Big Dirt California Style

[alan627b]

2 years ago I went to Phoenix AZ on a vacation that wound up as a 1 month job running a 621 auger scraper featured in another post here. After that was over, I decided to go into California to see National Hardware Supply, because I knew they had some of the 6 wheel scrapers there.
On the way, I came across a couple of dirt spreads grading for subdivisions. One was running a fleet of modern 657E's and on the other side of the interstate, was another company running a mixed fleet of 657 B's and E's.
I visited both jobs, I'll bet you can figure out where I spent the most time....
on the old side. Partly because the forman was sympathetic to my interest, and let me drive up to the cut so I could get better pictures.
I didn't catch the names of the companies, and to be honest, I'm not exactly sure exactly where I was! West of Palm Springs is all I can tell you!
Here comes a bunch of scraper job pics. Enjoy!
650 and my pickup
Old Clark water wagon
D8T with slope board
alan627b

[joedirt]

Nice pics Alan. Love those old scrapers:salute

[alan627b]

Next batch, new iron side, pioneering a bench with dozer and 657E's.

[alan627b]

Next batch, pioneering with 657E's. Also seen 834 wheel dozer. You guys must have good dirt, just knock it down, water it and go. I'd love to get a job with dirt like this....

[alan627b]

Next batch, the other side of the interstate. The "old iron" was a mixed batch of 657 B and E models. I was told there was a 3 dollar an hour pay difference becuase the new models were more productive.
The haul road up must have been close to a 3:1, wide open in 2nd gear hooked together for a minute or two to climb back up.

[alan627b]

More 657's. Smokin' it up! Probably repowered by now....

[alan627b]

More scraper action. D9 with slope board and ripper. Too bad the pics have to be so small, the look much cooler un-resized...

[joedirt]

Great pics man..... I could watch those babies work all day. I with you on the nice dirt they have. We have to blast just to get a mailbox post in the ground.:drinkup

[alan627b]

I like to park my Dodge next to machinery for size perspective, any way you slice it, those 657's are just HUGE! Love to run one someday, I guess I'll have to head west. Anybody here tell me what it's like to jump from a 627 to one of these? I guess you get used to the difference, but that's a lot of iron.
alan627b

[alan627b]

More action shots.

[alan627b]

Ho Hum. Just more huge machinery. LOL!

[637slayer]

great pics, our little twin engines would probably get high centered just on their windrows, yep im with you just california dreamin.

[DirtHauler]

Great photos and SO GLAD that you found a forman that was a good person and took the risk of letting you poke around and take a few pics. I always carry one of my photo albums with me so I can whip it out to show that I am actually a big iron fan and not some random person trying to gain access for other reasons. BTW good looking Dodge, I hated that body when they come out but they have grown on me. Sounds like you had a really fun day out in the wild wild west.

As scrapers go, the best show I have been involved with had a bunch of 631 scrapers which were being shoved by 2 D10Ns in series. One of the D10s had a spring loaded push block on the back of it where the other D10 would push on it as it struggled to push on the scraper. It was real impressive because one of the D10Ns had just been repowered and had the undercarrage rebuilt and the other was still in good shape. While ripping the 2nd D10 would push on the back of the ripper to assist in ripping. I always wondered how hard you could push on a 631 before the cutting edge started to just peel the bottom of the bowl open.

[DPete]

Nice pics Alan, love to see that dirt movin :)

[Tigerotor77W]

Awesome pics -- thanks for taking the time to share them with us!

[fensoncont.]

Those are some awesome pics! I love watching such large scrapers operate, around here the biggest push pulls I've seen in action were 627's. The biggest single barrel were 631's, then my biggest in action was McAninches D11/651. I was kind of far away from it too, one day I'll get to California to watch the professionals move dirt.

Perhaps 50 years from now my dream company will have become a reality and will be nationwide and I'll have my own fleet of 657's out west :)

[Kenny R]

AWESOME photos alan627b!!!:drinkup

[637slayer]

all these pictures of california dirt all those scrapers i never see a blade. is it because i never see any rocks,the haul roads are just as easily maintained by a scraper? personaly i dont need a blade, but for a 57 to slow down and fix his road is a whole different story from a 37 or 27.

[alan627b]

I didn't get any pics of the blade, a 140G, on the "new" side, although they had rubber tired dozers, and tractors with Beegees (drag blades) running on both jobs. The forman on the fleet, running the older scrapers, said the blade hadn't arrived yet.
With the good fine soil they had on these jobs, the haul roads seemed to hold up pretty well, and neither job was in the finishing phase yet.
A tractor with a Beegee will do 90% as good a job as a blade on road and fill maintenance in that type of soil, and can cover the area much faster. I thought it was intersting, that I didn't see a single compactor or sheepsfoot employed on any job I saw out there.
Lay it down, run a rubber tire dozer over it, water the hell out of it and run scrapers over it, seems to do the trick.
Must be the idea my bosses have too, except it doesn't work on the soil here in Nebraska! a bladed haul road is a luxury on most of the jobs i work.
I don't think it's a good idea, but that's my reality!
alan627b, sore in Omaha

[alan627b]

Some pics of the 834's and drag blades. Is COBRA a company or an equipment leasing firm, that name was on some of the scrapers.
Anybody familiar with them?

[alan627b]

A couple more pics the server problem wouldn't let me post last night .
Hopefully it will all be better soon!
The forman did get a little upset with me, because I was lying flat on the ground a couple of times, to make the pics look more impressive. But he was cool, and didn't kick me off! Things are different, now we are in the age of lawyers and insurance men, but he had a point. Getting run over wouldn't have been a good way to end a vacation!
Be courteous if you go on a job, and always keep your eyes and ears open. Leave the cell phone off and the headphones in your truck!
alan627b

[fensoncont.]

That's something I always found interesting from the earthwork out there. I always seem to see many more wheel dozers working in the fill. I've never seen a wheel dozer in person here in Ohio.

[DirtHauler]

That's something I always found interesting from the earthwork out there. I always seem to see many more wheel dozers working in the fill. I've never seen a wheel dozer in person here in Ohio.

on big fill dump sites like this we offen will have a couple 824s and a 16 grader running as well as at least one sheeps foot scraper type compator.

[fensoncont.]

Local reservoir project that took place this past summer involved 450,000 CY earthwork. The contractor utilized 4 621's, and 2 627's. In general there was a D6H LGP working in the cut, 750J LT working on the slope with GPS AccurGrade (spelling?) All the scrapers were filling in an area being controlled by 1 815F. The compactor kept up and the fill/compacting was done very efficiently in my opinion. They also had a 12H working on the haul road, he would come through every now and then on the fill to make travel filling better for the scrapers.

The other project had about 4 631's running, with a full time D8L and 825 in the fill, there's a big difference in the way companies do things.

[alan627b]

This last bunch was one of the 657's getting an in field hitch job. Kind of interesting, if you've never seen one broken in two before. By that, I mean split for repair! When it happens while working, it usually woudn't be this pretty....

[fensoncont.]

Hats off to the hard working mechanics to keep those beasts running.

[alan627b]

I think it would be easier in a shop...but it wasn't unpleasant at that time of year. Gotta love shirt sleeves in March....

[alan627b]

The last two....

[Dozerboy]

We didn't use sheepsfoots very often unless they was a bit of clay on the job. Every few lifts or so we would have the scrapers wheel role everything if we needed to. There is a lot of sand in socal that way it just needs water, but when you do get into clay its nasty or rock for that matter. A 57 doesn't seem so big when your talking about moving millons of yards until you park in next to something else. There ain't many companies that have shops in socal not like you would have where there is more rain or cooler weather.

[Gavin84w]

King post on a 57 in the field is a fun job, usually i would weld supports to the side of the bowl under the draft arms and set up a jack right in the centre also, the trick is to park up on dead level ground and put a little down pressure on the cutting edge cause when you pull the front away it will come up a bit once it comes out of the hitch due to tyre pressure etc.

With regard to compaction it all depends on the dirt, a big crowd down here run the full scrapers through the fill and empty on the way out just to help the 825, and when he has 8 51's comin at him he needs all the help he can get!

[637slayer]

i think that in dirt like that if all those big scrapers worked together dumped in thin long ribbons every one splitting their tracks compaction would be easy to pass

[Eric]

Man those are great shots, we run 824 rubber tire dozers in the mine. Use them for shovel clean ups and chasing rock!! Had a 834 as well. All I can say is DANG they are rough.:Banghead :Banghead :Banghead Hate running them!! Never run a scraper before, couldn't be worse than a 824!!

[Dozerboy]

i think that in dirt like that if all those big scrapers worked together dumped in thin long ribbons every one splitting their tracks compaction would be easy to pass

Can't do that most of the time because you have to mix the water in. The thiner you dump the more ground you cover then the wheel dozer can't keep up or the water trucks. Unless you have a long haul or only a few scrapers. Most of the scraper hands are crap and would get lost and dump who knows where if you started splitting tracks.

Man those are great shots, we run 824 rubber tire dozers in the mine. Use them for shovel clean ups and chasing rock!! Had a 834 as well. All I can say is DANG they are rough.:Banghead :Banghead :Banghead Hate running them!! Never run a scraper before, couldn't be worse than a 824!!

Yes scrapers are worse just think about driving in the same situation, but at 45+MPH. You think a 824 is bad try a 825 they have steel sheeps foots for wheels.

[637slayer]

didnt mean to be so vague, we dump in ribbons from one end of the fill to the other, not driving on the ribbon we are currently working on, but splitting our tracks or wheel rolling the rest of the fill on our way in and out,the roller if caught up rolls the ribbon we are working on leaving the last scraper dump untouched so the next scraper knows where to dump, the drier the dirt the thinner we dump so the water penetrates better.

[fensoncont.]

Very interesting, what kind of fleet of machines do you guys run 637slayer? The idea of the drier the soil smaller lifts for better water penetration seems genious to me, you guys all have on the job experience, I go by the book and studies until I can get out in the field. I'd never thought about that before but it makes perfect sense, when the lift is still in its loose/swell state the voids will allow the water to rush right through there.

[637slayer]

yes it makes a huge difference, after a scraper spreads out its load while the dirt is in this looser condition its the best time to absorb water, i have been on a couple airport jobs, lengthening and widening adding taxiways to existing runways and the federal specs for compaction and moisture were unreal, we were forced to run three different fills covering each one then adding the water then processing then more water, on that job we had 2 627fs, 5 631cs three 140gs, 1trackhoe, 2 rollers, 2 631 waterwagons,1 641bwaterwagon, 3 watertrucks.

[dpull]

Alan627b,
Great pictures of the big scraper fleets, I've never seen that many on onejob at a time. I used to work in the Strip Mines here in Ohio when I got out of the military in 1973 and started out on a Terex TS24. They had two 24' and two 14's and was always amazed at the dirt we could move in 10 hrs a day. Some of the bigger mines had 657's. Sidwell Bros. did a lot of stripping for Central Ohio Coal and had quite a few of them at one time when the coal was big here. One time they were stripping overburden and had two D9's pushing the 657 and it caught a rock ledge and before the dozer men knew what was happening they rolled the bottem of the bowl up like a can lid. Another fellow did alot of reclamation work for Central Ohio Coal and had a huge fleet of TS24 and 32s. It was always neat to watch all the Green iron run. I picked up a pair of the norscot 657s at the toy show last year. Not bad for norscot.

[Mass-X]

824’s versus 825’s. “Method Spec” compaction theories. “Let the scrapers and the water pulls take care of it.” I’ve seen a lot of mass grading contractors take different views on compaction when building big fills.

Personally, I don’t trust anything but a sheepsfoot or a vibratory compactor to compact a fill.

I have no respect for rubber tired dozers as compaction machines. RTD’s are made for cleaning up load-out floors in mines and pushing slobbers into the crusher that the haul trucks leave behind. I don’t believe in them on scraper projects. Some may argue that if you fill the tires with calcium chloride they work great. I disagree.

To clarify with some of the Californians; 95% of the material I’ve seen in California is so evenly graded in it’s composition that thin lifts underneath rubber tires will work. But that’s a very isolated situation; I’ve not seen many other places like California.

Any material that an RTD can sufficiently compact, a sheepsfoot can do as well, if not better in most cases.

There are far too many horror stories of contractors who built big fills, only to have them settle 3-5 years later due to improper compaction techniques. I don’t want to tarnish my reputation like that.

Wolper Construction is one contractor that branched into the mass grading sector a few years ago, did some residential work involving some big fills, and then got kicked/walked off the project (depends on who’s side of the story you hear). A different contractor came in and finished.

Five years after completion, some people backyards slipped away from their $1 million+ house and slid down slopes, houses settling and basements cracking, roads falling apart and numerous utilities problems. A little core drilling and some material sampling later showed a lot of problems in the bottoms of the fills: all because of the corners cut in the compaction department (and some very poor choices regarding fill material). Last I heard the lawsuit filed against them for the problems in their fills was $10 million.

This is only one of many horror stories I’ve heard about compaction failures, often due to improper equipment utilized during construction.

A lot of times, it is the general contractors/developer’s fault for not policing the contractor. But I still don’t think it’s excusable for any contractor to cut a corner like that just because there was no dirt cop out there checking compaction.

Many residential projects will have no inspectors monitoring the big cuts/fills. No nuclear moisture/density tests taken until you’re into the AB grades in the streets. Too many contractors cut corners and take advantage of this to cut the cost of a compaction machine working full time. Or at most, put an RTD on the fill because it’s a cheap machine.

As you get into projects like transportation/railroad you start seeing an inspector monitoring the fills and testing randomly. Specifications that have to be met and adhered to, etc. Overall, a lot better level of quality control. In most transportation projects, DOT’s won’t approve RTD’s as compaction machines. They used to, but its becoming rarer and rarer every year. They greatly prefer to see a sheepsfoot or some type of vibratory compactor building their roads.

I’ve done some refinery site development projects where the 657’s were required to lay down 8” lifts (measured by a GPS), compacted with a sheepsfoot compactor, and pass 95%+ compaction throughout the entire fill, up to 20’ in some cases. Not hard to achieve with an 825, but I’d love to see an 824 do it.

I’ve also seen some projects where 94% and lower would fail you, and 100% would fail you. Try achieving that with an RTD. A lot of times you don’t need a vibratory compactor as in many materials a sheepsfoot will accomplish that.

Articulating soil compactors/sheepsfoot’s are a lot more expensive to purchase and maintain than RTD’s, but I think it’s a justified expense that a lot of contractors cut the corner on. I’d rather make up for the extra expense of a sheepsfoot somewhere else on the project, versus reducing the cost, using an RTD, and risking a compaction failure.

The other big change being seen is the utilization of GPS on compactors. Nothing beats a skilled operator in an 825H with a GPS. I’ve seen some very good operators in 815’s, 825’s and 835’s that can finish large pads to +/- .1’ with no assistance from a grader or paddlewheel if the machine is equipped with a GPS.

Having the sheepsfoot on the fill finish the grade to spec beats the hell out of having a blade and paddlewheel follow the scrapers and balance all the pads to finish grade.

I always laugh when I see companies putting GPS systems on 824’s or 834’s. Those machines are not very good at maintaining grades compared to a sheepsfoot and can’t push nearly as much material.

I’ve seen several good sheepsfoot hands that can get their machines onto fill slopes and maintain slope grades quite well. Anything less than a 3:1 is pretty manageable for a sheepsfoot to maintain as long as the fill is relatively small/narrow (roads, railroad grades). Excellent operators can get onto 2:1 slopes and keep them graded to within spec.

Larger pad fills will require a dozer on those slopes to maintain the grade of the fill slope while the compactor focuses on the lift compaction.

I’ve been on some shot rock jobs where the fill dozers working the slopes can’t make the slope look decent until the sheepsfoot walks the entire slope to break up any larger rocks, pack them into the slope so that the dozer has some fines to work with to take the slope to finish grade.

Overall, I think any company that does mass grading projects, is far better suited to have a good sheepsfoot compactor (preferably with GPS) to build all fills, regardless of type of material. They’re more versatile, and in the long run are a lower cost alternative to those damned RTD’s.

[Construct'O]

didnt mean to be so vague, we dump in ribbons from one end of the fill to the other, not driving on the ribbon we are currently working on, but splitting our tracks or wheel rolling the rest of the fill on our way in and out,the roller if caught up rolls the ribbon we are working on leaving the last scraper dump untouched so the next scraper knows where to dump, the drier the dirt the thinner we dump so the water penetrates better.

Where did you come up with the word ribbon?????? I just called them windrows!!!:drinkup :usa

[637slayer]

a ribbon is when one scraper dumps after another in a line, one scraper dumps then the next starts dumping where the previous scraper left off,thats the way i was taught.when a scraper dump reaches the end of the fill the next scraper starts a new ribbon one scraper over from the last ribbon. so all the dirt gets worked evenly, watered and rolled. i also use this method when topsoiling, even when im running alone,so i can cover an area evenly without running on the dumped topsoil. i dont know if that made sense or not.

[fensoncont.]

Calcium Chloride in tires? Very interesting, can somone explain the logic behind this?

[Mass-X]

Weight.

[Steve Frazier]

Weight = traction. Also called loaded tires

[qball]

i ran some of lindahl brothers 825s in chicago on road jobs. good god can they push and hit hard.

[637slayer]

i always thought that having a gps on the sheeps foot would be a good idea, since it was always in the fill

[Dozerboy]

637
I knew what your where saying and like I said the hands I worked with would of gotten lost. I just about had to dump every load myself even then some would miss. The inspector/dirt cops will not pass a fill that has not been mixed with putting down small lifts you have lairs of wet and dry material that they will fail trust me I have tried.


MassX
I agree a RTD wouldn't work well in any other place that I have worked other then socal. I demoed a 825 on a job in socal and it was amazing how much better it worked then a RTD. Since I have never ran them side by side that is until I started to get into some bigger rock then my kidneys wanted my RTD back.


Personally I think a GPS on a a compactor would be a waste most of the time, but that really depend on the job. A lot of the residential jobs I've done each pad is a different elev. It would way to time consuming to try and finish pads like that. Now on a commercial or road project thats a different story.

[637slayer]

the only experience i have is with 10 or 11 scrapers dumping in one fill, and all the situations i described were how i think it should go, but very rarely did it go that way,not to bash scraperhands but it seems like one guy would stray from a dump pattern to fill in a hole and the chaos would start people dumping here and there,usually the tests would reflect the lack of cooperation between the scrapers. i can only imagine trying to get 15 or more scrapers on the same page, unless they worked together for more than one summer.

[Dozerboy]

10 or 11 heck I can't get 4 or 5 for our guys to stick with the pattern. We did have a sub come in with 631s and they did a good job, but the next day I was off the compactor. Another thing is you don't want to compact it until you have water down and it mixed, so that would add to the confusion even more. They would have to cross my windrow/s at some point in time too.

[637slayer]

we would have 10 or 11 on only a couple of our bigger jobs usually 5 or 6 but now i work in a mine and compaction and water trucks are things i dont see anymore. and if you want to see chaos you should see our fills total freeforalls, but we do have really nice equipment, so i just try to stake out my own area set up my roads and turn up the stereo.

[RonG]

Here is a link to some old Cats that I enjoy watching now and again.
The site is really a choo choo train site that I happened to run across while looking for trains for my ((Grandson));) and it is some sort of museum.I am posting it here because there is some scraper footage to be seen.Just scroll down and pick your poison.Ron G
http://www.rgvrrm.org/about/videos/index.htm

[alan627b]

Looks just like a typical day on one of our jobs, sawing your arm off to get a load, and wishing you had someone else who liked to push-pull around to work with!
That scaper still has it's California style muffler, all of ours use a modified D7G muffler with custom made brackets. They save about $700 per muffler, and makes it much easier to work on due to less heat under the hood and better access.
alan627b

[Neil D]

alan,how about some photos of the D7 muffler set up?

Neil

[jdermott]

hey i'm a new member and fellow scraper operator from canada. i'm interested in working somewhere else and have over 18,000 hours on scrapers and over 30,000 hours of total equipment time. anybody know of anyone thats hiring?

[Countryboy]

Welcome to Heavy Equipment Forums jdermott! :drinkup

[637slayer]

hey i'm a new member and fellow scraper operator from canada. i'm interested in working somewhere else and have over 18,000 hours on scrapers and over 30,000 hours of total equipment time. anybody know of anyone thats hiring?
are you looking to get out of canada? i just seen sureways webpage and they are looking for scraperhands,look like a huge company with nice equipment, if some one wanted to be an employee number.

[BrianHay]

Were are you and were do you want to go jdermott? I can probably point you in the right direction.
I just had a look at kidco's website and if you want to be in Calgary they are hiring. ...along with everyone else in Western Canada. A good friend of mine is on 57 for them right now
http://www.kidcoconstruction.ca/

[Bellboy]

By the time that this thread has run its course, California should be synonymous with the word 'scraper' and visa versa.:cool2:cool2:cool2:cool2:cool2
And, scrapers will still be extinct in my neck of the woods...

[Jason F]

824’s versus 825’s. “Method Spec” compaction theories. “Let the scrapers and the water pulls take care of it.” I’ve seen a lot of mass grading contractors take different views on compaction when building big fills.

Personally, I don’t trust anything but a sheepsfoot or a vibratory compactor to compact a fill.

I have no respect for rubber tired dozers as compaction machines. RTD’s are made for cleaning up load-out floors in mines and pushing slobbers into the crusher that the haul trucks leave behind. I don’t believe in them on scraper projects. Some may argue that if you fill the tires with calcium chloride they work great. I disagree.

To clarify with some of the Californians; 95% of the material I’ve seen in California is so evenly graded in it’s composition that thin lifts underneath rubber tires will work. But that’s a very isolated situation; I’ve not seen many other places like California.

Any material that an RTD can sufficiently compact, a sheepsfoot can do as well, if not better in most cases.

There are far too many horror stories of contractors who built big fills, only to have them settle 3-5 years later due to improper compaction techniques. I don’t want to tarnish my reputation like that.

Wolper Construction is one contractor that branched into the mass grading sector a few years ago, did some residential work involving some big fills, and then got kicked/walked off the project (depends on who’s side of the story you hear). A different contractor came in and finished.

Five years after completion, some people backyards slipped away from their $1 million+ house and slid down slopes, houses settling and basements cracking, roads falling apart and numerous utilities problems. A little core drilling and some material sampling later showed a lot of problems in the bottoms of the fills: all because of the corners cut in the compaction department (and some very poor choices regarding fill material). Last I heard the lawsuit filed against them for the problems in their fills was $10 million.

This is only one of many horror stories I’ve heard about compaction failures, often due to improper equipment utilized during construction.

A lot of times, it is the general contractors/developer’s fault for not policing the contractor. But I still don’t think it’s excusable for any contractor to cut a corner like that just because there was no dirt cop out there checking compaction.

Many residential projects will have no inspectors monitoring the big cuts/fills. No nuclear moisture/density tests taken until you’re into the AB grades in the streets. Too many contractors cut corners and take advantage of this to cut the cost of a compaction machine working full time. Or at most, put an RTD on the fill because it’s a cheap machine.

As you get into projects like transportation/railroad you start seeing an inspector monitoring the fills and testing randomly. Specifications that have to be met and adhered to, etc. Overall, a lot better level of quality control. In most transportation projects, DOT’s won’t approve RTD’s as compaction machines. They used to, but its becoming rarer and rarer every year. They greatly prefer to see a sheepsfoot or some type of vibratory compactor building their roads.

I’ve done some refinery site development projects where the 657’s were required to lay down 8” lifts (measured by a GPS), compacted with a sheepsfoot compactor, and pass 95%+ compaction throughout the entire fill, up to 20’ in some cases. Not hard to achieve with an 825, but I’d love to see an 824 do it.

I’ve also seen some projects where 94% and lower would fail you, and 100% would fail you. Try achieving that with an RTD. A lot of times you don’t need a vibratory compactor as in many materials a sheepsfoot will accomplish that.

Articulating soil compactors/sheepsfoot’s are a lot more expensive to purchase and maintain than RTD’s, but I think it’s a justified expense that a lot of contractors cut the corner on. I’d rather make up for the extra expense of a sheepsfoot somewhere else on the project, versus reducing the cost, using an RTD, and risking a compaction failure.

The other big change being seen is the utilization of GPS on compactors. Nothing beats a skilled operator in an 825H with a GPS. I’ve seen some very good operators in 815’s, 825’s and 835’s that can finish large pads to +/- .1’ with no assistance from a grader or paddlewheel if the machine is equipped with a GPS.

Having the sheepsfoot on the fill finish the grade to spec beats the hell out of having a blade and paddlewheel follow the scrapers and balance all the pads to finish grade.

I always laugh when I see companies putting GPS systems on 824’s or 834’s. Those machines are not very good at maintaining grades compared to a sheepsfoot and can’t push nearly as much material.

I’ve seen several good sheepsfoot hands that can get their machines onto fill slopes and maintain slope grades quite well. Anything less than a 3:1 is pretty manageable for a sheepsfoot to maintain as long as the fill is relatively small/narrow (roads, railroad grades). Excellent operators can get onto 2:1 slopes and keep them graded to within spec.

Larger pad fills will require a dozer on those slopes to maintain the grade of the fill slope while the compactor focuses on the lift compaction.

I’ve been on some shot rock jobs where the fill dozers working the slopes can’t make the slope look decent until the sheepsfoot walks the entire slope to break up any larger rocks, pack them into the slope so that the dozer has some fines to work with to take the slope to finish grade.

Overall, I think any company that does mass grading projects, is far better suited to have a good sheepsfoot compactor (preferably with GPS) to build all fills, regardless of type of material. They’re more versatile, and in the long run are a lower cost alternative to those damned RTD’s. Alot of companies here in So Cal use the 824's with either BG's or the Sheepsfoot behind them. Never really seen one running around without it. With the way inspectors here do compaction tests most of them have sheepsfoot attachments on them. Inspectors in So Cal are brutal sometimes when it comes to compaction. Ive had some fail me for being .5% under while others have told me compaction was right and that the moisture was off just a bit but he saw how much water we were putting down and said by the time you guys are done its going to be over.

[627E master]

Hey guys, just signed up, I love the scraper pics!! It's good to be here!!!!

[bollinger1985]

Great images Pal. Much appreciated

[Vantage_TeS]

Were are you and were do you want to go jdermott? I can probably point you in the right direction.
I just had a look at kidco's website and if you want to be in Calgary they are hiring. ...along with everyone else in Western Canada. A good friend of mine is on 57 for them right now
http://www.kidcoconstruction.ca/

Who's your friend? My 385 was sitting for a couple days waiting for a job to be approved so I was chasing people around on a '57 for a while =D