square yardage....

[hoosier]

Just curious what kind of square yardage some of the operators get here on mainline milling.
My crew has been accused of "scarring the asphalt"..never heard of such garbage,as our cut looks good and the material is not chunking.
I am of the opinion if the cut looks good and the machine is running good,drop the hammer and run with it.

wirtgen w2000 6.8ft drum,we get an average of 20000 sq.yards on mainline on a good day,10 hrs...25K if the trucks are lined up good and we are able to water up on the move.
What do some of you long time milling operators think if the cut looks good and the machine is running good and the teeth etc..are good as well.

[milling_drum]

I can't believe somebody finally showed up....

Nice topic, in all fairness, figure in city work too yes? Mainline open road milling in ideal conditions and trucks....20000 is about right. IF the surface heats up and cuts good in the aft more is possible or ya:)

That scarring issue is a blow over of the customer/inspectors....adjust the moldboard till they get over it...more moldboard downpressure usually stops it but it will slow you down...cleanup usually prevails in that arguement.

Those last pics in the shared thread, we got 36000 sqs, started at 7 pm, finished at around 5 am...2 W2000's with 6'8" drums. With better personnel and equipment we would have been done by 3 am easily......

Good to have somebody that knows whats up around.

[hoosier]

Thanks for the reply milling drum.
Actually the DOT/Inspectors love it when we show up as they know we want to get the job done and its done right so we can move on to other contracts.
It is the "equipment trainer" who is coming up with all these theories about the drum skipping,the machine is bogging yadda yadda....the outfit I work for is split up all over the southeast and I guess he cannot handle the fact his local crew has been milking the jobs.
oh well....

Mostly all our work is in house,we have started doing alot more work for other customers lately so hopefully that will take off as well.


Nice Pics
Back in the 90's I worked for a milling outfit down your way out of largo,they had some nice roadtecs and its where I learned the ropes.

[milling_drum]

Its just nice to see somebody that has a clue about things in the milling section. This is a great website and alot of the other areas are great with the gtech stuff but milling...oh well.

Largo used to be the home of Turtle Southeast. Back in the 90s I was with Mill-it/Delta/The Miller Group. Turtle ran those Roadtec RX50's forever, they just started bying newer machines a few years ago...saw a vid not long ago with them running a Bomag....and they were hardcore Roadtec people. I'll spare you the details of what I know of them, but I'm glad they treated you well.

Not to go off topic but....Most of the W2000's I saw in FL were 7'2" drums, it seems they have gotten away from that and put them out with a 6'8" DRUM which is flush off the right side, I've always prefered having that extra foot to play with on the right side...makes it alot easier on curbs and shouldering....

[milling_drum]

By the way...I mill very little in FL and its going to stay that way until they learn how to pay experienced people and get rid of lazy worthless @ss kissers.

[hoosier]

Yes I started at Turtle.
The rx50s they had ran really well ad they did have a good maintenance program to keep them in good shape
Tom and Dave are good guys and after getting out of the crane side of construction last year I wanted to get back into milling and Tom gave me a good reference so that help me land where I am at now.
I remember delta and douglas were our biggest competitors then.

Here there is pp&s,carolina milling and delta,that I have worked with on jobs where we have needed more than 1 machine.
Most of the asphalt companies here have their own mills,unlike when i was at turtle and we were gone traveling 300 days of the year.
The pay is better in the carolinas than farther south but still not up to par with the union country farther north.

[milling_drum]

Douglas....I could tell you endless horror stories about them. Delta...well...

The Vice president of PP&S was running Delta when I worked there. They were strung to thin for experienced people and Donegal had enough of the BS....

Carolina Milling is the company I was reffering too, I couldn't work with them at all and actually feel sorry for the owner, they won't be around long unless something changes there. The owner was telling me about a Delta operator that came over and worked for them a few weeks, he blew the gearbox up on the W1200 and flipped the DC1900 on its side...they fired him and Delta took him back....go figure.

Its all good.

What kinda squares can you get in the city hopping manholes/fighting traffic/on the curb?

We were at around 18000 per day in Devils Lake, ND last summer, various depths. easy cutting in most spots. Brand new W2100.

[hoosier]

In the city on large jobs they usually break it up into 1 mile+ or - sections and we generally do 10+ hour shifts so anywhere above 15K sq.yd depending on trucks,amount of water valves,manholes,drain gates etc...
I love doing curb cuts as that usually falls under variable milling since the asphalt will 90% of the time be above the curb.And variable milling pays alot more :).

I got a phone call from Molly (carolina milling)yesterday,I am going to see what kind of offer/package I can get...Do not really want to travel anymore but ....,We have had them recently come down and help us on a couple of projects that needed milled and paved before the contracts expired. Chris and his crew did a real good job,much better and alot Faster than what Ive seen from PP&S.

Most of the jobs we do are 2 inch milling,but we also do alot of full depth patches (9") and service patches...milk jobs more or less.

[milling_drum]

They need all the help they can get.

The older of the two W2000's was a better cutting machine then the newer one, they have an auto greaser on it, the swing fittings on the upper conveyor can be heard at least 50ft away because they haven't been taking grease, the lower pulley on the lower conveyor sounded horrible as well, I suspected grease might also have be an issue.

For me to run the people into the ground publicly would be wrong but....they are worthless. Chris is a good hard working dude and knows his stuff. I left the old machine for a minute and went to see him about something to find him on the curb controling grade and operating. The Two groundman had nothing in their minds at all and weren't even on that side of the machine that needed to be watched.

The 4ft machine looked in good shape. Its being run by a truck driver. I'll pass your positive assements onto the owner.

[Buster F]

We do quite a bit of work in the city of Boston and for us 7000 sq. yds in 9 hrs would be considered a good day. Usually the first setback is getting the cars towed by the BTD (without the help of a police detail because they don't show up until 9 a.m. or so). The streets here in Boston have quite a bit of steel in them - each house/building has a water gate and a gas gate(usually about 6' off the curb) sewer manholes, drainage manholes, catch basins, traffic signal boxes, and an electrical box for each streetlight. Its pretty common to have over 100 castings to jump, cutoff, and trim within those 7000 sq. yds. We rarely do any open highway milling with our own crews since we can sub that work out for 55-60 cents a sq. yd. and do the city work ourselves for $3.00 a sq. yd.

[Toegrinder]

Douglas....I could tell you endless horror stories about them. Delta...well...


What kinda squares can you get in the city hopping manholes/fighting traffic/on the curb?

We were at around 18000 per day in Devils Lake, ND last summer, various depths. easy cutting in most spots. Brand new W2100.


I know there is roughly 200 hp diff between the 2000 and 2100 and tha dimensions of the rest of the machine are close to the same except the 2100 is 5 ft longer...but is it a huge difference between the two when milling power wise? I have run 2200's and 2000's, and the difference between them was like night and day. The reason I am asking is because I am in the works of starting up a milling company in a couple months and am torn between the two. I will be doing mostly city work but would like to expand into some highway jobs when city is slow. the 2100 would be perfect I think as its not too big for city, but big enough to tear it up on the hwy. but the cost is quite a bit more. and no one close by has a 2100 that I can go check out their production...

[milling_drum]

A 2100 will run circles around a 2000. In the city the operators just have to pay attention a little more...

Out on the Hwy straight ahead with a 2100, 7 miles + a day is possible. That would NEVER be possilbe with a 2000...Wirtgen are a little over rated too, I'm pretty sure a PR600/RX700 could do just as well....Gotta have a operator that knows a little something too...not those set in and go dummies....

In my Job searches out your way I've seen plenty of sizeable milling companies out there...

[Toegrinder]

The only companies near me that do work are Alpha and Rocky Mountain out of denver and co springs. Then APP, Dustrol, and Valentine but they are states away...

[milling_drum]

Coughlin and Western prowl around there too...

That company we worked for this year in Idaho Falls (HK Contracting) mentioned another bunch called Kodiak Pacific...Plus all the names mentioned. They have a torn up Valentine CMI PR1000 sitting on their yard.

[milling_drum]

Today on a 2007 W150, I cut maybe.....5000 sq yds in townhouse complex. Running grade and loading trucks at the same time is a refreshing change...only dug 2 holes all day. Wirtgens Newer style box are aight.

In Providence in 2002, lotta iron in the road like in Boston, 6000 sq yds was a good day.

[milling_drum]

Today...hopped a few manholes without stopping...didn't dig any holes...did leave numerous ridges (fix a few tomorrow, cleanup had too...you know)....the no rear steer thing is really burning my @ss.

[hoosier]

Holy Sh$t I hate working for an asphalt construction company,they only care about putting down tons of asphalt.
Its been a week it seems since we last milled,doing alot of asphalt shoveling,traffic control and shuttle buggy operating FFS.....
Carolina Milling is starting to sound good but the Mrs. would skin me alive if I started traveling again.

Ouch Milling Drum,no rear steer would suck ,no radius cuts I hope.

[milling_drum]

Those 4ft machines are a nitemare to steer, I knew about it before I started running it.

I doubt carolina milling has alot of big jobs, you might wind up commuting for shop time...they have a big job in Jacksonville, Fl. in early dec. which is all I know of. Not enough to keep me around there.

[milling_drum]

It seems we all forgot something, squares usually depends on how well cleanup stays caught up because, if they can't keep up, the mill has to slow down.

[hoosier]

So true on cleanup.
I have seen many times when we milled downtown streets and were supposed to be off the road by 7am...at 10am we would still be out there doing cleanup and putting asphalt around manholes etc...

Happened very frequently ^ needless to say its 1 reason I am no longer at that company.

We made the nightly news on 1 city street a month or so ago,the cleanup crew forgot to put asphalt around a manhole and remove a riser anyways a lady went over the manhole in her car and the oil pan to the car was left behind.... she was not a happy camper lol

[Buster F]

Cleanup is a huge part of city milling and can make you or break you at the end of the day. The company i work for prides itself on having a very efficient and thorough cleanup operation. We run 6 man crews which include a big mill operator, 2 screw men (one of whom is the foreman), a trimmer man, a skidsteer man, and a cleanup laborer. And lets not forget the sweeper, efficient sweeping is the key to timely traffic swap-overs and a clean and neat finished product (not to mention reduced costs for windshields). We prefer that our sweeping contractors use broombears for their ability to dump the hopper into the next pass thus not requiring a dedicated truck til the last pass, not to mention that the mobility of a truck mounted sweeper is a huge asset.
What kind of trimmer do you guys use? We have a small fleet of Rx10's and always have a spare on the job to reduce downtime due to breakdowns (our trimmers take a hell of a beating), a couple of our trimmers are 15 plus years old and still see regular service as back-up machines. Probably 6 or 7 years ago i was trimming a cutback in a local city (about 200 sq/yds with a dozen or so castings) and noticed a guy on the sidewalk watching me with great interest. He eventually stopped me and introduced himself as the local Wirtgen sales rep and told me that he and my boss had agreed to bring out a small Wirgen trimmer for me to demo (i believe is was an 800 but i could be wrong). He then said to me " i've been wathing you for a little while and can tell you right now that my machine will not do what i've seen you do with that RX10, but i'd appreciate you at least trying it for a couple of hours and see what you think". He was right - the Rx10 will trim circles around the Wirtgen in a city situation where there are clusters of castings everywhere. The biggest problem for me was not being able to see the drum, we don't use jackhammers and whatever mix is left around the castings by the trimmer as removed with a pick-ax - so as you can imagine getting as close as possible to the casting can be invaluable to the poor cleenup laborer. I'm sure that given more seat time i would have gotten better (i've seen a few guys who were aces on the wirtgen and did a very nice job), but for now i think i'll stick with my Roadtec/Carlson. If you check out my thread from the airport job you can see a pick or two of our trimmers.
Sorry for the long post, but it's early Sunday morning and i'm a bit bored. Take care, Roy

[hoosier]

Buster,on our cleanup (we did not have a dedicated cleanup crew which is a big reason why everything was always screwed up when it was time to be off the road) They had a 2ft mill attached to a cat skid steer,a bachoe ,1 broom tractor and a vacuum truck...
The other half of the company I was with demo'ed a dynapac trimmer,they brought it down to columbia on a city street contract that had a ton of manholes...It was alot faster popping the asphalt loose with the backhoe,but it also was probably the guy operating was still learning how to operate it.

[milling_drum]

Up north I've seen quite a bit of cleanup where they used Jackhammers, down south its usually a bobcat or backhoe which pops the little pieces off.

Alot depends on how well the big machine does going around or over the iron, the closer the better in most cases, in overlay if the cut is just to take the upper layer of asphalt off, then its easy for cleanup to break the pieces left, in some cases its nice if the big machine digs a little deeper (1/2 or 1/4 inch) around the iron so that clean can get an edge to grip and rip the remainder up.

Maybe its time a broom thread too huh? hahahaha

[krisjanik01]

depends if the downer boy is wearing his cowboy hat or not hahah.do american fullsize mill operators wear a cow boy hat to haha the downer boys here do?? i operate bobcat mill case 465 s3 600mm goes hard

[SAH]

the company that i work for has a case 460 skidsteer, i believe with a mill head and a bucket attachment, a sweep truck, and a laborer with a jack hammer in the clean up crew behind the big mills. I'm one a smaller mill with a 4' combo cutter doing widening, base repairs, and shoulder work. if we run outta work for the small mill the usally put us with a big mill doing main line work.

[Blue Collar]

our small mills work about 1 month longer than our big mills here. Does all the companies you guys work for have you haul your own machine around from job to job, where i work every machine has its own lowboy and the operator of that machine always is in charge of hauling. Its a good way for us to rack up a lot of pay hours.

[milling_drum]

Maybe Krisjanik can give us an idea of what a "downer" is?

Even in Texas I didn't see an operator wearing a cowboy hat, mostly cause its wayyyy to windy for such.

The operation that Blue Collar is with looks like it would be alright, the operator being responsible for hauling means its alot easier to get around without the waiting for the lowboy to show up which is especially good on city work.

[Blue Collar]

i would of that companies, especially ones that work in the remote areas in the western states would have their own rigs for each machine just for mobility to do random jobs that might pop up that were'nt scheduled

[Buster F]

The company i work for has 2 fulltime milling crews and somewhere around 10 paving crews thus requiring many lowbed moves on any given day. If i'm counting right we have 5 company lowbeds and at least 3 hired beds on any given day. Both milling and paving each require 2 beds for a move - 1 for big mill, 1 for trimmers or 1 for paver/ lead roller, 1 for back roller/water truck. Each crew also has a dedicated service truck which is driven from job to job by either a laborer or operator and carries fuel, tools, spare parts and pulls the skidsteer.

[krisjanik01]

downer edi http://www.downeredi.com.au there big in aus with everthing from mining to road works there is another thred on here with one of there machiens on fire .

[milling_drum]

Ohhh ok, I thought it was a term reserved for those special types of "operators" or something.

Do they mill all year in Austraila?

Buster I think the logo I saw on your equipment was Agreggate Industries? I thought they were a highway milling bunch....

[krisjanik01]

yes all year round all day all nigh.