I am appreciating a stump grinder more and more

[CM1995]

I know a kid when I see one. I put all the kids in the seat when I can.

Me too. I think we need to be encouraging the kids that are interested in our trades since we ain't going to be around forever and there is a lot of work that needs to be done. If we can let a kid get a little supervised seat time then go for it.

 

[Jumbo]

I'm old school, if I have no powder, I still have a 2" auger. Drill straight down through the heart, you can either drill a hole in at the base 90 degrees to the vertical or just poke vertically through to the dirt. Make sure you get a good draft. Drop as many charcoal briquets down the hole as you can and pour kerosene over everything. You can get flames blasting 4" above the stump.
The most important part; after you do all that, take your lawn chair, a six pack and enjoy your hard work watching it burn out. A 24" stump will take a day to burn out and perhaps a half rack instead of a six pack. When the center is burned out, the rest of the stump pulls out real easy. You can accelerate the process with a shop vac on blow vs. suck. Make sure you have a length of steel pipe to get the vac away from the fire. I've done this on many fir stumps. Kinda relaxing after a hard day.

 

[skyking1]

I took the run out to the only pit with 2" minus, Washington Rock up in Weyerhauser property off Kapowsin lake.
@CM1995 here is a pit in the forest, in the foothills of Mt. Rainier.


They had a 9 with a track frame off, some offroad Cat haulers running around.

This new Hitachi 670 was going to attack the mountain. Nice looking machine.



On the way out I took a pic of this 988B, it brought back some memories from when they were top line production machines.

 

[skyking1]

It had seen better days and needed a trip to the dentist for starters.


It is a long way out single lane roads and no radio in my rig, and I won't go back. I can pick up the phone and get a local to bring the goods from there.
I laid down that box-o-rocks at Pete's and tracked it in. He can get a T-truck to bring him 30 plus tons for less than $900 for the next time. I am happy to go massage it.

 

[Steve Frazier]

Would that 988 be from the 80s? I recall a local gravel bank having one and that was about the time I was hauling.

 

[skyking1]

late 70's to the early 90's.
That was a long run for a model.

 

[CM1995]

So I am assuming that is glacial till? Do they have to crush it or just screen?

Reminds me of Costa Rica where they mine their gravel out of the river. Companies are granted a concession to dig rock washed down the mountains in the river deltas near the Pacific. In the dry season they dig it out, process and stockpile. When the rainy season comes it fills the hole back in. Heck of a business.

It's a grayish black rock that ranges in size from watermelon to sand, the stones are polished smooth via the journey down the mountains. The color and texture is very similar to the rock and sand we saw in Alaska.

Here in central AL all our rock is blasted and crushed limestone. South AL has sand and pea gravel. Our main stone supplier actually crushes the limestone overburden for construction aggregates. This overburden doesn't have the correct amount or purity of lime for Carmuse so instead of make waste piles they crush it. A form of recycling I guess.

 

[skyking1]

It all goes through the jaw, screens, and cone crusher around here. They will run a sand wash screw if they are selling sand, otherwise it goes to the minus.
They have some big jaws but you still see piles of oversize as they move along. It varies from 3~5 rock load size to proper Leaverites they work around.