I'm not sure if this is relevant or of interest, but I reckon the readers of these forum posts will have a vast collective knowledge of little tricks and wrinkles they have learned...or had passed on to them from a previous generation. Little seemingly inconsiquential things (that could make the day a little easier for others) but which they pretty much take for granted....like the old timer who told me way back the only thing I needed to remember when backing a trailer was to turn the BOTTOM of the steering wheel in the direction I wanted the trailer to go. Simple hey? Beats all those other instructions and, over the years I reckon it has saved a bit of confusion when I have passed it on to learner drivers... they sort of get it straight away. Another thing, how do you inch a clutch/brake steered power-shift? A few weeks back I watched a feller loading a Komatsu 65 onto a float (probably a lo-boy to you blokes in the US). Turned out he was pretty much a newbie, had a few hours up on stick shifts but had never driven a torque converter. He walked up the ramps okay and overcentred nice and gentle but it all went a little pear shaped when he tried to line her up. He needed to move her a tad to the left and went too far and then over corrected a time or two and the truckie (trucker) started yelling. It didn't help that I was watching and I could see he was getting flustered and embarassed but I managed to catch his eye and clambered on up there. It was an open ROPS I introduced myself and told him I'd been around a little and did he mind if I gave him a couple of pointers. He was a bit resentful at first but he knew he had a problem. He'd been trying to manouvre at low idle with the left steering clutch pulled back and his foot on the brake and then ease her into gear. That's the hard way, the transmission is either engaged or it's not and it can make for an unpredictable lurch. I showed him how it was much easier to put foot on left brake, THEN ease the transmission into gear. The engine will load up as the tractor stalls out on the converter and then it's just a matter of feathering that left steering clutch allowing the right track to pick up the slack and ease the nose across in a controllable fashion. He cottoned on real quick of course and I must say the grin and nod I got when I jumped down kind of made my day. But then again that's the way everyone does it...isn't it? That kind of thing, little trick and wrinkles youve picked up across the years.
well, the best tip i learned was to keep the blade full when trying to grade. also, the grade stake is not the enemy, don't kill the grade stake.
To be honest around here, most guys wont pass any tips on. The finish grade guys seem to be the worst about it. If you know their tricks, then you know their job. Therefore, you keep your cards close to your chest, you keep working.
Most guys won't pass along any tips because they don't know how to. They are to busy showing everyone how good they are. Also a lot of folks figure that if they had to learn those tricks the hard way everyone else should too. Very wrong but what can you do?
Yep and those are the guys who go home on my jobs i have no time for arogant moody operators. Some guy needs help or a tip to do the job at hand and don't get it. That puts me in a very bad mood cause there is no need for it
Unless they give me an attitude for my help, then i will pull up a chair and watch them fail
A little help !!! Back in the early 70's i was fresh out of the Army. The only thing i could operate was a hand shovel . The finish grade operator always would rub it in that he was top man . He was the operator. As i got better i always said that anyone could move one but could you put it to work ! I always hated looking down on the newbe i was there once. Jim
So you mean to tell me that you send home someone who can make your production numbers, because they wont show someone how to do their job?
You do have to be careful who you offer assistance to and how you go about offering it. Some folks let their pride and dignity get in the way and think you are trying to tell them they don't know how to do their job. I'm not trying to defend those who won't offer help, but possibly they've been burned by someone and don't want a repeat performance. If someone asks for help, then by all means give them the help -- don't overdo it -- but help them out.
I say just give up the knowledge you have when asked for help. It always comes back in a positive way even if it means you have to step up your own program because they learn quick! Probably the most universal tip for me was "it's all in the angle of the dangle" it works for any piece of equipment, loader hands use it when in hard digging for example, you can curl your bucket forward slightly just before it contacts the ground for better cutting ability. The rookies will set the bucket down and then try to roll it forward to cut. Dozer hands are always figuring the angle of the dangle, probably the most basic is penitrating hard soil by tilting your blade and sinking the end bit first and letting the blade pull you into the material. Rookies will try to dig hard material with the dozer square to thier intended pass. Hoe hands keep thier bucket in close when swinging uphill with a load for example while rookies have it too far away and wonder why it takes so long to get it there . . .
Great advice . . .
Must be just about time for Mr. Deas Plant to wade into this one.
Be confident at all times, if your scared of the machine it'll crucify you. You see too many people at 1/2 revs playing with kit and tickling muck about and wonder why they can't master it. Pull its lugs back and make it have some, and you'll soon be flying!!!
I used to train machinists in a shop...one of the first things I'd tell them is that I firmly believe that machines can smell fear...and if you're afraid they will bite you.
The first thing to learn is if you are spinning your tracks, all you are doing is wasting time and money time because you are not pushing product forward money because you are not going forward with the product money because wear on traction products money because of excess fuel usage now everybody get off their high horse, help out a fellow operator. I am a mechanic and i do not mind offering my advice or experience That being said, alot of operators make me money, and on the other hand, alot of them make my day alot easier.... doesn't matter if it is a dozer, excavator, wheel loader,scraper,back hoe or a skid loader
When you have finished a job, any job ,dozer or grader, especially cleaning out a drain and have got the water running and you think " I'll just do one more run/push" DON'T . Even just thinking that somehow invokes Murphys Law and you nearly always stuff it up. :yup:nono
I work with my dad whose been eart moving 50 years hes always shared how to do some thing If your willing to listen if your not hed let you fall on your face. Thats a good tip on loading a crawler Thats something dad hinted toward and I found out to use it alot. Just dont look at my post Gotlucky today lol did show anything I learned there lol. My first big job operating without working for dad or brother i was still a fairly new pup to a dozer. I had grown up on a TLB and paddle wheels and loaders. There was an older fella that that worked at a coal mixing yard and kinda was hard headed and taleked down on folks a litt.e We had a WA250 Komatsu tool carrier and were toting forms to a remote pat of the job. Hed try to back drag grass and mud off a spot with a flat bucket. Itold him it would work better if he tilted a good bit to give it bite I wened up replacing him on that and an excavator. He always dug hisself in a corner with a hoe. Also pushing a large cut he woul cut about an inch and move over a blade width each pass. He complained to my boss about me pushing a slot. But I was moving 2 times the dirt i na day with a TD15 and he was on a D7G Also topsoiling a slope ore fine grading an uphill haul road I like to start at the bottom and push up and let the wieght of the machine hold you back alittle seems to work for me and the D5 at work. I always hated breaking over a bank with a little slop in the blade and trying to push topsoil it always even in first was toos fast going downhill. Plus uphill gives a better feel if I cant work it sideways. I had a jock operator tell me I needed firing for cornering out my clay on a sunbacked clay hil lthat was an old haul road for about 10 years. A D6 couldnt cut it flat bladed and ripper tractors are few here. he Kept at it 2 hours and hadnt cut any thing off the hill I took the D5 and cornered out 10 or 12 furrows with it then got down to moist soil then could rock and roll.
Dont be afraid to ask,........ but think before you ask ........... ask the wrong person a dumb question and you will probably get a dumb answer. 9 times out of 10 if you do the following, you will avoid the previous. Keep your eyes and ears open and your mouth shut! ( I never did master that one )
I never managed to learn how to engage brain before operating mouth !!
you got two eyes you got two ears you got one mouth ergo you should look and listen to twice what you say or if you open your mouth and put your two feet in it remember you haven't a leg to stand on.
Yair...some good tips there fellers. My how things have changed...I'd love to put some of the young blokes in a cut with cable blades and scoops (pans) and rippers. It 'ud be quite entertaining I reckon. Some of you older blokes would remember that awful feeling when you didn't leave enough slack in the bowl rope and.... well I don't have to tell you. Mostly when we're working out in the sticks fitting a converter, engine or transmission a proper crane is out of the question and we have to make do with the tree pusher on the other dozer or whatever. Rather than having a dozer operator trying to operate a D8 blade control with absolute precision it's easier to lift the component with a chain-block and then the blokes on the spanners can adjust that last bees **** themselves. Even with a crane I now always use a chain block between the crane hook and the load. Off the dozer topic but this trick is realy handy when installing engines and machinery in the engine rooms of boats.
no hes a consultant in the alberta oilpatch.... they think they are above god hahaha. trust me i know, worked there many winters in my late teens and early 20's
God no the boss pretty much. I answer to the client in the end so it gets run the way I want. when i see to D8s pushing and one is doin twice the work the other is cause some old cranky operator wont take two minutes to walk over and say ok this is how we do this watch me . Or push this much that direction. I have seen operators give new guys the wrong grades. Because the new guy was already almost as good as him tell guys to knock over the wrong trees. All my point was if your not a team player on the jobsite for the money the guys up here are paid i can have a just as skilled operator who is a team player brought in to replace to bad apple And 90 percent of operators forman and supers don't have any problems with consultants unless they have a big mouth and got the skid from one a time or two
I do not go to many prepared sites. So a good rule of thumb is to always walk an area before commencing work. Example: The other day i was clearing in some woods. I had been working awhile in an area, everything was going well. Decided to move into a new area without walking it first. Drove the dozer into a hidden swampy area. Just barely caught it and got backed out before it buried itself.
I never had any personal problems with consultants when I was working in the patch, I was still wet behind my ears and kept my mouth shut. But some of the stunts those guys pulled really errked me sometimes. More arrogance and political games is all it was most of the time, Years ago, We all got run off a job because the piles on a lease were all green poplar and wouldn't burn worth a hoot. My boss just laughed when we phoned him and told him the consultant run us all off because the green poplar piles wouldn't burn like pine. He said come on home boys, lots of other jobs to do......."If he thinks we sending 3 more operators and another foreman down there for tomorrow morning he is crazy" "Hope he has fun trying to find another contractor who can come in short notice this time of year" And so we all left along with our equipment the next day and left him with a half tore apart lease to look at... and nobody to boss around! As i grow older now and realize how things work in the real world more and more, I wonder how he enjoyed explaining to his customer why the contractor left and the lease wouldn't be completed on time? Oh yea one more thing LOL, I was at the Richie Bros. Sale last week in Nisku. Bought myself a bumpersticker at the Airways "Ballet Bar"........ PLEASE GOD! Let there be another OIL BOOM! I promise not to **** it away for the SECOND TIME! Where do you suppose I should stick that one up?!?!
They have them down here in the socialist republic of California pleading for one more real estate boom