 18 Canadian, or 64 and a half F just before the eclipse yesterday, and warm today. Lots of melting going on.
Yes I heard you guy's got hit hard, zero snow here now, backroads are drying up nicely, A inch of rain coming Friday though
Still plenty of snow here. Muddy at home, been in the 30s, low 40s during the day, 20s at night. Hasn't been above freezing yet at work. -20* right now, -38* with the wind.
We are starting to do shoulder recovery on our pave roads next week, we usually do about a weeks worth every year, our system works good and we usually do about 60kms or 40 miles a day.
Just like that, all that snow we had is gone. I plowed snow off an access road for the city with a dozer on Tuesday. They were trying to find a water leak. A lot of sleds travel that way, so it was packed down hard. Yesterday, it rained hard all day. last night was mild and foggy. Drove by the road this morning, and the windrow from plowing off the road is almost gone. It's shorts weather out there now. Not sure if the world is ready for my white legs.
LOL
Man this has been a weird year, feels like we're on our 4th spring freeze thaw cycle in the last 6 months. We've made a round on our roads and things dried out, just got some rain and it seems like a whole new round of frost coming out. It is still April I guess, no matter how nice its been. Spoke with one of the foresters I do work for today trying to gauge what kind of shape things are in over in that unit and I got "Oh yeah, they're torn to pieces". Sounds like job security for the next month or so lol.
The weather has been rainy here this April, While I'm grading up my well graveled roads I am only fixing the pot holes and bad spots on my not so graveled/mud roads for now until we get some hotter and nicer dry weather, they would only go to mud if I graded them up in this rainy weather in April
The weather has also been weird here also have a week of 70 then rain 45 mph wind and 50 degree temperatures with getting below freezing at night. I’ve been discing shoulders got everything disc now to start pulling them in we just had 2 inches of rain so be a bit before I start pulling edges in.
We are getting ready to pull the shoulders in on our pave roads first of next week, we have the same disc's but on a loader
Today was the last day of our plowing contracts for the season, so they have been taking the winter tires off the loaders, and pulling the ones at the malls back to the shop. Soon the sweeping will start, and as long as it stays dry, I'll be starting driveway prep on May 6. My Mauldin grader has an issue with the oil pan, but Cummins says it warranty, so it will be headed to the dealer. A new pan is a month out, so I will be starting with my old Mauldin. Not a big deal, I kind of miss her anyway. I'm sure there will be a few lanes to grade coming up, but there is only one road gravel job on the list, and there is no telling if we will even be lowest bid when it comes out. They dropped my work truck off at the tire shop to get the winter tires off, and when I went to pick it up...... they put my white letters on the inside....who does that????? Seriously?
Thought I would share this with everyone I’m lucky to have the opportunity too go up to North Dakota and be an instructor and host a shoulder pulling class for them here our the details if anyone in North Dakota is interested
Best of luck, there lucky to have you.
You really need to do one of those for MN/DOT.
Not really grader stuff, not for a while anyway. It's a new community wellness center. Couple indoor pools, a gym and a hockey rink. Just to give perspective, the lower grey pile is 20,000 metric tons of of 3 inch minus from our quarry. The lower brown pile is sandstone from the excavation of the building site, and that ditch. There are 2 350 linkbelts. One is inside the rink, and the other is probably just outside the wall. This shot does not do that pile of shale justice. The area between where the equipment is parked in the corner, and the Walmart in the back ground is the future site of a Kents building supply. We were lowest bidder on that, but all the bids were over the engineers estimate, so it has been put on hold. The walmart has given us the contract to re do the parking lot. Lots of work.
Well to say I’ve been busy is an understatement had lots of rain and lots of grader training finally got all my disc material pulled in and working in to the road here are some pictures of what I’ve been doing.first pictures are of the shoulder pulling class I did I North Dakota.
Here are what my roads look like after pulling in the disc material.
Nice, I find new trainee's can become quickly over whelmed learning how to operate a grader, so I learn their learning curve so they will understand what your showing them alot better, nice job!!
we had our 140m go down today, rear tandem on the left, as far as we can figure broken cog, this happened just over a year ago on the rear right tandem on this machine, we had a lot of trouble with this machine over the years, not sure why this happened again.
I’ve been pulling shoulders on my 4 miles I do every year have the blade a tractor with 3 point rotor tiller and a water truck here are a few pictures of finished product
No sign of Ovrszd. Last seen on March 1
This is a stretch of logging road that has never been ditched in the 13 years I've worked there. It's a short but steep hill and is constantly pumping with truck traffic when it's wet so I took it upon myself to do the job. It's in a cut on both sides. The other side has trees right to the ditch but I was able to push the ditch back and this side had enough room between the trees I could lift the spoils. Then I mixed the little bit of dirt in for binder. Curious to see how it does in the wet season now.
He has been really quiet, hope he's alright
Nice job!! When I am doing back sloping I put my pin in the second hole from the end on the pin gauge so the blade will lay closer to the ground for back sloping, the last hole will limited you from doing that, but it all depends if you have the room to put the back slope lower, I shift the pin back and forth depending on the terrain, thanks for sharing
I'd love to be able to make proper V-ditches but there never is any room. Between stumps, rocks, trees and the bank, the most you can usually do is stick your front tire in the ditch, put the toe of the blade behind it at as steep an angle as possible and pull it onto the road, if it's dry, that is. If it's wet then it's just stay up on the road, stick the blade down there as best you can and do what you can to make the water run without making a muddy mess.
Yes sometimes you can only do what you can with what you got, good ditching spots are hard to find in my area with so many wet spots but every now and then I get lucky
Well I’ve been very busy lately we had a monsoon of rain in fact 12 inches in 48hrs lots of flood damage finally got most of my roads fixed up so there passable I still have a few washed out roads will attach pictures I’ve also been working on getting my roads I pulled shoulders on graveled put down 3 inches that’s 100 27ton side dump loads a mile will attach pictures of that also.
Here are pictures of my gravel project
What is the road leveler on the front, just for scarifying the surface? It doesn't look like it would handle heavy pushing.
I mainly use it to cut washboards out with it keeps my front end from bouncing I also use it to push dumped material out so I can use my moldboard I use it way more then you’d imagine and it’s very well built one of the heavier made ones I have.
Nice work buddy
I carry a front dozer blade all the time. As you said, it's surprising how much you will use one if you got it.
In regards to Cat 140M AWD's road damage pics. It's been 18 months since I've had any serious road damage from heavy rain. Way over due. Great pics. In regards to Cat 140M AWD's gravel restoration pics. I get 65T per mile of crushed limestone once a year. I can only dream of having that much surface material to work with. Great pics!!!
New Brunswick changed their spec for pulverizing the roads. They have added a sheep's foot roller behind the pulverizer. Our super, used to work for Northern says they use them in Nova Scotia. Do you do any pulverizing for your district, and if so do you use the sheep's foot. All I can see are the potholes it creates afterwards. After it's graded and rolled, I can see the little pad marks. We have been getting a lot of rain, and I bet the pot hole pattern matches the drum perfectly. And of course, I can't lay gravel over potholes, so I am constantly cutting them out ahead of the trucks, between the grade stakes.
Sounds like it's counter productive.
Did the rain float that culvert down into the pasture? Also, nice of the farmer to lend his roller to barricade the road. I'm pretty blessed where I'm at, Barry County just got named best County roads in Michigan. BCRC stays busy all year long with maintaining the roads and it shows.
It might be fine in a regular situation, but the road I'm on has 18 inches of asphalt in places, so the pulverized material is almost asphalt again after it's rolled. It's a white hat at a desk with too much on his hands. It still astounds me that they want to disrupt a solid 18 inch base, and put a skim of gravel, and 4 inches of asphalt over it.
Yes the all the water floated the pipe and washed it out had a crazy amount of water.
re the padfoot marks all the stabilizing jobs ive done with build group in south west victoria we pad foot till the roller stands up and then cut off the pad marks and lose the windrow over the road using a smooth drum and multi roller .all of these jobs have to pass strict compaction tests.the stabilzing product is either cement, lime or a mixture . if done right the marks will not show up again
what kind of material is it? The area we are doing, it's half paved now, but it had 18 inches or more asphalt. In a normal situation, the pulverizer must dig at least 4 inches below the asphalt. The 4 inches of crushed material tends mixes with the asphalt make the material workable. In this situation, the material is more like a RAP, once it is compacted, it is almost ungradable, and after water and traffic, it is more like asphalt. That material is then staked and covered with a crushed base. It used to be an inch and a quarter minus, but this job is using a three quarter inch minus. The entire job has been covered with the crushed material. I have fine graded 2500 meters, and they have paved 1400 meters of that. I have around 850 meters left to string grade. We have never had any issues with compaction in the pulverized material, are the crushed. The pad foot is a new addition. I have only ever used a padfoot on a job with clay. These jobs are actually trying to get rid of soil cement that was used years ago, so there is nothing added.
It makes sense ground up asphalt would compact good. Do they add any liquid (tar) at some point with the pulverizing?
the roads are usually existing crushed rock or scoria and depending on the depth of the box out there could be some clay . the roads i work on are made of crushed rock and emulsion sealed. at 4 inches deep i cant see the need for a padfoot .we used to pulverize out of shape/rough back roads on a local shire to a depth of 100mm/4 inches and use a padfoot and finish with a smoothie but after 3 seasons we used the smoothie only achieving the same compaction .our local city council has a road where they didnt shave off the pad marks and with in 12 mths you could feel the vibration when driving over it. they may change their ways if this happens
Padfoot seems dumb on a recycled semi asphalt type road.
The norm here, on highways is a sandstone base. Lots of it around. 2 9 inch lifts of 3 inch minus, and a 6 inch lift of 1 1/4 minus covered by 2, 2 inch lifts of a base type asphalt, and an inch and a half lift of seal type asphalt. Some older roads have up to ten inches. These highways, get 2 inches milled off the top, and a single lift of base, and a seal lift. Secondary roads are milled usually 2 inches, enough for shoulder material, and the rest is pulverized. Most times you are talkin 3 or 4 inches of asphalt remaining, and pulverizing to 4 inches below that, so 7 or 8 inches. Makes for a good workable material before you add new gravel. The section of road I am on now, this is probably the 8th time I've done this in different sections. First time with the padfoot. There has been soil cement and thick asphalt, but this job, and last years were the first with so much asphalt. Hardly any fines to mix into the asphalt. If the sheepsfoot were to roll too much, I would never be able to cut the material. There is one more section to be called, and then we'll be in the ocean. It's funny that as Canadians, a lot of us talk thickness in feet and inches, and length in meters. As they say, America's neighbours are on the fence about measurement. A fence that is 6 feet high, and 10 meters long.
with measurement we are the same us older guys lift the pavement a couple of inches and shave off 15 mm. back in the day when metric was introduced in australia iwas a roller driver the old grader driver didnt want to know about metric ,i was stringlineing and giving hand signals one finger 10mm two 20 mm ect thumb up or down and he kept cutting too heavy so turn around and push it back in. he started roaring and yelling at me then we realised im talking metric and he's cutting inches.
I still do the conversion in my head. I have a standard rod in my truck for taking shots when doing private work. Most of the government people are metric. When I ask how thick the base will be so I can cut out the joint, and he says 100 mills, I think 4 inches. My 14 foot moldboard is 4.2 meters. But the job is staked at 25 meter sections for placing gravel, and 12.5 meters for fine grading. I'm 52, but I know a lot of older guys that use all metric, and to tell the truth, I have started using a metric tape measure when wood working because the math is easier than having to deal with fractions
Haven’t posted in a while, been busy, been pulling some rocks out of my roads for a while now, this one was causing havoc when iceblading, glad it’s gone View attachment IMG_0370.jpeg
How does a rock that big end up in a road? Holy moly!
My roads are littered with them in my area, this one caused a lot of problems in the winter time iceblading and plowing, this is just one of many I pulled this year, has made a huge difference in the roads
Looks like you found a nice one lol I have rocks like that also in my roads I went around with a backhoe and dug lot of the bad ones out spent a week and ended up hauling 5 dump truck loads of rock away definitely needed to be done definitely saving my carbide edges now not banging into rocks anymore.
I’ve been getting all my roads ready for winter getting rid of my maintenance windrow and everything in shape for freeze up going to be starting dirt work this coming week have 5 half miles of back sloping fence lines and cleaning out the ditches been catching some awesome sunsets here are a few pictures also with daylight savings time and getting to work with the lights on I love the led lights on my new 150’s I highly recommend them
Nice pics, been doing the same with my roads, prepping for the winter, my fall pre winter grade is done now other then some touch ups, hoping to start putting on some plow gear soon, got 6 new mich snow plus tires to go on this year, 36000 kms or 30,000 miles on the factory set, 6500 miles in reverse showing on the meter.
Well I think spring is here I’ve started discing shoulders in one township can definitely say this is the earliest I’ve ever started discing got 4 more townships to disc going to be doing that the next week or two here are a few pictures of the disc and put my stinger bits on the sharq system they work great for working up the material I disc.
Does the disk circuit or front lift have float?
How long does the gauge wheel on the disc last? Seems pretty small for the weight of the disc.
My gravel hauler will start applying my annual allocation of gravel this week. He has a ten wheeler with a pup. Hauls 27Ton per load. Will haul 3,200 Ton on my Township. Will take him five weeks or so depending on weather. In regards to early Spring. My large farmer neighbor started planting the 18th of March. That's ten days ahead of normal.
Not to get into Mark's business but, the front lift group has float. Not sure if he uses it though.
The lift group has float don’t use it though the lift cylinder on the disc has an area that it floats so to control the depth of the outside disc you simply push down on lift group to raise or pick up to lower very easy here is a video I did explaining how to use the front mount disc.
There are shims you can take out to compensate for the disc blade wear as far as the wheel I’ve never seen one have to be replaced it carries the disc great it will sink in if it’s really soft but generally shouldn’t be discing if it’s them kind of conditions.
Over the years I've dug up a couple that large. Mine are more likely to be basketball size and smaller. Last month I ran my roads with the Sandvik rotating bit blades on. Broke the tip off two from hitting rocks......
Still winter here. Hasn't been above 0* much yet. -15* right now at 0600. Still another month before it starts melting.
I always enjoy hearing and seeing other operator's issues they face. Conditions vary sooooo much. Here in Missouri our State is split by the Glacier Drift line. Here in Northern Missouri we fight glacier drift deposits. Usually red granite. In Southern Missouri they fight limestone ledges. As to how they get in a roadbed. Glacier Drift rocks might be buried 100s of feet below the surface originally. Mother Earth is squeezing them to the surface constantly. I'm always aware of them. First time I clip one while grading I back up and dig it out of the roadbed. Never know what you will find. Last thing you want to do is find it when the roadbed is frozen. The first pic is of rocks I've found in roadbeds over the years. My Wife loves rocks. The second pic is the biggest rock I've ever found. Found it digging a pond. It's approximately five feet tall.
If I was to come and prepare your driveway for paving, I would paint out the shape you were quoted. I always do a foot wider than the asphalt so you get a 6 inch shoulder. I would cut out the grass with my small grader and haul it away. Then I would scarify the entire area to make sure there are no big rocks close to the surface that would push up with the frost. I have found a few excavator required rocks over the years
The glacial extent crossed the current channels of both the Kansas and Wakarusa Rivers in my county. This was the furthest south the glaciers went in Kansas. There's Sioux Quartzite in the glaciated areas, but 99% of the rocks aren't bigger than a basketball. Further west, but still along the extent there's plenty of larger rock. Maybe the big ones are all buried under the Waky mud. Like you said, everywhere the glaciers didn't go there's ledge rock.
Here's another Glacier "story". In the 70s we didn't have any Pheasants in Northern Missouri. Go 30 miles north into Iowa and they were plentiful. Missouri Department of Conservation decided to do something about that. Tens of Thousands, if not Hundreds of Thousands of Pheasants were raised in captivity and then released in all of the Northern Counties here in Missouri. I felt sorry for them. They were stupid and wouldn't even get out of the way of traffic. They were also a buffet for every predator species in the area. But they did reproduce and held their numbers for a few years then died out. The problem was they needed a "grit" produced by Glacier Drift. That grit wasn't deposited this far South. Our wild Pheasant population disappeared. But still, 30 miles North of me they are common.
Spent yesterday and part of today replacing a metal culvert that had rusted out. Dumbly didn't get any pics when the backhoe was there. Was so busy I forgot. Next Fall after crops come out I'll cut the road banks East of the culvert site and elevate the roadbed.
Finished product. Forgot to include this in the first post......
The front dozer blade must have been really nice to have for that job.
I carry it almost all the time. Especially handy when doing a culvert project. The Township bought it 25 years ago. It is a John Deere blade designed to be used on AG tractors. I removed the attaching framework and built a saddle to fit on the JD front scarifier beam. So it attaches the same way our V Plow does. Easily can be dropped and/or installed.
Great modification!
Haven't posted in a while, just been busy, like this culvert installation ovrszd did, we usually rock the end of our culverts, what a great job, thanks for sharing, i will try and put up some pics of my activities
Was helping one of the newbie operators with some ditching View attachment IMG_0952.jpeg
Here are a few more pics of my activities this season
What beautiful gravel.
Took me 20 years to get that, well welcomed lol
Just needs some moisture to keep the dust down.
we spray the roads for dust control
You guys still use calcium
We were doing a road, grind, grade and pack, in the west of the state. Me being green, in my early 20’s, they decided we needed to put liquid calcium down for compaction. Usually on state roads that meant oil. They brought in a tanker with liquid calcium and I was in the road grinder and went to hop over a ditch that the liquid calcium was running down and one boot went over the top in the liquid. The town road agent saw it and came over to me and handed me a 50 dollar bill. I asked what it was for and he told me that later tonight, I would be cutting that boot off with a knife and would need another pair of boots for the next day. We were there for 3 days, staying in a motel room because it was a 4 hour drive. Sure as crap, I was cutting those leather laces off and that boot was 2 sizes too small. I bought some Chippewaw and the next 2 days sucked breaking them in.
Shrunken gloves and boots. Lots of fun
Magnesium chloride now
They still use calcium chloride here. The gravel pit had a township road treated with CC because they are hauling sand steady on it. Huge difference, some of the road is a little soft but other parts are almost like asphalt.
Yes the dust control really hardens up the road, roads stay good most of the summer
I rigged up a sprayer on an ATV 25 years ago and am thinking of doing it again. You can mix it yourself in a 30 gallon sprayer with a cordless drill for a mixer and a pneumatic vibratory unit.
Been awhile for me posting also been crazy busy also great pictures 20/80 I’ve been pulling shoulders rebuilding roads and putting down new gravel and been doing a fair amount of grader training here are some pictures of the last couple of months
Motor grader training in North Dakota and South Dakota
Great pics, you have been busy, how are you liking the 150AWD compared to your old one
I really like the 150 been a great machine I’m about 40 hours away from 1,000 hours on my first 150 have 500 hours on the second one I’ve been very pleased with it.
That’s good, I have just about 3500 hours on mine, and has been a good machine, a few hiccups, but nothing serious, waiting for some circle shims they are wore out, the ones under the circle, there is to much of a gap between the circle and top plate, top shims wants to push out all the time
This week I finally got to do something I've only dreamed about. I got to have a roller running behind me! I occasionally grade in an area where the roads have been neglected and previous grader guys just flat bladed everything and often times plowed good rock off the road. It's been several years since the last time and a lot of places have ruts and chuckholes galore now, the road has a lean to the downhill side and there isn't a lot of crushed rock to work with. A couple months ago I graded a stretch where I did 1.5 miles a day, scarifying where I could, pulling in rock off the shoulder and pulling up a crown. It took 10 to 12 passes to shape it up and rake out the pit run base rock and sod that came in off the shoulder. With the roller I did 1.5 miles in 5 hours in 8 passes. I figured out it works best to have him run on the berm on all but the finishing passes. I pulled the material across and tried to place it in the opposite rut and chuckholes. The roller pounded the big rock into the low areas nicely and by the time I made the finishing passes I didn't have much bigger than 3" minus to deal with which made a nice road and very little pit run kicked off into the shoulder. I'm gonna lobby hard to use the roller more in these situations because I think the savings in grader time will pay for the roller and it makes a better finished product. Plus the machine doesn't get bounced around as much on the big rocks and there's less tire slipping blading uphill.
As long as you get a good roller man The wrong guy can mess up your job in a hurry
the wrong guy can mess with your mind also.the outfit i worked for attitude is its only a roller anyone can do it,so in16 years i had 70 plus steering wheel attendants. only 2 were good, i should say outstanding,wanted to learn and a genuine interest in the job and outcome .one of them even became a good water cart driver.most of the others were concreters with nothing to do ,nothing against concreters but machines are a challenge.giddyup
I’m hopeful this was our last snow ended up with 6 inches of snow with 40 to 50mph winds so lot of drifting I plowed snow Monday and was back to blading gravel on Wednesday Monday it was negative 2 and now today it’s 84 wild weather hopefully be starting my spring work in another week here
We had a really warm winter. I only plowed about 4" for a quarter mile up the north side of a steep hill. If they would have driven a pickup on it a few times, they could have used it the next day without me.
How much practice does it take to adjust the wing on the fly to miss mailboxes and go over driveways?
It takes some time the biggest thing is timing everything and how fast the hydraulics are on the machine this Deere the wing is slower then molasses so I generally don’t lift up for mailbox’s I just swing out to miss them my cat machines the wing is quick enough I can raise up for them I also have to raise up because I have 14ft wing blade on my cats and only a 12ft on the Deere so with 14 I don’t have enough room to swing out.
The government hired our grader one winter. I was doing side roads mostly They had a truck break down so they called for me to do the main road. I was told to go full speed to throw the snow back. It's not a highway but still a main road, no manholes or anything to hit. I was cruising along full tilt. Too late I realized some guy had parked his car close to the road. Not close enough to hit but he got a hood and windshield full of snow
I hooked the ripper on my Champion up to the solenoid operated wing valve and it is really slow but at least works.
The wing on your machine would have been cable and pully. The piston moved slow but with the pully the wing would have moved s bit faster
Good morning my fellow grader operators, haven't posted in a while have had a busy winter, this is the last day of winter works in this area, most of the snow has been rained away, had about 4feet on the level this season in most area's so that kept me busy, my 150AWD has a problem now, it has fuel in the engine oil, did my pm on the machine just before winter works started, sent my oil samples to our mechanical branch so they could be sent to Cat, I noticed the oil on my dip stick seemed to be rising but just thought my old eye's were deceiving me, did mention it to our mobile but he was so busy that went right over his head, then here last week Cat contacted us and said fuel in the oil do not operate, our planner at our mechanical branch didn't send my oil samples in till last week, been running my machine hard for 3and a half months with fuel in my oil, unbelievable, not sure what the problem is, injectors or injector pump seal, i'm concerned that my bearings, cams and pistons have been scored now, has any one had this happen, and your thoughts, thanks
Depends on how much fuel was in oil. If it wasn’t an oil burner, it will be now, if it stays running. Pushing it that hard and that long, surprised you don’t have a few holes in the pistons. Doesn’t take too much diesel, to wash out engines. Would probably drop the pan and see how bad the scoring is in the mains and rods. Any idea on what the oil pressure was, when it was running?
No I didn’t know what the oil pressure was, but i noticed she’s down on power, especially on hills never had to drop a gear on these hills before now have to drop two gear to make the hill, they figured there was over 10 liters of fuel in the oil be around 3 gallons or more, not happy
They have changed the oil hoping that will fix it, lol, they are going to see if it does it again, my god where do they get these people, if our planner would have been doing her job I would have known there was fuel in the lol three and a half months ago when my machine had warranty, now it’s a grey area with no warranty, unbelievable
The young guys make fun of me for smelling the dip stick and rubbing oil between my fingers
I should have done that, never would expect a machine that’s a couple years old would do this, new gear today just don’t hold up, no matter how good you maintain it and look after it,
They make a lot of parts with Chineseium these days.
Cat does outsource a lot of parts now for there gear, especially ecms and electronics, mostly made in Poland, stamped right in the back of the ecms, my 150 has 11 on it talking to each other,
We had hardly any snow this year. Last storm was the biggest and it was gone in 3 days. We are still in drought conditions. No snow in the woods, no spring run off could be another forest fire summer. I see Israel hit a bunch of targets in Iran, and now Yemen is throwing support behind Iran and threatening more ship disruptions. I can see another price spike looming
We had about 3-4 ft here, still lots of snow in the woods, hopefully will hold of the dry conditions for a while, fuel prices will rise again, it’s about 10 bucks a gallon here for our American friends that think they are paying a lot for diesel and gas, lol
Yeah, they said the price of diesel went up 40% and is expected to go higher. I can see O/O and even companies going under because they can't up their rates enough to compensate for the increased cost of fuel. It works out to overl $7.00/gallon!