The dirtwork thread

[Don P]

We moved the dozer over here the other day just in case we get snowed in and I need to get my bride out. The new neighbor had asked us to move his loader at the same time. DB dropped off 2 loads of shale for them. I spread it with the dozer and put him in the seat and went home to the warm woodstove while he figured it out  . I went over this morning to grab the dozer and it looked like a kids sandbox;


 

Along the low road is a spot we call the knob. It's a pinch point I've been whittling at and it seems to contain everything from the basement granite to the ancient sandstone cap from the top of the mountain and some mudstone for variety. I've heard that at some point in all the upheavals this area got submereged in mud that filled every crack and cave and then turned to stone.


 

 

 

About then I blew a blade tilt hose and there were some rocks the dozer couldn't hurt. I already had the generator in the truck so i went and got the jackhammer and worried them to death. The new neighbor is young, I can see lotsa jackhammer years ahead of the young man  :D.


 

This is the approach from the other side, trying to gentle and widen it, it has a north facing and ices long and hard. All I could do was backdrag with a floppy blade but it smoothed it enough to drive on it again.


 

This is from below the road, the dozer is up by the sandstone block by the road. Pretty neat spot, the creek is just behind me. This is pretty much all the mudstone here.


 

[WhitePineJunky]

I have never seen a track loader with a backhoe before

[Don P]

It's the second one I've been around, the first time driving one. I had a good 12" to learn before I hit the trailer ramp. Tail heavy doesn't begin  :D. The backhoe is an attachment and it looks like its older than the machine. He said he runs without it most of the time.

[barbender]

My uncle had one of those, a 450 with a backhoe. That hoe sits so low in the back that it tries to help grading😂 They are so cumbersome, I found it to be kind of a hateful machine. If it would've had a 6 way on the front I would've liked it a lot more.

[Resonator]

Keep in mind in the late 50' early 60's when John Deere first made the add-on backhoe for the dozer, modern tracked excavator machines were still being developed and perfected. While cumbersome, it was still more practical on small jobs than bringing in a big steam-shovel size machine.

[Wlmedley]

Found this picture in my toolbox and thought some might find it interesting.It's a Komatsu D575 ,the largest production bulldozer ever made.There we're probably more of these working in West Virginia than any where else in the world.Most people have never seen one and now that they are out of production probably never will.They were a pretty good machine but awfully hard on mechanics.

 

[Al_Smith]

On the subject of tracked back hoes my little Oliver OC6 1954 was originaaly a back hoe loader .It was converted to a straight blade dozer with a 4 feet high trash blade used as a push back machine in a trash dump .I in turned cut down the blade to about two feet and added the hydraulic tilt and fixed mechanical angle .That thing is too small for a 4 feet high blade pushing dirt or stone .34 horse power ,gasoline  and around 9,000 pounds or so .In low gear at half throttle you cannot stall it .It would dig to China .

[mike_belben]

Marty's pt1 - YouTube

Job im gonna be on for a long time. 

[Resonator]

"I've only been doin' it an hour, and already I'm in a better mood then when I got here." (Quote from the video).
This.^^

[mike_belben]

I uploaded 2 more vids today from that job while on the wifi at the kids dentist.  In honor of lester flatt i snipped some of his epic 5 finger pickin that was developed nearly 100 yrs ago right here in this town. And im looking across the street at one house that was probably here back then when it was probably still dirt and maybe even the occasional draft animal still pullin a rickshaw through this poor town.... thinkin wow what a change technology makes for everyone. 

What i did in a day alone woulda took a dozen men. And then a film studio to make it into a film production, which i did on my phone during a dentist wait.  Another thought is no matter how much iron i acquire and put in service... theres more money in being a cute scantilly clad girl doing reaction vids, or a moron like whistlin diesel filming stupid stunts.

What a strange world that came out of nowhere. 

All in a day's work - YouTube

[barbender]

Hey, I like Whistlin' Diesel!😁

[Old Greenhorn]

Mike I think you are talking about Earl Scruggs. He played the five string banjo in the three finger style which was less common than the 2 finger style popular in his youth. Lester Flatt was his Guitar playing partner, he played a 6 string with a flat pick. The tune you used is called Foggy Mountain Breakdown, first recorded in 1949. Made most popular by the movie "Bonnie & Clyde".

[Resonator]

As OG said, Earl played the Banjer, Lester played the Gee-tar. ;D
Like the video Mike!

[mike_belben]

I stand corrected!

[mike_belben]

[mike_belben]

[Wlmedley]

Looks good Mike.Use what you have to the fullest extent!

[Don P]

I think he's got it right at 159 percent ;D

[mike_belben]

Before/after.  Im gettin there. 

[GRANITEstateMP]

Mike,
Did you get some orange iron?

[mike_belben]

No thats the customers svl-75.  Hasnt got 100hrs yet. 

[moodnacreek]

We moved the dozer over here the other day just in case we get snowed in and I need to get my bride out. The new neighbor had asked us to move his loader at the same time. DB dropped off 2 loads of shale for them. I spread it with the dozer and put him in the seat and went home to the warm woodstove while he figured it out  . I went over this morning to grab the dozer and it looked like a kids sandbox;
 

 

Along the low road is a spot we call the knob. It's a pinch point I've been whittling at and it seems to contain everything from the basement granite to the ancient sandstone cap from the top of the mountain and some mudstone for variety. I've heard that at some point in all the upheavals this area got submereged in mud that filled every crack and cave and then turned to stone.
 

 

 

 

About then I blew a blade tilt hose and there were some rocks the dozer couldn't hurt. I already had the generator in the truck so i went and got the jackhammer and worried them to death. The new neighbor is young, I can see lotsa jackhammer years ahead of the young man  :D.
 

 

This is the approach from the other side, trying to gentle and widen it, it has a north facing and ices long and hard. All I could do was backdrag with a floppy blade but it smoothed it enough to drive on it again.
 

 

This is from below the road, the dozer is up by the sandstone block by the road. Pretty neat spot, the creek is just behind me. This is pretty much all the mudstone here.
 

 

What are you doing on my property ? 

[mike_belben]

The stuff you been too busy to get around to 

[Don P]

I played with it a little more yesterday. 10 minutes of dozer and 3 hours of bobcat time moving the stuff a teaspoon at a time  .  I got through there with 12' slabs on the forks this morning.

[Don P]

I took the dozer back to stir up a little trouble for later   , no danger of running out. There's about an 80' cliff at the top of that feeding this pile of everything from pebbles to truck sized. 



There is room to camp out in that "cave". A 500 lb black bear was taken back here some years ago, and then there was the 17 pointer. This particular metamorphosed granite rock starts down in NC near Cranberry about 50 miles away and runs about an equal distance to the NE underpinning this part of the Blue Ridge. It's called cranberry gneiss.