learning how to doze

[Deas Plant]

How did I get ahead of you so quickly??????????????

Hi, Grader4me.
DamnedifIknow. And I had 2 weeks on your side of the Pacific puddle almost incommunicado due to most of your 'net cafes having gone wi-fi - bring your own laptop.

Maybe you'll just have to polish your butt sitting in your PC a bit more and wear your fingers to the bone typing. LOL.

Keep working at it, Bro.

 

[d6peg]

Deas,
If you cut their thumb off so they couldnt motion you to raise up the blade or lower the blade, that might be the answer.
I had a guy one time walk along side of me motioning up and down till I finally had enough and then I got off the machine and told him since he knew how to do it, to have at it. The first thing he said is that he didnt know how to run a dozer. LOL

 

[rino]

You are all right....

I say this because there in not just one way of teaching! When running a finish or sub grade, there is not much room for rookie mistakes! A good teacher will have a passion for the machine that he/she is teaching. They will know what is needed and as a good ground man, be able to communicate this to the operator! The teacher will have the patience of a Saint. The hardest thing in the world to teach is FEEL. The feel from the machine when you got it right on the money is inturped in many ways from the sound of the engine to the whine of the transmission, to the feel in the seat of the pants, or just the look of the furrows from the blade!

If a teacher can teach "FEEL" this person is worth their weight in fuel! (LOL)

 

[Deas Plant]

Remote operating and teaching.

Hi, D6peg.
I once worked with a bloke who got very tired of a certain foreman walking alongside the left corner of the blade signalling, "Up, up, up, down, DOWN, up, sideways, backwards, etc., etc.." This operator slammed the blade on the ground, knocked the throttle down to idle, locked the powershift in neutral, leaped off the machine, raced forward and started kicking the daylights out of the corner of the blade. As he was kicking the blade, he was yelling expletives at it and asking, "Why can't you do what the man is telling you?"

The foreman watched this performance, shook his head in wonderment and walked away - which would seem to indicate that he had no need to be there in the first place. You might like to try that one on some of your customers sometimes.

Hi, Rino.
It is a very rare student to whom you can 'teach' feel for a machine. You can tell them the things that contribute towards feel for a particular machine and encourage them to look for those things as they are working but, when all is said and done, it still comes down to their own awareness of what they are doing and what the machine is doing as a result of what they are doing. Along with that, there needs to be an awareness of the attitude of all parts of the machine in relation to the required end result.

Teaching will never be easy and there will always be some who catch on quicker than others and some who never really do. Even these latter ones can often be turned into reasonable production operators but will seldom make really good production operators or finish operators. C'est la vie.

 

[ozscooper]

i started out on a d6d ripping rabbit warrens in farm paddocks bout 6 yrs ago and found it the best way for me. you got to know the machine and the controls before you had to learn to blade off. by the time i came to use the blade i was confident with stearing and changing gears. i done the same thing with operators who ive taught and will continue to do so as i find it very good. and i hate arm wavers with a passion but we wont go down that path.

 

[OCR]

Remote operating and teaching.

As he was kicking the blade, he was yelling expletives at it and asking, "Why can't you do what the man is telling you?"

Deas Plant,

1,006 posts...:yup... If you keep making them like the above, and I'm still around, I'll still be reading them when you get to 2,000...:thumbsup

I've always liked some humor in the posts on this forum, and yours are right
there at the top of the list. Thank you.




'course... on very rare ocasions... you might wake up a little............

grouchy...:lmao....


OCR

 

[Squizzy246B]

How did you get ahead of me so quickly

You spend too much time leaning on your virtual shovel:cool2

 

[Grader4me]

You spend too much time leaning on your virtual shovel:cool2

Lol..That must be why. How do you think up this stuff?

A big pet peeve of mine is when the Supervisor decides to walk along side of you with the thumb going up & down. You guys are talking dozers but it's the same deal with a grader. They know better than to do it with me as I just tell them to get the heck out of my way, but they do it to some of the other guys.

The worst that I seen and this was years ago..Our crew was helping out in another division. Their grader operator was leveling asphalt on each side of a railway crossing, and to get the operators attention the Supervisor would throw rocks at the cab. If I had been the operator I would have jumped out and choked his chicken. Operator never said a word

 

[Squizzy246B]

A big pet peeve of mine is when the Supervisor decides to walk along side of you with the thumb going up & down. You guys are talking dozers but it's the same deal with a grader. They know better than to do it with me as I just tell them to get the heck out of my way, but they do it to some of the other guys.

Nothing worse than backing up over a pile of poop you left because you were in too big of a hurry to carry your grade.

I thoroughly adhere to the "start level, work level, finish level" principal. Keep your work area level and clean at all times and you will end up with a better job, a safer job and a more comfortable job.

Which brings me to my current failing as an instructor. My nephew joined us about 18 months ago. He has turned into a fine excavator operator. He uses his head to try and think the task through and keep a site organised....a good thing because we are often short on space. I have confiedence to leave him unsupervised for most tasks.

Put him in a loader or skid steer and its a different story. He can get the job done for sure....but he just can't seem to get the feel of where the bucket is at....almost always searching for the correct cutting angle but just not able to hold it:Banghead. No point waving my hands at him..he knows what he has to do....he just hasn't got the feel....yet???...maybe he never will. I now,can only give encouragement.

 

[Deas Plant]

Wake up Grouchy?????????????

Hi, OCR.
Naw. Mostly I let her sleep. It's more peaceful that way.

Thank you for your kind comments about my posts. I try to be serious but I have a very short attention span and those stories just keep sneakin' in.

 

[rino]

Hi, D6peg.
I once worked with a bloke who got very tired of a certain foreman walking alongside the left corner of the blade signalling, "Up, up, up, down, DOWN, up, sideways, backwards, etc., etc.." This operator slammed the blade on the ground, knocked the throttle down to idle, locked the powershift in neutral, leaped off the machine, raced forward and started kicking the daylights out of the corner of the blade. As he was kicking the blade, he was yelling expletives at it and asking, "Why can't you do what the man is telling you?"

The foreman watched this performance, shook his head in wonderment and walked away - which would seem to indicate that he had no need to be there in the first place. You might like to try that one on some of your customers sometimes.

Hi, Rino.
It is a very rare student to whom you can 'teach' feel for a machine. You can tell them the things that contribute towards feel for a particular machine and encourage them to look for those things as they are working but, when all is said and done, it still comes down to their own awareness of what they are doing and what the machine is doing as a result of what they are doing. Along with that, there needs to be an awareness of the attitude of all parts of the machine in relation to the required end result.

Teaching will never be easy and there will always be some who catch on quicker than others and some who never really do. Even these latter ones can often be turned into reasonable production operators but will seldom make really good production operators or finish operators. C'est la vie.

Again I bow to you being right! If you get a numb person behind the contols of ANY machine even their very own car, all you'll ever have is a lever mover, or steering wheel holder!

Maybe they should be taught on a machine where feel is the only way to operate like cable lift? Who knows!

 

[Deas Plant]

Learning How To Doze?

Hi, Folks.
This is a very complex subject. How-wevver, right now I am going to try to simplify it a little. The learn how to doze, it helps if you understand the difference between dozing and SLEEPING.

WOT? OH! We're not talking about that kind of dozing, HUH! Silly me. Just 'cos I'm good at that kind of dozing doesn't mean everybody else wants to be, huh?

For those who have difficulty with trimming, as Squishy, errrrrrr, oops, Squizzy, said above, "Start level, work level, finish level."

To translate into 'dozereze', during your learning process at least, when you are backing up to start your next trimming pass, back up about a dozer length beyond where you want to start cutting, lowering your blade almost to ground level as you reverse. Then start travelling forward, lowering the blade that last little bit as you go. This gives you the 'feel' of the ground before you actually start cutting. Start your cut gently so that the load doesn't suddenly drag the front of the tractor down and adjust your blade gently as the load comes on to it to compensate for the slight lowering that may result.

It helps to have a picture in your mind of what parts of the back the blade you can see when the blade is on the ground on LEVEL ground and try to keep the blade at that level as you go, +/- the small adjustments needed to keep it on grade.

If you get a 'washboard', don't waste your time trying to cut it out on that same pass line. Move over half a blade width and cut half the washboard off with the other half of the blade in fresh ground. Or alternatively, cut across the washboard pass on the diagonal to take out the wrinkles and give you a level place to start from, then start again cutting in the direction that you need to move the trimmed material.

Hope this helps.

 

[Deas Plant]

On being numb.

Hi, Rino.
AMEN.



(Is that my shortest ever post?)

 

[AtlasRob]

I'm getting some seat time on dozers this year now and then. I find that most of my 'frustration' is from being used to a 2 way backfill blade on my mini ex, and now I can swivel 6 ways!!

I understand exactly what you mean. You have additional options that you dont require while learning. See following

The hardest thing in the world to teach is FEEL. The feel from the machine when you got it right.................... to the feel in the seat of the pants,

The seat of your pants. If you can get a learner to understand that, you have an operator in the making.
The problem greywynd is experiencing is the option to alter the tilt of the blade which takes away the feel through the seat of being in the same plane as the blade. ( no not that sort of plane :Banghead)
I know the difference an oscillating bucket can make on an excavator, your eyes have to learn a level that normally your butt would tell you. When learning you need to understand what you butt is telling you. Some times it OOOoooops too far

Further to somebody elses comments on ripping rabbit burrows, I was put on a D6 tracking batters to learn how the machine would behave. I was told to fetch off any big rocks and try and stay out of the V ditch at the bottom Once you have an idea of how to position a machine it makes the rest a lot easier. :IMO

 

[w2bstoned]

I hate that washboard effect.... LOL I am no operator of a Dozer but it takes me twice as long to finish than a real operator, I also find that younger people only want to operate a excavator. I am really curious to see what is going to happen in the next 20 years...

 

[OCR]

(Is that my shortest ever post?)

No... but keep trying... a little harder each time... :lmao... :lmao



OCR....

 

[Grader4me]

I thoroughly adhere to the "start level, work level, finish level" principal. Keep your work area level and clean at all times and you will end up with a better job, a safer job and a more comfortable job.

Which brings me to my current failing as an instructor. My nephew joined us about 18 months ago. He has turned into a fine excavator operator. He uses his head to try and think the task through and keep a site organised....a good thing because we are often short on space. I have confidence to leave him unsupervised for most tasks.

Put him in a loader or skid steer and its a different story. He can get the job done for sure....but he just can't seem to get the feel of where the bucket is at....almost always searching for the correct cutting angle but just not able to hold it:Banghead. No point waving my hands at him..he knows what he has to do....he just hasn't got the feel....yet???...maybe he never will. I now,can only give encouragement.

When just learning to operate the hand signals by the instructor isn't a bad thing, rather it's a necessity. I should clarify my earlier post by saying the thumb up and down motion to an experienced operator is irritating.
Now after reading your post I have these comments..Sounds like you have a good operator there. It's been my experience that if a guy/gal is good on one piece of equipment, it follows along to a different piece of equipment. In some cases it will take longer to get used to but they usually get the hang of it.
I give encouragement always as this produces confidence in a new operator. I also give "constructive criticism" as they can learn from their mistakes. Part of being a good instructor is patience as you seem to be showing.
Your operator knows what you expect, he has a picture of what he wants it to look like, he just needs more practice to make it happen.
Sounds to me like you are a pretty good instructor.

 

[Dozer575]

I hate that washboard effect.... LOL I am no operator of a Dozer but it takes me twice as long to finish than a real operator, I also find that younger people only want to operate a excavator. I am really curious to see what is going to happen in the next 20 years...

And one of the reasons you see alot of excavators on job sites, and clearing etc. Not many are dozer operators now, lots can make em go but not operate them.

 

[Deas Plant]

Back to front.

Hello, Dozer575.
Personally, I'd put that the other way around.One reason you see some operators doing washboard work these days is that so many contractors have the notion that excavators are the be all and end all of earthmoving and the dozer boys aren't getting the practise they once used to. At least, that seems to be the case DownUnder, excavators everywhere and hardly a dozer in sight.

I've been working on an extension to a waste water treatment works the last few days. I have spent most of my time in an outer area spreading trucked-in stripped grass and topsoil with a Cat 943 while there has been a 20 ton excavator spreading trucked-in fill in the main work area. Then, on Friday evening, the foreman expected me to be able to trim the area and make it drain and have it compacted in 1/2 an hour before knock-off time. It took 1 1/2 hours to get it anything like trimmed and I ran out of daylight before I got it all done to where I would have liked - - - - because the excavator operator couldn't follow a grade while he was spreading.

There is a similar story up in the borrow pit where the fill is being trucked from. The excavator operator there is good at bulk loading but can't keep a level floor to save himself. We had rain over the weekend and again last night. The trucks have not been able to get back into the pit due to puddles of water everywhere over the floor resulting in soft spots all over the place, in spite of the fact that there is 4 - 5 foot fall across the floor. I didn't have time to do anything about that, even if I had known about it. I'm stood down today - with pay - because of the above.

 

[Dozer575]

I have to agree with you on that one Deas, that is all I see too. Gosh if you drive by an equipment yard that is all thats in the yard too, is excavators. I read someplace that younger folks would rather run excavators.