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why grind off a decal?

LCA078 · 2021-03-16 12:39

I saw this dozer in the local ritchie bros lot. Why would someone deliberately grind off decals? Looks pretty fresh and deliberate. I can see removing a company decal or such but why remove the model number? I guess the foreman didn't give good enough instruction on what to remove and the guy with the grinder just went to town

Replies17
  1. #1Tinkerer2021-03-16 13:56

    It may have been mislabled.

  2. #2LCA0782021-03-16 14:38

    That's funny!

  3. #3CM19952021-03-16 20:43

    You get what you pay for..

  4. #4OFF2021-03-16 23:11

    rookie mistake. Was told to take off the "decals" meaning company name/ID. Took off everything is his path.

  5. #5Tugger22021-03-16 23:32

    Kind of like the new guy that was told to grease the crane, foreman came back a crane covered in grease.

  6. #6Vetech632021-03-17 08:57

    LOL ........and used a grinder?!!! WOWZA!!!

  7. #756wrench2021-03-17 10:00

    nobody has said the person running the grinder was smart or had a clue

  8. #8BigWrench552021-03-17 14:14

    There is a wheel specifically made to remove decals for your grinder. That is probably what was used.

  9. #9Delmer2021-03-17 16:55

    Paul, I'd guess the poor operator was just following directions, and using a wire wheel on a grinder. If he had the right wheel, they'd probably be clean.

  10. #10DB22021-03-17 17:18

    Head gun and a scraper wouldn’t make such a mess. A little xylene for the reside. Not my circus though.

  11. #11Welder Dave2021-03-17 19:16

    Worked in a tank shop where they told a fairly new laborer to cut the "D" rings (temporary for moving the tank) off. Oh he cut them off but he cut into the tank trying to save them instead of just cutting them at the welds on the outside of the tank. It was at least a 400 barrel tank. One of the welders fixed it but still a pretty big mistake.

  12. #12cuttin edge2021-03-17 19:59

    Company here removes the Cat labels of all their stuff, and puts the company name on. They have a bunch of Peterbilts with the company name in the red oval. But speaking of taking things too literal, years ago on a grading job for the government. WE had finished a couple kilometers of fine grading. As we went, the grade foreman would pull the center stake and throw it off to the side. I had to go put some material on a side access road, so the foreman told the 2 young fellas with us to go back to the start of the job and pick up all the stakes as you go. At the end of the day, the government surveyor came up and was having a heated discussion with the foreman who was dumping trucks for me. He left pretty mad. When I got a chance, I asked him what happened. It seemed the boys went back, and instead of just picking up the pulled center stakes, they took everything. Shoulder stakes, off sets. control points ( this was before GPS, just a tape a can of paint, and a survey instrument.) Apparently when the surveyor came along, they had found a hammer, and were taking the Bench marks off the hydro poles. The fine grading was done, but without the shoulder stakes, or offsets, there was no way to put the center mark back down for the pavers, and the ticket man had no reference to mark the distance on the weigh slips to pay the truckers their ton mile rates.

  13. #13Walker12021-03-17 22:54

    I did some natural gas work when they were building the RB here in Phoenix. The guys working in the paint and body shop there were doing fairly crude work.

  14. #14Tugger22021-03-17 23:11

    I remember seeing RB sandblasting fully assembled machines machines,and they didnt evenblow the evidence out of all the nooks and crannies after. Just sand with a crust of yellow on top.

  15. #15old-iron-habit2021-03-18 22:48

    I keep finding ads and machines with decals that are from a newer model machine and advertised as newer than they actually are. Many of the time they are on auction threads. I guess it hard to find accurate help. Always check the serial number folks. I will admit I don't look at many adds with newer than 50 year old iron.

  16. #16Tinkerer2021-03-19 08:49

    That is what I was alluding to in post #2 in this thread.

  17. #17JD955SC2021-03-20 08:32

    I had a customer bring in a machine they just purchased with much newer decals than it was and a fresh coat of paint. The bad part for them, besides the fraud, was the machine was made by a different company that was LONG defunct and parts were NLA. The company in question had been brought by the OEM they labeled the machine for and when newer models were introduced they were no longer of that company’s designs or components. we also had a thread here where a buyer got snookered on what he thought was a Cat dozer but it was a Massey Ferguson dozer that had been repainted and redecaled. Parts would have been available for the Cat machine but were not for the ** it actually was.