Hello, This thread will be similar to the other one I did. Our excavator is back with the new toys installed and it is like a completely new machine. I love the hydraulic quick attach, and the root rake makes short work of clearing trees. Part 1 of the job was to remove a section of an old barn yard that we think was 2 old in ground bunker silos that have grown up into trees. Also, over the last many years, stones picked of the fields have been dumped in this section so they will have to be dealt with as well. I hope you enjoy the photos and video. Pic 1&2: Got there and parked for the night. Pic 3: In my excitement to use the new rake I ripped out and piled all the trees without remember to take pics...sooooooo...here is the pile...lol Pic 4: A pic of the new rake Pic 5: with all the roots, stumps and trees gone it was time to strip the top soil. Put on the 72" clean up bucket for this.
Pic 1: part way through stripping the top soil...more there than I figured there would be. Pic 2: First time I used that bucket, not sure what to think of a SEC bucket, doesn't seem to be the heaviest bucket out there so I've been going real easy on it. Pic 3: I really do love that quick connect Pic 4: Switched to the 42" digging bucket to begin trenching Pic 5: Very hard going, in that particular area you hit rocks the size of cars about 4-5ft down.
Here are a couple videos. Switching from the rake to the digging bucket http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sWZI464Wl5A Burying stones in the trench http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FT8Fj9DuKAE Pic 1: the way things looked the next morning. Pic 2: another shot of the pile, this time from the wider side...it looks more impressive this way... Pic 3: my creative way of protecting the buckets. Pic 4: began burying the stones Pic 5: more
The "bridge" I was sitting on to fill the trench was also primarily made of stones, but had a good foot of soil on top. At this point I was starting to get worried I wouldn't have enough fill to bring the whole area up to grade so I decided to excavate the entire remaining area 3-4ft down to sift out all the stones and keep the soil. I then put the rake on and started very carefully sifting. We are going to either try and buy or have a skeleton bucket built this winter so I won't have to use the rake for this. I didn't really feel all that good about sifting stones with the rake but it did do the job well. Pic 1: Just starting Pic 2: Quite the transformation Pic 3: Still at it Pic 4: bucket of rocks Pic 5: A few hours later, only the soil remained!
Pic 1: digging bucket back on...did I mention how much I like that quick attach? HAHA. Pic 2: I just kindof thought this was a cool pose Pic 3: Time to dig another couple holes to put the sifted rock in. Pic 4: Could dig deeper here Pic 5: Still, once you got to the floor layer it got super hard. Some blue crushed stone down there too.
Pic 1: When the holes were dug I put the stones in them both and had room to spare in both places which is good as there is still more stones I have to bury yet. SIGH. Pic 2: Put the rake back on to comb the area once more and make it look all pretty and the like.
I hate rocks, Don't you? lol Nice work. hows the machine been doing?
nice looking summitomo, nice to see that you are using the safety pin and checking the correct attachment of the bucket :cool2
Use caution with the SEC bucket. If you keep it in good digging, it will be OK, but if you encounter much rock at all, you will have a severely bent new toy. The cutting edge, and the rest of it, is only mild steel, and the welding practices are suspect as well. I am speaking from the experience of haveing 2 of their buckets for my 330 Cat. Other than that, looks like a great setup for what you are doing. Nice rake.