I am building a small pond at my place. I figure I will be digging out approx 2000 yards of dirt. The dirt I am hauling roughly 1/2 mile to the back of my property to make a large shooting berm. Tools I own are 75 HP compact tracked loader, 9000lb backhoe, 16k dump trailer, 150 hp farm tractor. There are no rocks here and it is easy digging. Basically I am working in a farm field. I have been digging with the backhoe and CTL and filling up the dump trailer and hauling the dirt that way to the back. The bad thing is I can only haul about 5yds at a time on the dump trailer due to the weight. 2000 yds means 400 trips. I am contemplating renting a dozer for a week to dig the pond and get it done. It takes forever with my little machines and is hard on them. My problem then becomes how to efficiently move the dirt. A buddy was telling me they make some sort of sled that I could pull with my farm tractor to move the dirt the 1/2 mile (all dirt roads). I don't really know what he was talking about or I have never seen one. They way he described it wasn't a scraper it sounded just like a cart of sorts that could move maybe 10yds at a time.
Well depending on your timeline, I'd actually rent a bigger excavator say a volvo 160 class machine and hire someone with a dumptruck, I think a triaxle truck hauls 20 yards over the road and a few more off road. What's your budget and time line?
That's a good idea fast_st . Or possibly pick up a chisel plow for the 150 horse tractor & cross rip each floor making it much easier to load with backhoe & CTL . single shank ripper http://www.tractorhouse.com/listingsdetail/detail.aspx?OHID=8807841 Chisel plow http://www.tractorhouse.com/listingsdetail/detail.aspx?OHID=8464753 Only need 5 or 7 shanks for this type of job
Your buddy was probably talking about a tractor pulled scraper, which comes in any relevant size. I doubt that would be the quickest for a half mile haul though? Coupled with a chisel plow that might get it done for you, certainly better than using compact equipment for a big job.
The timeline is pretty flexible. We are currently working roughly one week on one week off. I am working on this on my time off. The budget is pretty open but I would like to do it as cheaply as possible and utilize what I have as much as I can. The dozer I could rent for a week was a D5 for $1700.
Good idea. I never thought of that. I actually have a chisel plow very similar to the one you linked to.
I suppose you could hunt craigslist for a used cat scraper, use it, slap some paint on it and sell it for more than what you paid for it. All depends on your soil there, I just did some digging here, only moved about 200 yards, of which 180 yards were rocks bigger than small kitchen appliances all the way to station wagon sized.
No rocks here. Never even seen one. We recently drilled a water well 150' deep and they never hit rock.
That's even better . Getter hooked up & give it a try . You will be surprised how much it helps . That's how we used to do it before we had yellow iron . Would rip through with a Ford 7000 with 7 shank chisel plow. Then load a C 60 chevy Dump truck with a Ford 4000 & Kelly loader . Moved quite a bit that way . Made grade for concrete pour's , etc. It worked back then and still will today .
Yair . . . All these things are relative, its a matter of if its time or dollars and what you are trying to achieve. Back in the days when loader attachments were becoming common on farm tractors I had an idea to make farm trailers with a quick-hitch that fitted on the three point linkage and were tipped with a hook on the bucket. The idea was that for carting a bit of dirt around a property or hauling gravel for road maintenance it was quicker than making many trips with the bucket and more convenient than running a truck and tractor/loader. The idea was you pulled into the pit drop off the trailer, load it, hook on again proceed to the dumpsite, drop it off and tip it with the bucket . . . if it was a short haul you'd drag it back to the pit in reverse. It sounds cumbersome but in fact it worked very well for the intended application. The operator never left the seat and at a couple of demonstration days I could unhook, tip the load and be hooked up again before the average old farm tip truck could hoist the body and of course if you were (say) gravelling a road you had the bucket there to knock the heaps down every trip. Anyway, they were just a spare time gig and I got sick of building them and moved onto other things. A few years later I was amazed when I was shown a dam a farmer and his son had built with one of my trailers and a Massey 65. They built it over three seasons and I figured there was a bit over three thousand yards in the embankment and the old boy reckoned it was the cheapest water in the district because all it cost him was a front tyre on the tractor and a few drums of diesel. There is more than one way to do any given job. Cheers.