Pulling slopes.

[Eric]

I recently got my first crack at blading a slope, I'm guessing 3 1/2 or 4:1. It was an expierience. I would like to see pics of any of you all pulling slopes if you can find any. Also, I was messing around with our 16M the other day trying to drag side slopes, the 16 only has 5 holes to select from with the center pin. I could half way drag the slope. I know that smaller blades have 7 holes to pin and you can kick the blade all the way verticle. Just wondering if any of you out there may have advice and pictures. By the way, hats off to you if you are a sloper! How steep a slope can you blade anyway.

[BIGBEN2004]

I have seen some steep slopes being done before but I have never done any personally. I would imagine that a slope would feel much steeper in a grader since the cab sits so high and it would feel unstable but I imagine they can walk a steep slope safely.

[farm_boy]

I would like to see pics of any of you all pulling slopes if you can find any.

How about these?

[BIGBEN2004]

Yea that is pretty steep and in the cab I would imagine it feels twice as steep. Nice machine though......

[DPete]

You should be able to get the blade almost verticle like a slope board for the steep slopes like 1:1, our 12G will.

[Eric]

Thanks for the pics! Our 16's M, H, and G won't go verticle. It get's pretty close but you have to get ridiculesly close to the slope to do any good. I was told that when pulling steep slopes to have your wheels leaned uphill and the machine articulated uphill as well.

Yeah it felt really top heavy in the cab, I was about to squeel like a little girl,:o:o but don't tell anyone. Give me a set of tracks any day for hanging off slopes. Anyway I gotta say I can't wait to try again... a new challange.

[Grader4me]

I've had a grader on some pretty steep slopes over the years. Pucker factor many times:eek:
The high lift works really good for pulling down the high backslopes when ditching. Set the grader on the foreslope, swing the blade out and cut your backslope. Wish I would have taken pictures of some of my ditching jobs so I could share. Picture is worth a thousand words.

[WILDCAT]

In Australia we call it working batters.

A good rule of thumb, is that when the machine is on the batter (slope), if the top of the front wheels lean towards the batter and past the vertical (leaning away from the top of the batter), I would investigate the type of material being graded and ascertain if it is suitable to support the machine without any side slide. On really steep batters I like to centre shift the middle saddle throwing the circle and blade on the high side of the batter and articulate the machine, so that the front wheels travel on the high side of the machine putting the wind row between the drive tyres of the machine. I always use the difflock to stop the high side wheels from spinning, this gives you a much smoother and continuous surface on your batter (slope).
I would strongly suggest if you don't feel comfortable, to talk to your site boss, its much easier to say that you don't feel comfortable than to tell him that you have just rolled the machine.

[637slayer]

im not very experienced on a blade but seen lots of steep slopes done, it seems like the guy in the pics is doing it wrong. on really steep slopes i would want my moldboard under me, on the downhill side of me, or at least have it set so my windrow would be right under my downside drives.:beatsme

[JDOFMEMI]

im not very experienced on a blade but seen lots of steep slopes done, it seems like the guy in the pics is doing it wrong. on really steep slopes i would want my moldboard under me, on the downhill side of me, or at least have it set so my windrow would be right under my downside drives.:beatsme

The slope in the picture above does not look very steep. Only 4 to 1, or maybe 3 to 1 , but definatly not what I would call steep. He has the blade above him to keep the tire tracks off of the finished grade. This is normal. Also, the blade above you transfers weight to the uphill tandems to aid traction.
Putting the blade above you allows the windrow to be just below your uphill tires, helping to reduce sliding downhill.
Sometimes you will slide down anytime you slip a tire. Then you may need to run with the diff unlocked, so only one drive spins, and the other helps hold you from sliding down.
In most(not all) conditions, the tandems will slide down the slope well before the rolover point. That point is deceptive on a blade, because the cab is so high in the air. The center of gravity is much lower than it seems from the seat. I have had blades on 2 to 1 slopes many times. That is about as far as you want to go. Any steeper and you need to sit next to it, or be tied off to a dozer above you. Then, you can cut anything.:D

[637slayer]

so if you were doing a 2:1 you wouldnt do it like that, or you would, i could tell the slope he was on wasnt very steep, i might be wrong but i always thought the blade hands i have been around, if they had the chance to set themselves up with enough dirt on top, and the slope was left full instead of shy, would take a cut leaving their windrow under their bottom side drives to help hold themselves up, seems if you were blading 3:1 or steeper like the guy in the pics, which i thought looked like a 4:1 or shallower, and had your blade that far above you and hit a rock your chances of going over are alot greater than if you were digging more under yourself.:beatsme

[Dirt Dogg]

The guy in that picture is Rick Valensualo. He's a demo operator for Deere and the slope he is on is at the demo site in Sacaton AZ. That slope is a 2.5:1 and I know this because we measured it when I worked there last year.:thumbsup

[Northart]

I noted the 2nd pix, left hand articulation and cradle shift.

As a practicle matter that never ocurrs on the job.

Foremost, is that most, competent operators locate the side shift cylinder end , to the inner most holes for maximum extension on the right side, for ditching or slope work. For the novice , there are 2 sets of holes for reaches, or extensions.

This for RH traffic patterns, on every job in America.

So if you center shift and articulate to the left you lose a good foot + approx. in grading.

I just back up and short stroke, or go round robin on the other side of the ditch or road.

Something from an OLD diehard Cat Grader hand. LOL :)

[Grader4me]

The way he is working the slope in my opinion is the correct way. Articulated like he is makes the machine more stable, reducing chances of sliding or tip over. Although the slope doesn't appear to be that steep to worry about rolling over.

Foremost, is that most, competent operators locate the side shift cylinder end , to the inner most holes for maximum extension on the right side, for ditching or slope work. For the novice , there are 2 sets of holes for reaches, or extensions.

This for RH traffic patterns, on every job in America.

So if you center shift and articulate to the left you lose a good foot + approx. in grading

I agree with you on this one Northart but in the second picture maybe the operator didn't need the maximum extension for this pass. To me it would depend on the length of the slope, as in how far I would have to back up or go around to make my second pass. I hate backing up and doing the short stroke thing.

Also it's a lot easier to high lift your blade on the right side when cutting a backslope, as I described earlier.

[Northart]

Hello Grader4me,

It just struck me odd to see the cradle swung to the left. I know that is a demonstrater, at work doing a demonstration, of the capabilities. That is his job to show.

But in the Real world , I had to stop and think, I cannot ever recall, seeing anyone using that position, nor myself even using it. Articulate left,yes, but not centershift left.

Just the way the jobs have turned out.

Ha, Now I suppose there will be a flood of pix showing just that . LOL

I never thought about taking pix of pulling slopes years ago. That was with 35mm film. Now with the digitals it so easy and cheap. Plus the fact , there is more people genuinely interested in seeing construction work machinery, techniques, due to the internet.

[Grader4me]

Hello Grader4me,

It just struck me odd to see the cradle swung to the left. I know that is a demonstrater, at work doing a demonstration, of the capabilities. That is his job to show.

But in the Real world , I had to stop and think, I cannot ever recall, seeing anyone using that position, nor myself even using it. Articulate left,yes, but not centershift left.

Just the way the jobs have turned out.

Ha, Now I suppose there will be a flood of pix showing just that . LOL

I never thought about taking pix of pulling slopes years ago. That was with 35mm film. Now with the digitals it so easy and cheap. Plus the fact , there is more people genuinely interested in seeing construction work machinery, techniques, due to the internet.

I've used the left swing at times when ditching. There have been times that the ditch line has been wet and soft, and I've had to straddle and place the toe in the ditch line(center of the grader) and blade the material up on the foreslope. You might say why not turn around and use the right hand side, but there were times that it was easier to ditch downhill. These are the only times/situations that I would use the left swing.

Yeah, if a person would have just thought and taken a few pictures back then. I remember back when I was around 19 years old I was cleaning out a wet ditch, and a dozer (an old D6 I believe) was hooked on me with a cable. He was up on the road(shoulder) pulling me along gently. All of a sudden he started tracking towards the center of the road (thinking about someting else I guess) and of course where he went I had no choice but to follow. Fore slope was pretty steep :eek: I know there was a lot of blue sky under my right side tandem. Anyway...if someone would have got a picture of my face coming up that slope... priceless :) Sorry but I just had to throw a story in there.

[Grader4me]

Northart is this you operating the grader??I thought I told you to sit down!! lol :)

http://rocklandmfg.com/Images/Video/rks/rks_short.avi

[Northart]

Hello Grader4me,

What the heck ? Ha, its a Fiat allis ???

The file clip is too grainy and fast to really see anything.

Ah sure don't need to enter a fray again about operator stance,:ban sit or stand on the old mechanical models. I always sat. Pull behinds got to stand.

I always thought, only the incompetent, needed to stand. LOL

Anyway too bad we can't find more current pictures of operational modes. Maybe future operators will take some more. :)

I had a real good Cat 14G Operating video, but that disappeared.

[ovrszd]

im not very experienced on a blade but seen lots of steep slopes done, it seems like the guy in the pics is doing it wrong. on really steep slopes i would want my moldboard under me, on the downhill side of me, or at least have it set so my windrow would be right under my downside drives.:beatsme

Me too!!!! I don't have any pics but have had my grader on slopes steep enough that if I tried to pick up the moldboard the high side tires would come off the ground. I know having the table on the low side adds to the unbalance of the machine but it sure feels safer to have something there to catch me. Next time I'm doing slope work I'll try to remember to take along an angle finder. :eek:

[Deas Plant]

Hi, Folks.
Maybe I'm a 'thrill-seeker' or something but I have side-cut a batter 12 feet high with a 1 in 1 - 100% - slope with an old Cat 12E 21F series. What's more, I started with a 12-foot high batter that was around 1 in 2 and had to get it back to the above-mentioned 1 in 1 batter. To further complicate matters, there was a house just 12 feet from the bottom of the original vertical wall. And I did it WITHOUT extending the side-shift link or blade lift links - remember, we are talking a Cat 12E here. The machine did have a 'power blade' side shift ram fitted to the blade itself, the one that slides the blade back and forth across the circle.

The original 1 in 2 batter was cut from firm clay and weathered shale and was about 45 yards long with the house situated in about the middle 20 yards of it. It was a little eroded but with no major rills or washouts in it. Because of the fences around the place, I could not get the grader up on top of the batter to cut any of the top off and dump it over the side. All the excavated/cut material had to be pushed out one end of the job.

To this day, I have still not worked out why the original batter was ever cut so steep, especially when a house was to be built so close to it but it had stood like that for over 12 months before they dumped the job on me.

Anybody want to tell me how I did it? Where are the grader operators among us?

[ovrszd]

I usually do my slope work with this machine. It will go 45 degrees with minimal pucker. ;)

[Northart]

Hello Deas Plant,

Well if you did not center shift and extend the links. Like in the picture below. That is a picture of a Cat 112, same mechanical linkage as Cat 12.

Then you had to make small stairstep cuts , 6"x6" or less in hard clays. Sitting level sidecasting the material. Then shoving forward.

[Grader4me]

Have a look at this :eek:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PPkr0_-exU8

[Turbo21835]

Have a look at this :eek:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PPkr0_-exU8

:eek: there is some pucker factor involved in that one.

[Northart]

Hello Grader4me,

Well, I certainly never run a grader like that guy, especially the 1st, 1 minute 20 seconds of the film clip.

He is articulated the wrong way . The ass end needs to be downhill and front up. Actually looks good enough to run straight frame, to me.

I've never operated so the rear tires left the ground,like that. Take that back, doing ditching in a real bad, wet one, fell in, and had to get pulled out. But this is hard ground,in the film.

I would jack the machine up if I had a flat tire, with the ripper and blade .

Enaway , later, not impressed with that.

[Grader4me]

Enaway , later, not impressed with that.

Isn't that just something else? I stumbled on that video by mistake as I was seaching another topic. If I was a supervisor on that job mister grader operator would be getting retrained or sent home.

[MKTEF]

Slope grading is nearly never done here around with a grader.:rolleyes:
Dozers do most of that type of work.(taking down slopes in road cuts)
Or the exc guy do it while loading up the masses.

Roads here is built of a rock base and covered with black soil, for those fine green gras slopes.:)
Those are laid out with a exc, rototilt and a flatbottomed bucket.(often rubber duck)

So i don't know exactly how u did it.:confused:
But i would have taken down masses as high as possible and used those as a base to reach higher for each pass.
To finnish with, taking that base up into/up to, the finnished upper half.:)

[Grader4me]

Okay I might as well take a stab at this as well. You can't swing your blade up and around so thats out. There is no way that you can set your grader up on that type of slope unless your anchored to a dozer on top. There is no room up top for the grader so the dozer theory is out. So make your cuts starting as high as you can reach from the bottom. Side casting your material to built your elevated road. Repeat this procedure and work your way to the top. You now have the batter cut all the way up. Coming back down use the end of your blade trimming the slope. Once you have it trimmed to your road level, cut the road down moving the material ahead. Then do the trimming again. Keep repeating this procedure until you have reached the bottom again. Alot of work but it could be done.

[JDOFMEMI]

:iagree

Thats what I thought too, but did not take the time to write it out

[637slayer]

square bladed it straight down then pushed it straight out the end.

[Northart]

Hello Deas Plant,

Maybe throw a sketch up , so get a better idea of your , " Deas only " project. LOL.

Grader4me , re-reading the post over by Deas , I see your idea.

Same as mine except I never laid it out like you. Too short on words.

Got to build up material, to get the blade up, to access, the begining, and start over.

Of course maybe Deas Plant has some magical trick or machine that the rest of us don't know of, or have. :) LOL

Come on Deas , we waiting . :drinkup

[AtlasRob]

He parked it up and used the D6 parked in the corner that non of you noticed as you were too gob smacked by the slope :bouncegri :stirthepot

[Grader4me]

Of course maybe Deas Plant has some magical trick or machine that the rest of us don't know of, or have. :) LOL

Come on Deas , we waiting . :drinkup


No doubt that he has a trick...and I'm sure his method is going to surprise us, but I'm sure as well it's one that was carefully thought out, and comes from experience and plain know how.

[Deas Plant]

Hi, Folks.
Grader4me, you are fairly close but you are wrong about not being able to put the whole grader up on the batter. It's simply amtter of HOW you do it. I drove the front wheels right up on the batter, much as you would with an articulated machine, but so that the whole machine except the low side rear drive wheel was up on the batter at angle of about 45 deg. to 50 deg. up the batter. I had the blade side-shifted as far as it would go to the high side without extending any links, the lean wheels tilted up-slope as far as they would go and the steering turned to full lock along the slope. I then kept a delicate balance of blade load vs traction so that the whole machine slid sideways along the batter, much like you might slide a wood plane at an angle along a piece of timber. (I have done this with dozers too.)

I slid the machine along the batter to the point where I could reach the top of the batter side-cutting more or less normally with the machine only half up on the batter. I then had to back down off the batter at the end of each run. If I had tried to get the front wheels down off the batter while travelling forward, it would have put the machine virtually right up on the batter fully side-on which, at 2 in 1, would have rolled it.

Once the highest part of the batter was back to 1 in 1, I could then put the grader half up on the rest of the batter with heel of the blade under the center of the machine to cut the lower parts back to 1 in 1.

It took time and it wasn't the ideal way to do it but it beat floating an excavator 30-odd miles to do the batter when it didn't have enough room between batter and house to swing. Remember, this was back in the days before tilting heads or tilting buckets on excavators too. I was in the immediate area and it was all done and cleaned up and I was gone in 6 hours with one hour travel, at $25.00 per hour in those days, a total of $175.00. In CASH, no tax. (Did I say that?) The floatage alone on the excavator would have been around $100.00.

And it was FUN!

[Grader4me]

LOL! Deas you old dog! Great stuff..that never even entered into my head as a way to do this:eek: Perfect! thanks for sharing. You're the man.. lol :drinkup

[Northart]

Hello Deas Plant,

Ah, so you essentially crab steered the straight frame grader, along the slope. Ass ending sliding as advancing.

So with the house at the bottom or 12' from the toe. Must took awhile to push the material out to the front .

So what was this , a residential job ? Subdivision ?

Neat trick or technique . :) Attaboy for you . :drinkup

[Deas Plant]

Hi, Folks.
Thank you for the compliments. However, it was 28 years ago, in a totally different industrial safety climate. I doubt I would have exactly received rave reviews from a Workplace Health and Safety inspector back then. Nowadays, they would probably have the big, strong men in white jackets come along and fit me with a long-sleeved canvas lace-up coat and cart me off to the 'rubber ranch'. All for a little inventiveness and ingenuity.

Having said that, I doubt that too many inspectors would have been wandering around on a Saturday stretching their limited salary to cover more work hours.

Northart, it was a small acreage property - about 5 acres, I think - in an older sub-division and the job was for the owner of the property. I happened to be working on road maintenance in front of his property during the week and he asked me if I could do it. I looked at it and reckoned I could do it and, as it turned out, I was right. He was a happy little camper at the end of the day, my boss was happier by $150.00 and I was happier by the other $25.00 on top of my pay for the hours worked, given me by the boss as a bonus for finding the job and getting it done.

That boss and I had an arrangement. If I found any side jobs with the grader that came to less than $50.00, I put it straight in my own pocket. Over $50.00 and he wanted to know about it and I usually got a bit of a bonus from it. There were a couple of jobs that I had to go back to a second time to keep it under $50.00 a job. LOL.

On one job that I found, I needed fuel brought to the machine as the job ran to 16 hours over Saturday and Sunday. I arranged for the boss to bring fuel out to me and while it was being pumped in, he asked,
"How much are you charging them per hour? $22.50?"
(This was the rate he was getting for the machine during the week.)

I replied, "No."

He looked at me a bit funny until I said,
"$25.00."

Then he said, "Oh, you dear boy." I wished I had had a camera there. His expression, both before and after my "$25.00", was worth bottling. Remember, this is in 1980 dollars.

Sometimes, I hate myself for the things I do to people. Like H**L. LOL


The 16-hour job above won me a second 16-hour job on the next door property. The first job was levelling old tomato growing fields, about 20 acres of them. The second job was grading up roads and carparks and doing drainage work around a winery that sold direct to the public and had tourist coaches coming in as well as the general public in their cars. I had to do that one a couple of hours a night after I finished my normal hire work 'cos they didn't want the grader wandering around running over tourists or their vehicles or raising big mobs of dust. Easy work for a grader but not a lotta fun with no 'target practice'.

[Northart]

Hello Deas Plant,

Great to hear of the successful extras. :)

I know there are plenty of the unsuccessful after normal hrs work. Torn up equipment, stuck equipment, late getting it back to the job on Monday. Out of fuel. Etc.

[Deas Plant]

Hi, Northart.
I did have one 'unsuccessful' one with that grader. I found a buried stump on the last pass on one job and broke the side-shift link ball off the draught frame - at about 5.30 pm one night - had to weld it back on next morning. Just desserts??????????

[Grader4me]

Stumps are about the worst thing that you can get tangled up with on a grader. They just seem to grab you and something breaks. Been there and done that ...a few times

[Deas Plant]

Hi, Grader4me.
Yep, I'd agree that stumps are about the worst thing you can hit with a grader. I think myself that's 'cos a grader blade will cut into a stump and get a better bite on it than it can on a rock which it tends to skid over much of the time.

Just my 0.02.

[Randy Krieg]

You can't slope with a grader! That's impossible! I think you're pulling my leg. I'm certain it would tip over.

[JDOFMEMI]

You can't slope with a grader! That's impossible! I think you're pulling my leg. I'm certain it would tip over.

Randy

Good to see you drop in. Any tales from the Great White North?

I see you decided to:stirthepot

[Randy Krieg]

Jerry

Hows everything down there. We have had a busy winter. As long as the price of oil stays up we will have tons of work. This is the third winter in a row that I have worked straight through. I managed a small pipeline repair job this winter, kind of nice not having to get out in that cold for once. Looking forward to pulling levers this summer.

I would never stir the pot, but I would throw a grenade in it when they're not looking.

Regards, Randy :Pointhead

[Deas Plant]

Hi, Randy.
It's been a while since I saw you posting. :notworthy Wotchyer been up to?

I think you need to check your grenade supply, Mate. They might be a bit past their use-by date judging by the way that one didn't explode. :Banghead ;)

It's good to know that somebody is doing well out of the high price of oil. :drinkup

[Northart]

Hello Randy,

Well, your grenade didn't explode, it was a dud ! Better luck next time fishing . :) LOL

Welcome back to civilization . Women, whiskey,the bright lights of city lights, hard pavement.

Now your going to get to spend that money, on that High Priced Gas, like the rest of us . LOL :drinkup

Good to see another Local 302 Operator here. :)

[Randy Krieg]

You guys are right on about that! :exactly My armament is like me, it’s old! It makes a lot of noise :cussing, but doesn’t have any fire nor horsepower behind it. It’s heck getting old. A least the noise got somebody’s attention.:cool:

Northart,
Don’t know if you follow the State DOT bid site http://www.dot.state.ak.us/apps/contracts?ACTION=BIDRES&CID=25353&LTYPE=Certified&REGION_CODE=C&CNAME=OLD%20GLENN%20HWY:%20MP%2011.5%20TO%2018%20P LUMLEY%20ROAD%20TO%20PALMER%20REHAB.,%20PROJECT%20 NO.%2057039%20AND%20HSIP:%20OLD%20GLENN%20HWY:%20M ATANUSKA%20BRIDGE-GLENN%20HWY.%20CHANNELIZATION,%20PROJECT%20NO.%20A CHHE-0576(10)/54434 , but we missed the Glen Hwy job on Friday by .14%! Less than a quarter of a percent on a Ten Million dollar project. We were needing some of that Canadian Whiskey :canada on Friday night after that loss. Jeff Miller and I worked on this bid for three weeks. The job was within two miles of our shop/office and we missed it. :guns Pruhs Construction beat us by $14,257. We just put in a price to ASRC/SKW to finish the grade on a Taxiway on Elmendorf. We’ll see what happens with that. Do you still hire out of the Hall and travel? Any plans on where you’re going this summer. There are some good grading jobs :thumbsup coming up here in the Valley. Bid opening for Pt. McKenzie Rd. is tomorrow. 191,000 tons of borrow to place.:cool2 Lots of grader work.

In regards to the price of oil, there are always two sides to every coin. :IMO It really doesn’t bother me all that much that the price is up. I just try to plan my trips a little better since I drive a 1 ton diesel dually with 4:10 gears. It’s not known for its mileage or lack thereof!

On the good news side of life. My oldest son and girlfriend made me a Grandpa again last night. They had a baby girl.:drinkup

We are getting ready to order a new 16 for next winters work with Chevron. I get to spec it and order it. It will litterally be a “Slope Grader” :idontgetit and I known that you’ve seen those before! Things are looking good!

Regards, Randy

[Northart]

Hello Randy,

Ah, a Slope Grader, means a used one, or a Brand New One ! AIC sure has the worn out fleet.

I heard BP bought a new Cat 16M grader. Any truth to that ?

I was down at NC and got to sit in a new Cat 160M going to the City of Soldotna, awhile back. Tried out the simulator in the front office. I thought the lean wheel and blade pitch functions were ass backwards. Shoulda been switched from left to right , and right to left. On the wrong sides , maybe is a better way to say it.

I just work the summers anymore, trying to keep up with the fuel bill,:mad: as I'm off the power grid up here.

Might have to move to the Senior Citizens Home for cheap rent ! LOL :):)

I was at Anvik , last year, going back to finish up, then see what happens.

The Mat-Su Borough is trying to pass some ordinance , basically shut downs all gravel pits from mining below water table. :( What next !

Ah, man I guess you needa a drink after such a close loss on the bid. :drinkup

Later, Northart

[Lashlander]

Hey Randy, Always a bummer to miss em by such a small margin. Especially in your front yard. Did you ever see the paving job Pruhs did in Whittier? Wow!
Looked to me like they were having serious roller operator problems.:stirthepot
Hey Northart, AIC's boys are sure bumming over the Port Job. I heard QAP was pulling the boxes off their triple sevens to pull B70 trailers. Don't know if its true or not.

[Northart]

Hello Lashlander,

Dunno about QAP's Port Job. AIC has lot of internal turmoil going on.

The Port job now is being hacked at by deadbeats, unconcerned about the future, of the State of Alaska transportation system. It has nothing but POSITIVE impacts for the entire State. I looked at the entire report on the net. Lot of thought from all sources has gone into it. They have done a good job. I like it. :)

[Deas Plant]

Hi, Randy.
If you'd asked me nicely, I'd have told you to sharpen your pencils a bit more. What's more, I'd have done it politely. LOL.

Yes, it can very disappointing to miss out on a contract right on your doorstep, so to speak. Back in the late 1960's, a company called Thiess Contractors here in DownUnder put in a bid for a major railway marshalling yard contract about 3 miles from their main depot in the state of Western Australia. I can't remember the exact value of the contract now but it was several 10's of millions of dollars and may have been up around the 50 or 60 mill.. They missed out by a whole $800.00. And they had already started moving some of their plant around 2,000 miles South from another job that was finishing up at the other end of the state in anticipation of winning the job. I wonder how many 'Black Duck' lagers were quaffed that night? (One of that state's main beers is Swan lager, so named after the black swans that frequent the area.)

Re Northart and work: Yep, get the old fossil out making an honest buck. He'll get too fat and lazy spending his winters beating his PC keyboard to death. LOL.

[Northart]

Hello Deas Plant,

I better mention "slopes' as not to hyjack this thread. LOL:)

Hey , I know people that, beat their dog, spouse. But a PC keyboard ???? LOL :beatsme

Not me, I don't do that. Maybe the computer gets drunk on me, once in a while. :):yup :beerchug :falldownlaugh

Yes, I know the value of work. But some day I'm going to have slow way down, so I don't drop in the harness . :):yup

[Lashlander]

The Port job now is being hacked at by deadbeats, unconcerned about the future, of the State of Alaska transportation system. It has nothing but POSITIVE impacts for the entire State. I looked at the entire report on the net. Lot of thought from all sources has gone into it. They have done a good job. I like it. :)

Ya, I knew when I read the big write up in the ADN it was comming. Everyone has to have a band wagon they can jump on.

[Randy Krieg]

I use to work in that pit that started this uproar. I was with that parent company for over 16 years. I am personal friends with both the operators who managed that pit. I’m all for gravel mining, but there are some of these people who shot themselves in the foot with poor management decisions and ignoring numerous warning from experienced hands. :nono:nono

Unfortunately like in many situations one fast talking slickster has brought a lot of hardship on some good hard working honest people. With all this Grandfathering permits being done it’s really not going to change all that much right now. In the future, yes! I admit that some this ordinance will cause the need to cut down more trees for all the increased paperwork, :idontgetit but I believe there is some good that will come from this. The slicksters (who would destory your property in a second as long as they could put more money in their pocket) now know they’re being watched and they will be held accountable. :my2c

:duh Darn, I forgot to put the word SLOPE in there :naughty . Insert the words "slippery slope" behind slickster somewhere!

Regards, Randy

[Northart]

Hello Randy,

Sent you a email, for more news, on how, to negotiate the " Slippery Slopes " of construction . LOL :)

Northart

[Randy Krieg]

Art; thanks for the mail now lets see if we can get this thread back on line.

Attachments;
Grader pulling a slope.
Grader on a slope.
Grader grading a slope.
Grader grading on the North Slope.

There that should do it.:D

Regards, Randy

[JDOFMEMI]

Randy

Great pictures of some of your slope work.
I always learn something from your posts. Especially the ones talking about your help in development of the H series.
One of my favorite pics is the one with your tire blocked up so you can grade downslope.

I wish I could have gotten pictures while grading a 2:1 slope down from the shoulder like that, with the entire machine down over the slope, cabled off to the trunnion ball of a D-8K dozer. Sadly, there was no one there with a camera. (10+ years ago)

[Deas Plant]

Hi, Randy.
Nice photos. Thanks for sharing. One question if I may. Too bad you're not here to stop me. LOL. That last one, grading on the North Slope, doesn't look like much of a slope, maybe 1 in 500 (I guess that does qualify.) so would you be referring to a geographical location there rather than the actual slope that you were working on?

Again, thanks for sharing.

[Northart]

Well, here's a few pictures of my grader work last year. Anvik, Alaska airport improvements. All silt,sand soils. Some minor clays and some permafrost. Basalt rock was found in a deposit near the Yukon for crush surface aggregate. And another rock source 3 miles away for base course.

The bench cuts (all silt) were made by a dozer, and the water bars built by an excavator. DOT spec'd out the bench cuts, same as I seen elsewhere. :( Had to do with the narrow ROW I guess. Would of been easier to build with shallower slopes , of course needing a wider easement or ROW.

1st two pictures are by the airplane parking ramp, and last two are the access road to the village.

I just don't have any grader pictures articulating and working the slopes. Next time I'll have to take some.

Thanks Randy for posting yours. :)

[Deas Plant]

Hi, Northart.
I'd reckon you're still 'on topic' There appears to be a bit of grade slope on that access road, judging by the steps in the batters. LOL.

Again, nice photos and thanks for sharing.

[Northart]

Hello Deas,

The "Slope" to the road , LOL :), is 10.21% grade, if I remember right. :)

[Deas Plant]

Hi, Northart.
That's a LOT better than the slope in Randy's North Slope photo, I'll wager.

[Northart]

Hello Deas,

The "North Slope " is flat, so much that I could see lights ,what I thought was 25 miles, away. A pick up in the distance takes a long time to get to you.

Now mirages in the spring , are really weird , see them from many , many miles away.

[Deas Plant]

Hi, Northart.
So my guess of 1 in 500 for the slope in Randy's North Slope photo mightn't be all that far wrong? LOL.

Are you going to 'cross that old white mountain just a little South-east of Nome' and come on down to the Best Show On Tracks?

http://www.bestshowontracks.org/

I guess I can excuse you if you're not. After all, you've got several mountain ranges to cross. I've only got the Pacific puddle. LOL.

[Randy Krieg]

Deas Plant
That is correct, it is a geoghaphical area, which many in America refer to as the North Slope. It actually does slope from the Brooks Range all the way to the Artic Ocean. Here in Alaska we have many other names for that place. Some I can't post on here.:cool:

Northart
Love those pictures. You must of had your art work framed at the same shop I did. That picture frame looks very familar. :thumbsup

Hope this works, I'm sitting at Anchorage International Airport waiting to board a plane.

Have a great evening, Randy

[Randy Krieg]

I thought you might recognize this place. It's close to home. I got to live there while I was finish all those lots.

Who said this isn't a great job?

[Northart]

Hello Deas ,

I would suspect the gradient to be more like .001 % on the coastal lands. From my job experiences. The surveyors working there could verify it.

The Prudhoe Bay tide fluctuation is only 1'.

The surface waters are stagnant, the ponds,lakes, saturate the tundra , liquify the soils and the magnetic pull , or gravitational forces , actually create, elongated water bodies, readily discernable from the air.

There are aberrations to that, as such, "pingos" or raised mounds of earth pepper the landscape much, as acne on a teenager. Sometimes 20' high. A danger to the low cruising helicopters in winter. Barely visible in the whiteness of the landscape.

I just got home from celebrating my Birthday, the band played Johnny Horton's "North to Alaska" . :)

I suspect I'll be busy grading somehwere by the Best Showtime. Steve Petraist from NC that wintered in the Antarctic, and is currently in Prudhoe has said he will be there. So Alaska will be represented.

Hello Randy,

Sounds like you have Wi-Fi , much more techno than us hinterland residents. Catching the red eye special for Vegas ??? Larry Graham is headed that way also.

The CIRI Hotel ??? Snuck in did you . LOL :) Don't remember where I was .

Looks like the Sutton Coal Mine Reclamation, with the steaming pics.

I worked up there,prior, above you, for Al Johnson. Where the 80 meter cut was. Pushed that high bank down, took all summer. Exposed some of the old underground workings. Looked into the tunnels, real rich anthracite coal. All mined out. Psenak (sp)came in after us.

Well, enough for tonight. :)

[Deas Plant]

Hi, Randy and Northart.
Thanks for the Geography 101 and for the photos. Great stuff as usual.

Hey, have we hi-jacked this thread all to ourselves? LOL.

[637slayer]

no way deas you guys just keep on goin those are some great shots northart and randy thanx for sharing, i do find it hard to believe your windrows are so even without a scraper around though. lol

[stretch]

I just got home from celebrating my Birthday, the band played Johnny Horton's "North to Alaska" . :)
:usa (yep, 14 and I know who Johnny Horton is!)

Keep up the pics guys! Enjoying those shots from way up there! :popcorn

[Lashlander]

Hey Randy and Northart, good pics. Always enjoy action shots. I came through the Airport last night myself.

[Deas Plant]

Hi, 637Slayer.
Even windrows without a scraper around? Excatly how would a scraper control the size, shape or even-ness of a grader's windrow. Grader operators don't keep scrapers around to control their windrows, only to remove the material they don't need. We're more than capable of deciding what we do or don't need, controlling all the material we do need and cleaning up after ourselves.

In fact, I'll bet that graders are called in to clean up after scrapers way more often than scrapers are called in to clean up after graders. H**l, on most jobs where scrapers are hauling excess material away from graders, we grader operators even have to put the material INTO windrows so that you scraper operators (aimers) know what to take and half the time you still get it wrong. LOL.

Northart, Johnny Horton is one of my favourite singers of all time. He did some really good songs/ballads about historical events as well as his country music and he was also easy to listen to. I'm just not into :Banghead music.

[Firecat11]

I got to sit in a Cat 140M Simulator today. It was unbelievable! The advancement in technology just continues to climb.

Has anyone ran a 'M-Series' yet? I am curious how you like them or not.

It seems like it might be a little difficult to keep it from drifting into the gutter pan when cutting base grade. Especially if you were cutting off of the right side of the moldboard.

[Ray Welsh]

I got to sit in a Cat 140M Simulator today. It was unbelievable! The advancement in technology just continues to climb.

Has anyone ran a 'M-Series' yet? I am curious how you like them or not.

It seems like it might be a little difficult to keep it from drifting into the gutter pan when cutting base grade. Especially if you were cutting off of the right side of the moldboard.

Most of you boys nowdays are spoilt with articulated graders. The last grader job I did for a living was on a rigid frame cat 12 cutting the grass off a railway embankment so we could widen it. (Aprox 1971).
How I did it??....Drive wheels on the bottom and steering on the top, leaning down, then moved forward cutting the grass down until the grader reached tipping point, then reverse back down to flat ground and line up for next attempt.
The drive wheels were always spinning and the grader was moving sideways throughout each pass. It took a while for the 2KM then a small elevating scraper picked up the spoil and put it aside. As the new fill came up we keyed into the original embankment. All In all, a satisfied customer and the job completed for a profit. Remember that Excavators were not around then, backhoes were very scarce and couldn't reach far enough anyway.
There's always more than one way to strangle a cat!!.....C ya........Ray

[Deas Plant]

Hi, Ray.
Aha! Somebody else not afraid to use his grader to its fullest extent with a little creativity thrown in for good measure. When I first used that trick, there was certain pucker factor -around 6.5 to 7 if I remember correctly - on the first pass. After that, when I knew it would work, the pucker factor pretty much evaporated.

Northart and Grader4me, I personally have never been fussy which side I cast the blade out to, whatever suited the current job. Yes, I did notice a little difference and sometimes it was a bit of a PITA. There was a time that I had to cut a small bench up towards the top of a batter to sit an 8" PVC gas pipe on. The batter was about 5 feet high and formed one side of a flat-bottomed 'V' drain that had silted up a little in the bottom but was still only about 5 feet wide. (Damned excavators making things awkward again. LOL.) The bench was supposed to be about 4 feet up on the batter and ran for about 100 feet until it reached the point where the pipe took a right-angle turn and ran away from the drain.

The boss (company owner) was going to send an excavator to do the job but the leading hand said he thought I would be able to do it with the grader so I was taken to have a look at it. I thought I could do it too, and it turned out that I could but it was one of those times that I was glad the grader, a well-worn 14G, had more 'equal' side-shift to the right than the left. LOL.

[Northart]

Hello DeasPlant,

I always make sure,( I am fussy ) if I'm going to be assigned, to one blade , that everything,(mirrors,seat,moldboard,lights,etc. ) is adjusted the way :)I want it. :)

The moldboard I always have set, the end of the cylinder to the inner most holes so it has max reach to the right.

Just the way traffic patterns are, that it is easier to go with the flow than against.

[Deas Plant]

Hi, Northart.
Wanna give yerself a culture shock? Come DownUnder for one of your winters and work down here. We drive on 'tuther' side of the road. LOL.

Nah! On second thoughts, you'd better not. That would be our summer. The bright sunlight and heat might melt you. I'd hate to have to ship you home in a leakproof container. LOL.

Mind you, I'll be making the reverse adjustment in about 5 weeks, for about 10 days.

[Northart]

Hello Deas Plant,

We have enough misfits in our society here, to give us "Cultural shock" . LOL

It did dawn upon me that you drive on the left side , right after I hit the, submit reply button ! That is why you are using the left side as opposed to us right handers ! :cool:

[Deas Plant]

Hi, Northart.
I guess I'm 'ambidextrous'. I'll use whichever side happens to be handiest. I noticed very early in the grader operating part of my career that material drifts across the blade in an upward direction noticeably quicker if you are working uphill so I started using this to my advantage. Break a drain out going downhill and clean it up going uphill (where possible), grade material down a batter going downhill, grade it up a batter going uphill, etc., so you gotta be prepared to work whichever way fits the situation.

Hmmmmm. It's a pity that you are stocked right up with misfits. Are you REALLY sure? We have a few we could let you have on long-term loan/99 year lease if you want them. And they're cheap.

This talk of right- and left-handed working has raised a question in my mind. Can anybody tell me for sure one way or the other if Cat graders, or any graders for that matter, are manufactured any differently for right or left hand drive countries?

How's your Spring weather over there? We're in the last month of our Autumn (Fall to you.) and I'm still wearing shorts and T-shirts to work - - - all day.

[Eric]

For what it's worth, we drive left handed in the mine. Now every time I get on a dirt road I automatically go to the left side!!:beatsme

[Turbo21835]

For what it's worth, we drive left handed in the mine. Now every time I get on a dirt road I automatically go to the left side!!:beatsme

Left hand traffic on dirt spreads and mines is a good thing. The problem I seem to have after a day of running a pushcat is tailgating people on the road. Am I the only one? :beatsme

[Deas Plant]

Hi, Turbo21835.
Must be a helluva lotta pushcat operators out there. LOL.

Hi, Eric.
All the quarries and mines that I have worked in DownUnder ran their LH drive trucks on the left of their roads. Something about partial head-ons not doing so much damage to the suckers involved in said partial head-ons. Mind you, a full head-on can still be just as hurtful or fatal whatever side you are driving on.

[Ray Welsh]

Hi, Turbo21835.
Must be a helluva lotta pushcat operators out there. LOL.

Hi, Eric.
All the quarries and mines that I have worked in DownUnder ran their LH drive trucks on the left of their roads. Something about partial head-ons not doing so much damage to the suckers involved in said partial head-ons. Mind you, a full head-on can still be just as hurtful or fatal whatever side you are driving on.

True story Deas, of course obeying the rules is every bit as important.
1976 I was a boss at Telfer Gold mine WA. we had 6x Cat773 dumpers and 6x Terex same size. Quest was the company and we were contract overburden strippers
The dust was always a problem and the rule was "if you can't see where you are going, then you stop". During a dust storm on the waste dump a Terex did the right thing but a following Cat didn't and hit it up the rear. We had mostly female drivers and both were crying when I got there but both still alive. About half of the load on the Cat shot over the Terex They were lucky that it was Cat hitting Terex as Terex had a shorter tray which didn't touch the Cat cab. A Cat into another Cat would have been a different story.
Those girls driving the dumpers were a hardy lot and never complained about minor things like a broken window winder that would have stopped some males......C ya..........Ray

[crowbar]

you gotta watch them gals thier muckshifters not shirt lifters

[ballbags2428]

spare the time to cut the profile as its bulked out... work smarter not harder its a lot easier pulling a 5m slope distance then 20m at 2:1 n don't forget that the blade is a stabilizer don't center shift or slide it up high making yourself vulnerable for a rollover.

[Deas Plant]

Hi, BB2428.
Welcome to the forum.

I faintly suspect that you might get some differing views about not center-shifting or throwing your blade out on the high side when pulling slopes. However, if it works for you, go for it.

[ballbags2428]

true deas didn't explain myself in detail was referring to steep long slope distance when your ass is biting the seat and you tractor requires blade stability.

[graderman52]

I am from old school, learning on old cat 99E series 12 straight frame grader. Most of my grader finishing is on road building. Back then we just got on the slope and finish them down. Since then the modern graders have caught up to us old timers. I have done slope like some you in this forum, but I still like to get on the slope the old way. On 1to2 I bring them down as the scrapers cut the back slope. Sometimes you have to climb up maybe 2 to 3 grader widths to make to slope right, in those cases I lean my wheels into the slope and keep my as striaght as I can, for stability. On 21/2 to 1 I bring the biggest winrow as possible down with me to help you stay up. I also gage a 2to1 slope like this "go until you are scared s---less, then go a little steeper". I like reading the forum to see how other operators do things because you are never to good or old enough to learn new ways.

[graderman52]

I am from old school, learning on old cat 99E series 12 straight frame grader. Most of my grader finishing is on road building. Back then we just got on the slope and finish them down. Since then the modern graders have caught up to us old timers. I have done slope like some you in this forum, but I still like to get on the slope the old way. On 1to2 I bring them down as the scrapers cut the back slope. Sometimes you have to climb up maybe 2 to 3 grader widths to cut the slope right, in those cases I lean my wheels into the slope and keep my blade as straight as I can, for stability. On 21/2 to 1 I bring the biggest winrow as possible down with me to help you stay up. I also gage a 2to1 slope like this "go until you are scared s---less, then go a little steeper". I like reading the forum to see how other operators do things because you are never to good or old enough to learn new ways.

[Deas Plant]

Hi, Graderman52.
Welkum to ther 4um. It's nice to hear from somebody who can still remember what a 99E WAS. I find that most grader operators these days have memories that stop at about 70D/17K or later. Many have NEVER run a rigid frame grader or gear controls - or a pilot/pony motor start.

Cat graders in general are pretty forgiving beasts when side-cutting batters, usually giving several different warning signals before they 'acshully' do fall over. One of the first warning signals that most operators experience is marks like 'twistie' bottle tops or octopus suckers appearing on the upholstery of the seat. LOL. This may also be accompanied by a strong tendency to find yourself sitting half on the arm rest of the seat, if so equipped.

The next common warning signal is a distinct tendency for the grader to want to slide its 'delicate derierre' downhill, front wheels leaned into the slope or no. Dropping your windrow - the heavier, the better - immediately below the downhill drive wheels can help to stop this. The snag with this is that you then don't have any blade contact with the ground further downhill to help stop the machine falling over. C'est la vie. Which is also why it's not a bad idea to throw the blade out on the high side and deposit your windrow immediately inside your high side drive wheels so that they can at least help a bit to stop you sliding downhill. This also moves a fair bit of weight uphill of the machine to help stabilise it.

The next common warning signal is daylight under the high side drive wheels - NOT a good look or feel.

The next sign/signal is usually a feeling of 'weightlessness' terminating in finding yourself looking up at some sort of unaccustomed angle from down at the bottom of the batter. The 'looking up' part of this sign/signal may be bypassed totally in some cases as you go from 'weightlessness' directly to waking up dead. THAT is an even worse look and/or feel than the one mentioned above and every effort should be made to avoid it.

[diggerop]

All the quarries and mines that I have worked in DownUnder ran their LH drive trucks on the left of their roads. Something about partial head-ons not doing so much damage to the suckers involved in said partial head-ons. Mind you, a full head-on can still be just as hurtful or fatal whatever side you are driving on.[/QUOTE]

Partial head-ons would only be an extra benifit, All the mines haul roads I've been on are shared with light vehicles eg. landcruisers ,and medium vehicles (lube truck, maintenance trucks)as they are all r/h drive which drive on the normal (L/h) side of the road for us down under. It would be cost prohibitive and near impossible to have separate haulroads for L/h trucks

[Deas Plant]

Hi Diggerop.
Welcome to the forum. Likewise, all the quarries and mines that I have worked in also run their LH drive haul trucks on the left side of the road for the same reasons that you listed. I have also seen scraper spreads run the same way. In fact, I can't remember ever working with scrapers where it wasn't done that way and for the same reasons.