Yair . . . On another thread I posed the probably pointless question as to how tank and dam construction (and earthwork in general) could be economically carried out in remote areas given that, with the demise of cable control, it is no longer common and normal to run blade, ripper and scoop (scraper) on crawler tractors. The days of the itinerant dam sinker are long gone but once they were part of the fabric of out back Australia. The plant consisted of the tractor equipped with angle blade towing the scoop, the ripper and a dog trailer for fuel and oil drums. These outfits accompanied by a vehicle towing a caravan or camp gear roamed far and wide to the furthest reaches of the inland and on several occasions I have driven up to tanks literally in the middle of nowhere and you realise that some lonely soul had been there breathing dust and running dirt out along a wide wing on a watercourse. And then you stumble across the campsite and find a set of what are probably D6 liners and some other bits and pieces . . . and there is only a set of wheel tracks to this place and its fifty miles to the station homestead and three hundred miles to town. So in this day and age how would you dig a 5000 yard excavation and construct the diversion wings to fill it in that remote and lonely place? Cheers.
Either push it out or float in a ellervated scraper like a 615 or a623 I would still like to have a go at a scoop behind a dozer and make the comparison for myself. Ime thinking that if u got a float in a dozer u won't fit a scoop on the float with it . So u gotta do a second trip anyway for the scoop u might as well bring a scraper. But then there is the cost of a scraper to buy I don't know what a scoop is worth but I recon it would b a lot cheaper. Cheap enough to leave sitting around maybe when not required where as a scraper must b kept working. How ever I can't c a scoop mixing the dirt as well as a scraper or getting the compaction a scraper does either.
I can't help but think I missed all the fun guess I'm just to young
Dont sell your self short dude. A cat and a pan cant compete with an eggbeater for the reasons that you have listed and the undercarriage and fuel cost.
Yair . . . There is probably little point to this discussion but the point I make is that even now there is nothing more versatile than a cable control setup in some situations. These days dirt is pushed when "back then" it would have been scooped for the simple reason there is no simple way to run a scoop and ripper on a hydraulic dozer. As far as I can see for all practical purposes pushing works okay . . . the only problem is there can be some long shoves to get dirt out along the wings. I have only done a couple of small holes with a Cat J621 . . . what a right royal pain in arse that was and since then I have always thought elevators in small holes are a waste of time. First off you need a dozer there anyway to clear and tidy up the site and you must be a betting man if you reckon the average operator is going to move five thousand yards and shape the banks with ever getting stuck . . . and what about a shower of rain or two? Elevators have a place but not in small puddle holes, they need a bit of space. With (say) a D6 and a matched scoop you can climb the banks and go up and down the batters any place you choose, strike a few guleys? . . . not a problem . . . a bit of rain will lay the dust for a scoop and dozer but it could stop a scraper for a while. What bought all this on was a discussion I had recently with young bloke "tank sinking" out in the Territory. The station is putting in extra water holes so the cattle have to walk five miles maximum to get a drink . . . and they are using an ex-army 6x6 Mack tipper and an oldish about a twenty ton Hitachi excavator. He works on his own. For shifting, the excavator goes on the back with the sides down on the tipper and he tows a fuel, lube and water trailer with a caravan tagged on behind. Works real good he reckons. okay for clearing, he can knock the trees and scratch the timber into piles and burn it. Okay for stripping top soil he drags it into piles and loads it out and shifts it and then starts on the digging. He works about four foot floors . . . no doors on the truck and he's rigged up a gang plank for getting in and out. At this stage he knocks the heaps down with the excavator and if there is enough moisture for compaction he rolls it with the loaded truck . . . mostly these are tanks, there is very little water against the walls. He is considering building a blade to knock the heaps down with the Mack, reckons it would help. All up the outfit cost them less than eighty grand and its been working for twelve months with very few problems . . . he's got A/C in the excavator and he reckons all that climbing in and out is keeping of the weight. So there you have it, another take on "tanksinking" in the twenty first century. What do you folks reckon? Incidentally I told him about HEF suggested he takes lots of pictures and join us over here. Cheers.
Sounds like a good place for a Kobelco Bladerunner. Then you could shape the fill and the cut as well. The dump hauling a hoe and pulling the support rig would be comparable to the old way, and pretty self sufficient. If you needed more capacity, maybe pull a pup dump. You could haul your fuel skid in it and unload it at the site to haul dirt. 2 loads for one that way. If the wings are long, that would help.
Another option might be a large(ish) wheel loader with a set of rippers on the back. Not the perfect machine for the job but still a versatile compromise. We're using one at the moment , minus rippers, to clean out dams thanks to ongoing drought. Very efficient in the right mud. Cheers, Greg
With the pice of equipment ATM you could pick up a reasonable dozer for 80k far better to prep with clear site and strip. Wouldn't you b better of pushing out the core rip floor and push out I don't understand why people think u can't move dirt a bit of distance with a dozer with su blades combined with using a slot properly why not push out wings stack back in the slot and iron out every meter or so. I reckon i could do it cheaper and quicker so long as the dirt in the hole is good if u had to start doing the borrow pit thing the game would change
Hey Jerry wats a pup dump I probebly have a different name for it. As Qld says a 950 would b a great way to go if you got the right person on it.
I was thinking along those lines but with a track loader and multi-purpose bucket.
I thought drots were dead and gorne. Hey Scrub I can't healp but think of a scoop behind a dozer with ellervaters on it
\ Just a dump trailer to pull behind the truck. Nothing special. I am sure you call them something else, I just don't know what it would be.
Oh ok we call em tippers
Yair . . . Lots of ideas there. To be honest, when he first started telling me about the excavator/tip-truck thing I though it was a bit of a wank, but, as he says, everything is working easy and they have done the exercise and considered a dozer but believe their present set up more versatile with lower fuel and repair costs. They have a Deere grader for firebreaks and roads and fence-lines and I can see the merit in what to me is an odd ball set up. I agree with Cam85 that a bit of long pushing is no big deal if it is set up properly with a decent slot. I always find it interesting to see how other folks deal with situations. Incidentally it used to be that dozers were sometimes shifted on a float with the scoop tagged on behind . . . as long as you could get the front wheels on the beaver tail. It was mostly dirt roads of course and seldom would you see much more than 30MPH. Cheers.
Or dogs, super dogs, quad dogs, pigs, stags and maybe a couple of others as well.
Yes Qld is right but I wasn't going to go into how manny tires a trailer has and confuse the situation. Thanks Scrub I have done a bit of research and can c the the value in a scoop, I rang my old boss at flower's and and had a good long yarn about it. He tells me u can still buy a new scoop for a dozer the advantage being u can load short and u can load uncompacted dirt where as a paddle scraper is loose dirt thus a 30% advantage and the scoop will hang up on a batter without the tail slide. However he didn't mention u could drag one behind a float now days u would get locked up 4 doing sutch a thing but if that's the case I can c the advantage and appeal. Apparently the new set ups hook on the draw bar and run on the ripper hyd. A friend of mine tells me that Bsl earthmoving in clermont has one Ime gunna ring him up and ask 4 a go at it I'll do it 4 free just 4 the experience
Many years ago I used to work for the NSW Soil Conservation Service in Australia. Back then we had Cat D5B's, a very nice machine. We did mainly farm work, contour banks and farm dams, (tanks in QLD), to stop or prevent erosion and store water. The dozers had decent rippers on the back, swivel tine custom made jobs, not the spindly rigid Cat ones. We did a lot of dams, sometimes moving over 5000 cubic metres of earth. On a big dam, especially if it involved a spring which was boggy, we would have two dozers. (One to pull you out if you got stuck as well as doze). All topsoil was saved and spread over the wall and other bare areas when finished. The Soil Conservation Service had built up a lot of knowledge of how to do earthworks in a cost effective manner. Slot dozing was mandatory and is a very efficient way to move dirt with a dozer as many have stated. The dams had to withstand the worst weather conditions and were very evenly compacted by the dozers using a very methodical construction technique where every movement had a purpose. Private contractors we compared ourselves to could not do the same quality of work at the same price. I learnt a lot from the old hands at that time and that was part of the method of maintaining high standards and competitiveness. Anyway the point is a good dozer operator, with a machine set up with rippers, can do a decent sized dam/tank very efficiently. I am not so sure whether there are many of these operators left doing ag work. There is a point where scrapers and other machines can be more efficient but if you do the maths based on a good operator & machine, a dozer is surprisingly competitive and the standard of the finished job can be truly excellent. We took pride in our work, and when there was a lot of rain went out to have a look at how the earthworks fared when they were in action. It looked pretty good to see the contour banks guiding the water with no ponding or soil movement, to see the water spill evenly across a 40 foot sill and see a dam fill before your eyes. Six months later you would return and the topsoiling had been so effective in grassing up the site that everything looked like it had been in place for years AusDave
Yair . . . AusDave . Good stuff mate. I don't think we ever had an equivalent government department in Qld that actually had machines. We did a lot of work for the Irrigation and Water Supply (IWS) but I think their mandate was design, planning and supervision. There were a some competent and dedicated folks in that department too along with the normal complement of tools. Just a word on nomenclature of earthworks. I have always taken it to be that a "tank" basically holds all the water in the excavation . . . this is very common in flat western country and gives a poor 1:1 ratio . . . very expensive but vital water. A "dam" on the other hand holds water against the wall and gives a some what better return on investment . . . an extreme case would be the Ord dam in Western Australia where it looks like they dumped a couple of wheelbarrow fulls of dirt in a gully and created an inland sea. I have never really investigated but here on the central Qld coast I am guessing most little stock and domestic water dams would be in the order of 3 to 5:1 that is to say when full they hold three to five times the cubic meters of water as dirt shifted in their construction. Often though much of the water is very shallow and the stuff that counts in a dry time is the stuff that is in the "hole" or excavation. That is one of the reasons a crawler tractor and scoop or (scraper as our American friends call them) is so effective. In that dry western country they can go deep and steep and you can bog them in and load them in just a few feet. When you are pushing dirt with the blade it is a long slog up a true 3:1 batter from the bottom of a twenty five foot hole . . . and of course motor scrapers just cannot construct that style of excavation. The dirt in the bottom floors is always the most expensive but it is no problem to a crawler tractor and scoop or (with a suitable ramp) to the tip truck and excavator method Tanks constructed by the old time tanksinkers were true works of art and all done with a 100 foot steel tape and an ordinary spirit level set up on a four gallon oil drum. Cheers.
Well First off I've never been to Australia. I do however run a small dirt operation my myself, building logging roads, house sites, ponds, and generally play in the mud. I have had a small trackloader & dozer, have a midi excavator, a ctl, a dump truck, and a td15. Now since we are going off into the boonies to do work alone, there will be little need for multiple pieces of iron, since we didn't bring multiple operators. A 5k cu yard hole would be aprox 60 yards / meters across and 3 yards / meters deep. That's the realm of a 40k pound dozer. Now Since I'm playing in the sticks alone I want my winch on the rear for sure. I don't know that I'd bring rippers. We are talking about putting in ponds in the middle of the 50k acres that the farmer owns, if its a rocky spot, we will simply go play somewhere else... If rippers were necessary I'd probably make an attachment to mount them on the c-frame like the blade does, it wouldn't interfere with the winch or take a lot of room. As for a can, from my calculations its a pretty small area for a cat and a can, I'll just blade it. Haul myself in with a sleeper cab semi, with my fuel & lube and tools on the nose of a step deck lowboy, maybe a dirtbike on the trailer as well for extra mobility & entertainment. If I couldn't bring my td-15 / cat d6 along, I'd think about a freutiger scraper dozer, but for the weight they are only marginally more effective. If you really have to have a can along... make a hitch for the can on the back of the lowboy, no one said you couldn't haul doubles...
This is a really interesting thread. A few years back we had a government-funded craze for excavating tanks (lagoons in UK-speak) and i worked on a few. Biggest one i personally worked on was 40 acres and about five metres from floor to bank top. Some were much deeper/higher. We did that one with a 15 tonne Hitachi, two Moxys, a Liebherr 631 and a Bomag landfill compactor to put the clay lining in. I've seen them done with tractors and boxes, single dozer, big excavator and fleet of wiggle wagons, there was never a consensus on which way was best here, as you'd never get the same soil on two jobs. It was rare but not unknown for one to be built by one man, one machine. A lot of companies used these lagoons as fill-in jobs between bigger jobs, and threw in what they had available.
Scrub I agree with u for the most part except a scraper can climb 3 in 1 easy and if u leave a ramp 4 your self u can do it quicker again. The tail hold's the scraper up throw the nose over the edge and drive the bowl in at the toe of the batter and load out alternatively you can throw the nose over the edge and throw again just b4 the nose hits the bottom thus u won't hit. However if u can't due to the steepness of the batter or whatever the reason u can run a figure of 8 style of loading and have 2 ejection runs on the go but that only works with a open faced dam the kind u would c around Roma or Central qld. It's a bit ugly but it is quick and efficient and I clean em up witha dozer later. However a turkey nest on the outher hand now that's a different kettle of fish a dozer or loader is the only way to do it and ill pick the dozer every time. As for there being no good operators left I disagree I don't wanna toot my horn but ur talking to one as my name suggest's Ime an 85 model that makes me 29 and I've dedicated the last decade to learning the way of dirt and timber. When everyone else is sitting there with a stick book I would b reading a book on cat gear learning how the thin is designed and learning a new way of doing things then go out and and give it a try. Combined with putting up with ironic old hard asses ( I thought they were at the time ) and learning of them and that can really try ones patience I can assure u slowly but surely over the years developing my own style. I must admit I have been lucky in way that those old fellers put up with me and somehow managed to drum the way into my somewhat thick scull. I don't care what anybody says but it takes a bit of stick to climb on that tractor every morning knowing ur gunna get a revving or 3 the first 2 years was the hardest at that point one day the boss pulled up on site to c how I was going looked around and to my surprise drove away. That evening he met me at the machine as it was idling down gave me a beer and promptly said finally ur ready to learn. I do know what u mean though there is a steadily decreasing quality of nuts behind the bolts of the industry. Regards cam.
Yair . . . Thanks to all the posters for developing this thread. Cam85 I certainly did not intend to say there were no good operators around today . . . maybe you misread? Sure a scraper can run a 3:1 but there is just no room down there . . . I haven't worked it out but even a 10,000 yard hole twenty foot deep is going to be a bit tight. stumpjumper83 raises that point about the hole size and that's the whole crux of the problem. If the client is happy with a hole three meters or ten feet or so deep all well and good and at that depth it may be viable with a motor scraper . . . for me it would still be a pain in the arse and you need another machine to clear the site and get rid of the timber. At ten feet the old time cockys (farmers) would reckon you were maybe halfway down . . . its that next ten or fifteen feet that matters. We are talking hard, hot low rainfall country. It is impossible to dig without ripping (and maybe cross ripping) and the reason for going deep is to reduce the surface area to cut down on evaporation . . . a point I think that may have been lost in the modern era. When I first started pushing out tanks it soon became obvious that a roundish shape was the go and push the bulk of the dirt out flattish and then cut the toe out of the batters and steepen up the slopes . . . the cockies didn't like the round shape it so I gave it a miss and went back conventional with a nice crease on the corners. By the miracle of the Internet I see I was forty years too early and round tanks and dams are now in fashion. Cheers.
Yeah Scrub , My favorite dirt moving crew is a dozer & motor scraper . If I was to set out for a remote 5000 yard dirt job would probably go with the 6 X 6 military style truck with dump bed pulling a tag trailer with a Cat 963 track loader . Provisions like fuel ,oil, welder/generator , oxy torch ,tools , beer , potato chips , and Fisher 404 aircraft http://www.airplane-pictures.net/type.php?p=4513 could be stowed in the dump bed for the journey . Man ..... Where is this job located ? I would like to bid on it mate !
Good point Scrub . Seems like I remember you saying on another thread annual rainfall was like 11 inches . I'm used to about 45 inches of rain each year . Totally different environment .
Yes Scrub I have to agree the deeper the hole the better and the only way to fight evaporation and it even helps with length of time between de silting. My remarks about poor operators was in response to Aussie Dave I apologise for any mix up I am sorry. I could have written my last post better. Now as 4 scrapers needing room yes they need room and yes u still need a dozer to clean the sticks of b4 u start believe it or not I had this exact same argument with the collie boys at wallambilla he wanted to float in a scraper for me for every dam I had to build it took me a fair bit for me to convince him that the dozer was still the best option due to the fact that I diddent have enough room to use the 615 but I did want it for howe's dam north of yuelbar i had a big area 35000 cubes daming a creek and working around an existing hole. The biggest dozer in the world would not have held a flame to the scraper in that aspect 2 far for a dozer and not far enough 4 trucks. So i spose it comes back to the right tool 4 the job. I recon a scoop behind a tractor would been a force to b recond with on that job That was cabbages idea anyway I still wanted to bring in the d8 I recon I could have done a fair lump of it with the dozer for less but across the mouth parallel with the wall old paddles was deffinetly the way to go
So... Scrub, whats the profile of these holes in the ground, a 1/1 side slope, and a 3/1 aproach / departure? The Egyptians used low surface area ponds way back to conserve the water. After learning more about these contraptions. I'm still siding with my 40k pound dozer, but im leaving the rippers at home, going to find a way to drag a little track drill along. Then I can clear / level it off with the dozer. Lay out my drill pattern, powder the bugger, and not have to fight with the rock. Anyone ever try that?
That's an idea stumpjumper83 . Blade mounted drill on the TD 15 . I could be wrong on this , but when Scrub Puller is talking about the need in ripping the floor first in this dry harsh environment I'm not thinking so much of rock ......... But the sun baked dry tough Adobe ground could be a challenge . It would be the equivalent of digging a pond / tank in the Mojave Desert . http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mojave_Desert Am I close Scrub ?
I wouldn't think it would be too hard to rig up a way to pull a hydraulic pan behind a dozer with a ripper mounted. I wonder why no one does it.
How long of diversion dikes would you build? I would think in country that dry they would be 4 or 5 times longer than you could efficiently push with a dozer.
I'm sure someone will inform as to why is doesn't work very well to hook the scraper that far back. I know I've read some info somewhere on here about it, something about the hitch point needs to be close to back of tractor, but I can't find it. Maybe it's hard on the scraper hitch?
Stump jumper yes mate usually the inside batter ends up 1 in 1 and the outside ends up 3 in 1 unless us start running out of dirt and then the outside ends up a bit steeper the corners are the the worst they need twice as much dirt as u think I build em proud and then chop em down and the batter through the corner is not as steep. The big secret to any dam is the core that must b done properly or it won't last. Td25 yes ur dead right u have to rip the floor to b Abel to get the blade in its just hard dirt most of the time and rippes up no trouble thus making it easy to push. Cdub the size of the bywash depends on the country surrounding u the dirt the hole the cookeys and who is building it. As far as an ineffective push length on the by wash it's not really an issue ur using the dirt out of the hole to construct it so ur pushing up and out on the bend of the wall where it meets the bywash and with and 6 it's never going to any mors than 2 blades wide at the bottom use a slot and it's suprising how quick u can build one. Remember ur not constructing the bywash from the same level as the bottom of the hole a yr only slapping in a baby core and shovin dirt in it from natural ground level. Scrub may do it different but that's how I do it. Now if filling the dam is the trouble then a contour bank is often a good way to solve the prob but that is a another job on its own and gettin of topic I don't wanna hijack scrubs thread if he wants to go there that's up to him. Scrub I hope I diddent steal ur thunder there mate
What would stop you from running drawn rippers hydraulically as well as the scoop? Still only a ten minute job to change over, just like the cable setup. Cheers, Greg
Hey Scrub just lettin u know I just got the call and Ime off again mate hooked the chain up 2 a D8L around mt coolen area I catch u when I return. If I don't make it back merry Xmas to all and stay safe. Regards cameron. Ps there is nothing like the sweet smell of sap and that first puff of diesel first thing in the morning( that would put a horn on a jellyfish at 150 yards oooh yea )
Yair . . . Gotcha Cam85 , have a good one. Don't anyone ever worry about hi-jacking a thread of mine . . . it all just a conversation and who knows where it will lead. I know what you mean , , , and I still miss the crackle of pilot motors with sun just coming up on the Gidyea . . . and the rainbows in the frost crystals looking back at the chain . . . and the smell of Gidyea cooking on the canopy right near the hot exhaust . . . . Queenslander . No reason at all that a drawn ripper couldn't be hydraulic it must be that the requirement was never there . . . I have never seen one converted except to make a blade plough. I have been searching the internet for tanksinking pictures without much luck this is one I found of my vintage. It's a bit late but I will add a couple of comments about Cam85's #31 maybe tomorrow. Cheers.
U know wat I think u can do with those cranky pilot motors aye
There seems to be a some misunderstanding about why we need rippers in Australia, on dozers and even on front end loaders. Australia is a very old country geologically. Our topsoil in most places is thin, just a few inches. Under that its tough tight clay, rotten rock, shale or some other very hard material. A dozer without rippers will not be able to cut this hard subsoil and even if it does get the edge in, you'll then spin your tracks trying to continue the cut. Rippers make earthmoving efficient and mean less wear and tear on the machine. Over here a lot of the aftermarket rippers such as those made by Standen and Milano, are a lot heavier in construction than the Cat ones and with better tyne angles for easier entry and less effort to pull. On a lot of sites the material will be ripped by a dozer before the scraper comes through and each floor will be done the same way, as the wear and tear on the scraper will be much less. As also mentioned, the rainfall in some areas we're discussing can be close to single digits, and you know how hard, dried, baked clay can be... When we see North America and Canadian farmers tiling fields to drain them and laying the tile six feet deep because there's soil all the way... Some of us in Australia can barely comprehend this AusDave
Aussie Dave no response to my ranting and raving ? Yes we need rippers in Australia more than most but that's not why dozers have rippers. Do u know why if not here is one example. Ask your self how a cat blade is designed and this goes right back to cable blades whether it's a straight blade a bull blade or an su blade is irrelevant. A cat blade is designed by nature to ride up when full hense why the break out line carried back is so dam important the fill and shift designe is what makes a cat so efficient. The blade is not designed to cut or chisel when u do this the machiene will roll back on its rear idlers and the continuation of this style of abuse will result in short track chain life and premature failure of idlers that's in a nut shell. As for aftermarket rippers why would somebody think they are smarter than cat the machiene was designed to have a certain amount or weight at the front and the rear if u change this u change the dezine of the balance and so the chariteristicks of the tractor u have to b carefull 4 every action there is a reaction u really need to know what ur doing if u intend to change the dezine and maintain good component life across the board. That's not say rafter market components are no good quite the contrary I've found Lewis rippers to b awesome but u really gotta do ur home work. With old school flat track dozers this is not so imperative but on a modern high track this absolutley 100% critical. A lot of people say that a high track machiene wear out tracks to quick people that don't understand them say that if u know how it's dezined and learn how to treat it it will actually last longer. I can hear the howls and hoots from here and can 4c the double push argument starting here. If interested look up slot dozing on this forum and scrub and I have covered that in that thread. This can b summarized in the age old saying spend and hour ripping save lots of time chiseling and save the where and tear on the tractor and give ur self a better ride. I've seen blokes in so called soft soil that reckon ripping is a wast of time u might as we'll take to the tractor witha wrecking ball and get it over with. The only time I can think of when ripping is not necessary is when spreading material dumped off a tipper or cleaning out a dam ( Whitch is hell on the tractor and requires a lot patience from the operator) If I caught someone not ripping on my tractor there would b the devil to pay I can assure u. He'll I've been known to rip between the rip and cross rip between the rip again ripping has and always will b the key to effective earthworks end of story. Anyone not doing this should b shot no ifs no buts. As far as rippers on loaders goes only a truly twisted person who hates his loader with a passion that evades me would do this u might as well set the loader on fire and dance around it like a possessed maniac Ime so gob smacked I don't even know where to start on wats wrong with that idea. That's so far removed from how a loader is designed to work and where the load and weight is supposed to b placed the only thing I can say is wow really really wow Ime not going in to detail I'll get to worked up just don't do it full stop.....
Yair . . . Apart from being rude about pilot (pony) motors Cam85 makes his thoughts clear about ripping and AusDave explains the situation about our soil conditions . . . I think it was td25c who rightly compared our conditions to the Mojave desert. I have said it before on here that just because you can cut and roll material with the blade it doesn't mean that (if you want maximum production and life from your machine) that you should . Over and over for the past fifty years I have proven that time spent ripping is seldom wasted. Hell, I even rip the topsoil at the start of an excavation. This stuffing around peeling layers of wet clay and "getting a good boil going" gets right up my nose. I say again . . . a dozer on bulk excavation should be taking cuts the full depth of the rip. I realise there is dirt that is like plasticine where ripping is pointless but in Australia and the Pacific region I have yet to find it and at this stage of my career I don't think I ever will. A couple of points on small dam construction. With a dozer I have never used a cut off or core trench. It is just too awkward on a small hole with a big machine. (I believe) one of the main problems with wall failure and dams leaking is lack of moisture to achieve compaction as the wall is built. Many times I have suggested to clients that they hire in a water truck particularly when I'm putting on the lining . . . for that is what I do. Rather than a core trench I set aside a good reserve of good material and try and apply a couple of feet across the inside of the wall. Usually this will be the deepest/moistest material so it mostly works out okay. Here in Miriam Vale in the sand belt the banks are often pure white sand lined with a thin (often less than a foot) of clay that lies on top of the deco-granite . . . which in itself works fairly well as a liner if it rips and breaks up nice and fine. Cheers.
Hey Srub was only looked 4 a bite about the pilot motors rude was not my intention sorry mate I had a big grin on my dial as I wrote that. Actually 4 a station tractor that sits around most of the time a pilot motor can b better no battery's to go flat. My first experience with pilot motors was on grandpas old 1954 D4 model 5u at aprox age 10 I wasn't strong enough to pull the rope so he had to rig up an electric motor and a v belt 4 me with an Anderson plug on the Toyota so I could get the old thing going it diddent take long to work out they flood easy. U take the spark plugs out u put em in u take em out then u put em back in again then u take em out again u put em back in hive her a good squirt or aerostat and pull ur guts out a bit more....... Ha ha ha ha ha... Big grin The thrust washers are a bit funky and the young feller stuffes it up and stales out the pilot motor and the process stars again. Good experience though I to drop the boots in topsoil. I c u have had 2 line dams as we'll it's a bitch aye bloody painfully and slow effective though.
I'm with td25c a 6x6 5 ton military dump with extended flip down sides sides for better capacity and a Cat 963 with a GP bucket. It can clear timber, push almost as well as a dozer, load the truck for extended hauls, cut dam keys, fill, compact and finish grade when done. Add a fuel/lube skid to the trailer and an over head type camper that would be loaded into the tuck bed for home away from home. Sounds like a wonderful way to spend the summer. Where do we sign up? Not familiar with the soil profile down there, do you guys cut tanks/ponds/lagoons whatever we choose to call them into rock or is it just very hard dry clay type soil. Small deep ponds with a low evaporative surface area are what I try to sell my local farmers on. No point to put a lot of ground under water that could be growing grass to graze stock on when we can put the same volume in a smaller diameter hole that wont evaporate as fast. In the end it makes financial sense all the way around. John
Yair . . . JD8875 . I reckon you blokes could be on the money for this application . . . a track loader may well be a better choice than an excavator. The down side (as I see it) on a continuous loading duty could be high track wear . . . no matter how you set the cut up the loader has to screw where the excavator just swings. . . on a yard for yard basis for fuel and maintenance how do you reckon they would they compare? Cam85 . No worries mate, I knew were stirring. In actual fact I didn't have much of an issue with pilot motors. Sure they could be temperamental but once they got to know you I found them pretty much okay . . . as you say for a machine used occasionally on a station they had their advantages. Of course it always used to be said that Caterpillar engines lasted so long because they were pre-warmed and had oil pressure up before starting . . . . Cheers.
Yea Scub once I got a bit older and stronger I diddent have any real problems with pilot motors but as a youngster I lacked the hp to pull the bloody things over fast enough to get em to fire plus as I got older I learned a thing or to about choke and learned little tricks like only opening the fuel tap just b4 ur about yo pull and closing the fuel tap and letting it run out of fuel rather than switching it of seems to healp the flooding issue and so on. As a more experienced ( now that's politically correct aye ) person did u ever have to light a fire underneath to healp pre heat. Also did u ever have a go at a crank Handel start pilot motor I've only ever seen rope pull myself but Ime told bigger tractors had a crank Handel on the side. Now I've never done this myself but my uncle tells me that international tractors had a set of plugs in the main eng to get her started on petrol and then switch over have u seen this or done it your self. My uncle is dead now and took his experience with him bloody rude I rekon stubborn old coot could have taught a bit more b4 he carked it. This is gettin of topic again but something else I would like to c but have only heard of is using a det or charge to start a tractor I don't suppose you've done it.
Hey Cam, I grew up on a TD9 and TD14 International. Monsters to run when the steering clutch levers are about as long as I was tall, the old man had the hand clutch set up so tight I could barely lock it in. The TD9 was a loader, the 14 a hydraulic dozer. The engines were hard starting, head-cracking, no torque having pieces of $#+! As you've been told, they had a carburetor on one side, injection pump on the other. The intake had a flapper connected to decompression lever to let air go through the carb. After you got it started on gas and let it warm up good, you switched it over to diesel. Towards the end, some old boy told us to switch it back to gas and let run for a while before shutting it down. Helped a little with the head cracking. Only cracked one the last two years we had it. I think they were tough tractors otherwise, never had problems with anything but the engines.
Cam , Good to hear you got some work .Sure beats sitting about .
Yeah Scrub , I was thinking like JD8875 . The 963 track loader would do most if not all the work on a 5000 yard tank job . You can also get them with a ripper for that tough sun baked clay soil in the outback . http://www.machinerytrader.com/listingsdetail/detail.aspx?OHID=10251379 In my opinion the track loader would be faster with a one man operation verses an excavator & dump truck working in that close proximity . The customer pays for fuel usage and wear & tear on the equipment .We call it " cost of doing business ". Kind of boils down to how important the job is and how fast they want it done . Now I need the plane to scope out the next job & fly back to civilization for parts and provisions . https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uU7S6x7KS88
On scoops and tanks and things... On scoops: The last modern scoops I saw for sale were at Townsville Equipment Sales around about 10 years - but maybe 15 - back. Can't remember their designation but they were a Komatsu hydraulic scoop (they had about three of them in the yard) around 20/25 yard capacity that from memory were ex Curtain Bros PNG operations. Looked like a good piece of gear to hang behind a D8, and one thing about a drawn scoop is there's not a lot to go wrong. Other then that I know where there's a couple of old 14 yard cable jobs parked up in the "would be long grass if it would ever bloody rain" around Cloncurry, and one just north of Charters Towers around the same size. I had a 6/8 yard LeTurnover scoop at one point that I converted to hydraulic for use behind one of the little dozers. LeTurnover because that little scoop was quite happy wheels up, and always looking for an excuse to be there. I hated that machine but in hindsight I should have kept it because there are times when it would still be a handy thing to have in the lineup. On Tanks: Up in the Murchison and Pilbara you see a lot of what they called "Addison pattern" dams, named after some WA govt engineer. They're a dam designed to be built by a dozer, round in shape with a 1 in 3 batter from the bottom of the pit straight through to the top of the wall. A hole that size at 30 m radius and 10 m deep carries around 10,000 cubic yards of water in the excavation. Its a shape that because of the short push nature and continuous batter is ideally suited for building with any dozer big enough to rip what has to come out of the hole. The difference between these and other round dams i've seen is that they have huge wings that allow the water to settle before entering, and the pipe through the wall goes right to the bottom of the hole so they don't start that backwash around the inlet nonsense that all round dams I've seen in QLD with their short inlet pipes have. Because its a continous batter its not designed for stock to water in the excavation due to erosion issues - rather its designed to be equipt with a mill/pump and a turkeys nest/ tank. For gully dams there's still no substitute for a dozer of D8 class or better. And for holes in the 30,000 yard plus class there aint no way to shift dirt as cheap as a couple of open bowlers with D8's to rip and push fill. To me it would seem that playing around with a digger and a truck for a one man show is pretty pointless. Do-able sure. And probably looks quite inexpensive. But if you want to measure expensive in dollars/yard to get a hole dug it wouldn't come close to any of the above for anything bigger then a puddle.
John ur an interesting bloke I agree with u on the most part except on the open bowlers being economical times have changed an ellervated scraper will crap all over em. The only time this changes is when u go to multiple twin powers but that's gotta b a big job to have them working on it.
Ianoz thanks mate. Td25 thanks mate I disagree on the drot though but Ime out of time to elaborate
Hey scrub, in my coastal country here a cutter bar is the best in that sticky clay. Pushes out so much easier in the trench than pegs.
Couple of things with a track loader, they only pull hard on the chains while filling the bucket, unless you do a long push rather than load and carry, and it's the spinning on the spot that kills tracks. Nice radius turns without locking or contra-rotation will double the life of just about everything. As for rippers on loaders, Cam, can't quite see where you're coming from there. You get the same benefits as with a dozer. If I'm ripping and the nose comes up, I fill the bucket and she sits level.
Yair . . . . There has been a bit of interest in this thread and I have been trying to find some pictures of tanksinking as I have none of my own . . . this is obviously not tanksinking but is a very good picture of a towed ripper for any one who is interested Cheers.
Awesome pic scrub, As for rippers on loaders it's plain old wrong the chassey is not designed to to Handel that kind of stress. What about the Torque converter and trannie u might as well just start feeding sand into it and get the destruction over with. Loaders are supposed to have the weight on the front that's why u lift as soon as u get the edge in and put the weight on the front. This also stopes wheel spin and promotes final drive life. The drive line on a loader is dezined to Handel 35 % loaded duty cycle but with picks in the ground this will jump to 60% That's of the top of my head so exact figures might b a bit different but u get the idea. Component life will suffer dramatically. A drot would b fine but a rubber tyre loader no way. As for cleaning out dams with a loader nothing over a 950 anything bigger is just to heavy unless it's really dry. As for getting bogged that's poor operation the idea is to take the silt and follow the hard surface down if done properly u won't get stuck its a bit of an art though Ime not good enough to it but I know a few who can. The exception to the rule is if u pump up the moisture from underneath to much and break through. If cleaning one out with a dozer u start at the side and using feel and talent peel the slop away from the edge following the hard surface all the way gradually getting closer go the center if done properly it can b done reasonably efficiently. But it's hard on the undercarriage really hard Makes me cringe just thinking about it. I depart in two hrs I'll b checking up upon my return. Cameron out
You avoiding the issue there Cam? These guys were also using a 921 Case loader. About same size as a 980. :thumbsup
Generally speaking I agree with this but you left off the little bit at the end. ... until the first big rock
As always, the nut behind the wheel plays the biggest part in the longevity of any machine. Cheers, Greg
First off, Scrub, top marks for kicking this one off. Although our way of doing lagoons is a bit different to yours, and probably involves a lot more engineers, surveyors and such like poking their noses in, which means there's less room for an operator's initiative (until it starts to go wrong). I've seen some of those towed rippers, cable and hydraulic, but never anything as big as the tooth pick in your picture. Cam, this bit about loaders (I'm assuming you mean wheeled, Cam?) being designed for 35% loaded duty cycle, could you tell us where that comes from? I'm genuinely curious about that. Generally if you see any loader, wheeled or tracked, with a ripper, it's usually no more than a glorified scarifier, which is a much lighter affair than a Cat 4-barrel or Kelley ripper, and and I would hazard a (educated) guess that pulling one through the ground a few times is a whole lot less damaging on the transmission than shoving a bucket into hard packed clay or rotten rock. Or at least that's how it seems to have worked for me in my limited experience on tracked loaders.
Yair . . . Good one ih100 it is always nice to start a discussion that creates a bit of interest. I am still looking for pictures of the "old days" and have tried to contact a few old timers who may have some old snaps in a drawer somewhere but unfortunately, in a couple of cases I was a year or two too late. Cheers.
Nice pic of the ripper there Scrub, A friend of mine has one he used to pull behind his 7s and 8s . He had all cable machines and didn't regard hydraulics very highly. I might have a pic of it around somewhere. He dug many ponds with his Old Northwest dragline and cable cats and pans.
Yair . . . I found these pics on a historical site. The tank is larger than normal station/farm tanks but style and batters are identical with all the water stored below ground level in "the hole", a flat apron or table and then, what in effect are spoil banks . . . just a place to stack the spoil. The banks were battered off smooth and level and the old tanksinkers took a great deal of pride in the finish of their work . . . legend has it that one bloke used to do a final clean up with a wheelbarrow and shovel. The point I was making is that in the "old days" this was how it was done and in these days of motor scrapers the "deep and steep" design philosophy has been compromised some what . . . those batters were no problem to a crawler tractor and scoop/scraper. Trust this old stuff I dig up continues to be of interest. Notice those tractors (TD24's?) are scoop and ripper rigs only, they are not set up for blades. Cheers.
I used to dig a 2 meg dam with a 615c in a day with 3 to1 batters
It takes real skill to get that finish scrub
Yair . . . A bit more info. That tank was built to supply 60 customers in the town of Ilfracombe in Queensland, was 100,000 cubic yards of excavation and cost 45,536 pounds in 1948. A couple of posters have posted tank and dam sizes in mega litres which seems unnecessary and confusing. I think of the excavation as being in cubic yards or meters and the water capacity of the structure in mega litres, gallons or acre feet. To me stating that a 2 meg dam was built in such and such a time at such and such a cost is meaningless. The amount of dirt excavated must be stated and the hourly rate assumptions expressed. To put it another way . . . is a 2meg dam in fact two thousand cubic yards moved in a day or did that days work construct an embankment behind which 2 mega litres of water can be stored. . . and is "a day" ten hours or some other value. I just don't understand why an extra number has crept into the equation . . . keep it simple I reckon. Cheers,
Interesting thread Scrub. You mentioned Ilfracombe, we went through there last year and if you have seen the museum there, it is incredible. There are a couple of tank sinking outfits in the museum, the only difference is, they are real scoops, not scraper/scoops.
Another early tank sinking outfit.
Now I know what you mean by a scoop. I've seen the same thing called a drag scraper, usually when it was pulled by hosses or oxen. This internet thing shows how we're separated by a common language. Like my pet machines, I'd heard them called tracked loaders, crawler loaders, traxcavators, most commonly over here Drotts (whatever make they actually are) but this "highlift" thing I'd never heard until I came on this forum. Now back to the original subject, those pictures show a level of skill and pride you don't see every day, then or now. The last lagoon I worked on was dug entirely with a Cat 235 and 325 and wiggle wagons. I can't remember whether we used a landfill compactor or a vibromax on the back of a D6H, but at the end we trimmed the batters with the 325 to about 1 in 2, with radiussed inner corners. I remember wondering while I was removing all of the bucket edge marks why I was doing it, as all being well the inside wouldn't be seen again for years, but then I suppose it's what we do
Interesting tread......always enjoy seeing how things are done in other places. I used to think I spoke English, but from the little travelling I've done I came to realize I speak "American".....different language altogether.
Yair . . . ih100. In my part of Australia "scoop" used to refer to any earthmoving jigger that was towed behind a tractor. . . these days I think we have been Americanised to some extent and they are sometimes referred to as "scrapers". The Americans seem to use "can" or "towed scraper" you folks in the UK use "box", a term I have never heard in Australia. It's all the same thing, two wheeled, four wheeled or no wheeled (i.e. tumbling tommy),if it picked up dirt, carried it and dumped it in Queensland it was a "scoop". . . a "scraper" was a self propelled motor scraper. Cheers.
This has to be one of the most interesting threads I've seen here. Good job Scrub!
Not a dozer and scoop but a dozer and scraper. International E 200 Pay Scraper. I worked for a damsinking outfit in 1970-71. They were based in Emerald QLD but had some work on a station between Mt. Isa and Camooweal. We drove the scraper up there towing a trailer.The Toyota towed the fuel tanker and the bus was also driven. About 700 miles. The 3 trailers on the trailer are the welder, generator lighting plant and the camp water tank made from 3 pairs of 44 gallon drums. The fuel tanker was supposed to be towed with the scraper too but the hitch on the trailer had a problem so the Toyota towed it. Drilling to blow some rock, not real successfull. Notice the different dirt mid left, we hit a patch of sand there so dug it out and capped it. The dozer is parked with the blade up so we could push start it. The TD18 push loading. Water, rock, sand and dust. That dam is on a small creek which is just behind the bank and tree line and there's a large pipe through the bank probably just above the scraper. That dam measured up at 32,000 yards. #8 One of our camps. The tv didn't work.
Another dam. Then it rained. I think this one was about 20,000 cu yards and was about half done when it filled up. We hired/borrowed a 4" pump from another property and pumped it out. And thats how to move camp. Scraper towing trailer, fuel tank, water trailer, welder trailer and generator trailer. The dozer would be driven cross country.
Another camp, another dam. When we set up camp here that gully/creek was dry but there was rain further up and gave us a nice swimming hole. We did have big rain there later on also. One of the blokes was married hence the caravan. Repairs in the outback, the hitch was cracking. The dog loved swimming too and he could dive out of the trees. I turned 21 at that camp. We were there about 12 months up there and when we were finished drove the scraper towing the trailer and the fuel tanker back to Emerald via Julia Creek and Charters Towers. When we went up we went Longreach, Winton way. One of the D9 scrub pulling dozers pushing out a dam somewhere else. Enjoy
And they're still there 45 years later, as they should be. A couple screen shots from google earth. The lat and long. are down the bottom if anyone wants a closer look.
Yair . . . diggerop . Bloody marvellous mate, thanks for the contribution!! I am sure there are pictures stored away in albums and drawers documenting the itinerant life of the tanksinkers and scrub pullers. The camp life is long gone now I suppose . . . last year there was a young bloke raking a few hundred acres on a block out the back of our place and he was staying at the pub. Who's D9's were those . . . Staceys perhaps? Cheers.
Diggerop... Be nice and hard that Yelvertoft country too I'd reckon. Bit more rock then Barkley or Austral (where i might have scratched a bit of dirt) from the few walls I looked at passing over the place, I can remember passing through and there was a fair lump of a loader there desilting and enlarging a hole between the house and the Barkley boundary. Can't remember exactly what it was but I think it might have been a Michigan 675 - it says a lot when you need one that size to scratch a hole with huh. . Scrub... I haven't camped in a swag beside a bulldozer for... three nights now. I still do it occasionally as a night camp, but I haven't done the extended camp thing since my kids started school 10 years back. Before that it was a swag, fly, and fireplace show anywhere between Cape York and the Tanami for 6 months of the year. Can't say I miss it really, I like that hot shower at the end of the day too much now... cold bogey just wont cut it no more. And I don't know that I liked it when I did it but... when you're young, hungry, and up to your *** in debt on the gear you go anywhere, do anything, and save dollars where you can right?
Yair . . . Gotcha john.G. . Times change and things are different now. Our camps were good though. A caravan with electric light and bunks and hot shower. Most times we even had a cook who doubled as gofer and off sider as needed . . . most of them were shearers cooks. It was pretty good for young blokes, good pay, way better than a station and, like station, all found with room and tucker . . . and no place to spend any money. (big grin) I know all about the dusty swag on the dozer thing. I did a few seismic lines with spare fuel drums on the ripper, a jerry can of petrol tasting water and a case of bully beef and case of canned peaches . . . no GPS of course they just crinkled up a rolls of aluminium foil and wrapped it around an aluminium stake flown in with a chopper and planted on the highest points of the sand ridges . . . you could see the bloody things glinting for miles. Cheers.
love the photos an info you guys are putting on, means a lot to as all ive farmed with are crawlers, d46u,d4d,d6c,d9e
Yeah Scrub, Stacey owned the D9's. He would have owned the scraper too, but his brother Neil was running that part of the show then. John, the only rock we came across was in that first dam near the homestead. From memory I think it was generally pretty reasonable digging
Which led to the terminology if one was heading for the dunny for a #2 ..... "I'm off to drop the box" .........
Yair . . . This picture explains why I believe motor scrapers cannot properly construct a deep earth tank . . . in other words the tank design of "deep and steep" is compromised to suit the machine. In most cases there is nothing wrong with that. The job may well be cheaper but, in the "old days" they didn't struggle with horse teams to make tanks this shape with out good reason. That reason is this tank could still have ten feet of water when the same amount of water in a shallow tank of larger area would have been lost to evaporation. We are talking here of country that has evaporation rates of up to 11 feet per year and rainfall of 12-14 inches I believe this 20,000 yard excavation was carried out by a couple of D4s with Britstand scoops. Cheers.
Spose you would have built a few turkey nests in your time Scrub? There was a bloke around Mundubbera years ago who had it down to a fine art. He used three old Cletrac dozers, two with scoops and a dedicated ripping tractor. Compaction is the key here, of course, and it appeared to be a painfully slow process to watch, but he rarely had a leaker. There was always a long que if you wanted Fred to build a dam or a nest. The advent of cheap fibreglass, then poly tanks have done away with the need for nests in this part of Qld.,thankfully. Their biggest problem was that evaporation,sometimes, consumed nearly as much water as the cattle. Cheers,Greg
Yair . . . Queenslander Not that many, I suppose half a dozen I can think of . . . I was in and out early when the ring tank BS started though, did a few big buggers with hired in dozers. Most districts had a "Fred". As I mentioned up thread these blokes worked with the most basic of equipment and many of them turned out fine accurate work that is surviving still today. A case in point is that tank above . . . I reckon if you layed a batter board on those slopes they would be pretty much spot on. For folks in other parts . . . A "turkeys nest" tank is small above ground earth structure for storing water that is either pumped from a bore (well) or from a tank such as shown in my #79 post. Such tanks were often fenced and a windmill erected on the bank to pump into a turkey nest which then supplied a trough for the livestock . . . I notice this is not done so much today and perfectly good dams and tanks are being silted up and damaged by sheep and cattle having access to the water. This unfortunately is often due to the parlous condition of the grazing industry in general. Poor prices and on going drought means there is a short term benefit in not having to service troughs and windmills . . . these days solar panels. As Queenslander mentions manufactured tanks have taken over . . . I believe you can buy 20,000 litre Poly tanks delivered even to remote areas for under three grand. Incidentally the "turkeys nest" nomenclature comes from the fact that, from a distance, the tanks look like the nest of a the native scrub turkey that builds huge mounds of leaves and soil to incubate its eggs. Internal view of a just completed one here Cheers.
Nice photos but i must ask how the hell did u guys find the time to take photos when ur working? Hey scrub I only passed through Gladstone yesterday was hoping to meet the legend himself are well next time.
Hey scrub pic no 79 I could build that with a 615 or 623 no trouble at all I would finish it with a dozer sure enough and would what a dozer to rip but never the less an ellervated scraper would b very efficient load down and climb out eject on wall and repeat a d8 or better would b great but u could do it with a scraper. Shimmy what issue am I avoiding ? Seriously I must have missed something. Now someone asked about duty cycle in relation to rippers on loaders I've been going through my books but don't have any Wheeled loader specific info but duty cycle in a nut shell refers to fuel burn and ( how hard a machiene is working ) Cat put a rating on components or a safe operating range if u will that tells us what we can expect from that component If we choose to break these guides expect big repair bills. Now I can c the up side of small rippers on a loader a little short rip just to loosen things up a bit to healp keep a good floor yep all good go 4 it. Where the problem comes in is when some turkey gets a head full of ideals and thinks that big rippers on loaders and ripping a big area of ground it's a great idea aye yep load the hell outa that loader give it her full boar all day yar yar cowboy all the way if u catch my drift
This is in regards to cleaning a pond with a D9, and Queenslander posts pics using an 11. That's the issue your avoiding.
Oh in regards to that well I gotta say that silt looked pretty dry to me( in terms of silt that is ) when someone says silt to me I think soup proper soup the basement looked pretty good to with the loader tramming and the dozer spreading like that yes i appear to b sucking on my foot but I think u will find that pertickuar dam is somewhat of an exception to the rule in my experience u usually find propper runny soup on a basement of stew if u know what I mean.