I've always been careful about putting my blade in the float position since a little incident that happened to me years ago on a E.L. Yeager dirt spread.
This one day a dozer and a push cat hand that rode together were not going to make it to the job.
I think they had grenaded the engine in their car...
Anyways, they were a no show.
Our foreman starts moving people around so he can keep both 57 and 51 spreads going.
He leaves one of the utility cats in the yard and takes me off of a 57 to go push 51's.
Bill Kelly was one of their regular push cat hands...he'd been pushing scrapers since the beginning of time.
This old man was good.
I had run a push cat for Dudley many times in the past and he knew Bill and I worked good together.
We would both push 51's...
We would alternate who would come in first.
If I was on the scraper and Bill was pushing me, as soon as I'd lift my left hand Bill would throw it in reverse while I finished with my push.
Bill would then pick up the next 51 and I'd come in behind him.
When he waved me off, I'd back up and pick up the next 51.
This worked out great.
I would have my blade in float until the scraper was loaded.
At that point I'd grab a gear with my left hand, take her out of float and wave Bill off.
Y'all know the black plastic dome looking thing that is at the bottom of the blade control on some of the older Cats.
When they get worn they sometimes hang up....
Well, with me pushing a 51, blade in float and the 51 about ready to grab a gear is when it happened.
Pushing in 2nd, I had just grabbed 3rd gear.
While pulling back on the blade control I thought to myself, "self...this don't feel right".
Since I was fighting with the stupid blade control I had not given Bill the signal to back off.
As the scraper pulls away, the blade hits the ground while Bill is still pushing.
It's amazing how fast a narrow blade behind 2 D10N's will dive on you.
I still kind of think Bill did it on purpose...
After all, I had not waved him off so like the good push cat hand that he was, he just kept the coals poured to her.
Not that it was that big of a deal.
I'm sure the 51's were wondering what in the hell was going on.
Even though that was almost 20 years ago,
I still think about it every time I throw the blade in float while pushing a scraper.