Hi eveyone I want to take the opportunity to thank all the great grader operators here for helping me in my business. Ive been running a grader on and off for about 5 years and last year I received the chance to purchase the machine id been running for years. Its an old champion 730A in great shape but I was really scared that my skills were not refined enough to make a living from grading alone. After reading and using many of the tips and tools such as a slope meter I was able to up my game in a big way. I found myself with very little competition in the Toronto area just as youve all said, theres a serious shortage of good operators everywhere. Once again thanks eveyone especially to Randy and all the very experienced guys for your wisdom thanks Danny p.s I will upload some pics over the next couple of days
Sounds like a good story man. I'm in the exact same boat as you. Only problem is i missed my chance to buy a piece of equipment i had ran. My employer sold two D8T's. And i had my eye on the one for the past 2 years to buy it. The bank took it's time and called me 20 minutes after the auction ended. It sold for $101,000 with a brand new undercarriage. Now i'm looking at buying a grader that i found on the classifieds i believe it is similar to what you purchased. Here's the only picture i have of it. The price is right on this grader, i could pay with cash. Anyways, to my main question. What kind of work are you doing? I live in the country so i have a few different opportunities then you. We have potash mines starting up around me. So hopefully i want to start early and upgrade equipment before they get building hopefully get a contract. How do you charge your customers? A flat rate for travel? Or do you charge for a minimum amount of hours?
View attachment 129512 Most of my work is regrading roads behind my customers milling macnines. I find that once the asphalt is removed usually new gravel needs to be trucked in to reestablish a proper crown before re paving. Thats why I always charge by the hour every job is different and unique thats what is like most about running a grader.
Pics
Do you drive your grader from job site to job site? Or truck it? How is your profit comparing from being self employed compared to bring employed by your previous employer?
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Alot of the time I will simply drive it from site to site. But if I do need to have it trailered I will charge between 300 -500$ depending on distances involved. It was a bit scary at first but thanks to a shortage of grader operators I soon found alot of good customers. I also own a small trucking company and sometimes I miss the steady paycheck of working for someone else. Make sure u know your market before you start a new venture.
Thanks for the pics from your work in different places, want to see more from the grader in action for example
Must have only been four people there?? You, the auctioneer, and two bidders??? Shouldn't a D8T be worth $200,000 AT LEAST?? Sounds kinda fishy.
My area there's only a handful of D8's around. No one wants something that large. These were landfill units. One sold for $97,000, and the other sold for $101,000. The person who bought one was from northern BC, and the other i don't know the location. The one i operated was the $101,000 unit. It had 19,000 hours on it. http://mcdougallbay.com/images/repo...8CB-8CDA-DE4B81F26020}/2014/th_lot636 (4).JPG there's a picture of it. Here's a video of it. http://youtu.be/VD2RZrFkodI?t=2m33s
Good gravy man. The cops should have been chasing those men down for theft, really.
Tell me about it, imagine how devastated a guy would've been wanting to buy it but waiting for the phone call from the bank...
At that price, you should have bought both, sold the other, and had a machine for free.
Plan was to buy both, so i could find another operator, or rent one out to pay for both. But the bank decides to call me 20 minutes after they both sold. They were pre emission crap units as well, a 2006 and 2005. So two of the best models. Anyways we kind of hijacked this thread from the original post! Sorry!
Dont worry about the thread. Im curious about the type of work u have in sk. Around here there isnt much new road construction its mostly re and re. If your looking at D8 s I imagine theres a lot of stripping and new roads to build. Sounds cool to play with the big iron
Around Regina there's not much for work, but if willing to travel there's tons. There's always farmers looking for work to be done, and with 3 potash mines within 30km of my farm starting up. There's going to be work like you wouldn't believe, from my experiences and other locals the mines want local contracts. Being from inside their jurisdiction of mining I know I will have at least one opportunity. They are all going to be doing solution mines. So that's a lot of drill sites. That top soil isn't going to strip itself! And with a d8 the amount of time it will take to strip a lease and reclaim it back would make it quite profitable and easy work. Easy on the machine too. Just from the people I know, I would've had work to keep myself busy for years. An RM to the north of me hired a buddy's dad to clay cap roads. I could've roughed it all in so easily he would've only needed to buff it up with his grader. And my dad's friend had a gradall and does tons of work for people he said he would've had so much work for me to do my head would spin. So it's a big loss not grabbin up those d8's. if things wouldn't have worked out I could've taken them to Edmonton put them in an auction and doubled my money.
Hi graderfan I will find some more pics and post them soon. Is that a new holland grader in your profile pic? I hear good things about them but I havent seen to many around here. I looks like a good size machine for fine work
It is an O&K Grader, New Holland has takeover later O&K Thanks for looking for pictures