Sum Foters

[Deas Plant]

Blind Spots.

Hi, Folks.
Now how did we get to 'blind spots' from Sum Foters??????????

O.K., so we're here at 'blind spots'. I have been operating for a LONG time on a LOT of different machine and I have yet to operate a machine that was made completely of clear glass. CountryBoy, you got it dead right the first time - if you can't see there, it's a blind spot.

O.K., how do we operate these travelling blind spots without wiping out everything within shooting distance of us? Well, memory and observation are the keys. Observe where the obstacles are, memorise those locations and work around them. The better your powers of observation and your memory, the better you are likely to be at missing the obstacles.

Quote: "Now blade visability is another thing on some dozers, older oval D8's
and D9's are the best for that as is a D375 Komatsu." (Dozer 575.)

On the D8H's and K's, you could see the bottom of the back of the blade above the tracks over the front idler. GOOD blade visibility!!!!!!! I loved it.

On the D9G's and H's, the closest part of the back of the blade to the ground that you could see over the front of the tracks was about 10" - 250mm - ABOVE the ground. GOOD blade visibility?????????????????????????????? But I still managed to grade haul roads with them. Not to a grader finish, but certainly good enough to run dumpers and scrapers reasonably quickly on.

I have never run a D375 'Kummagutsa', so I'm not qualified to comment on them but I have run a couple of D155's and an older D355. I liked the blade visibility on the 155's and I was cutting road boxes with the 355 to around 1"-2" above finished so the blade visibility can't have been too bad there either. I ran a D455A with a U-blade for a few hours too and didn't have any trouble cleaning up with that either.

Personally, I DO watch the corners of my blade, especially when doing fine work - and that includes cutting to +/- 1/2" with laser monitoring on a Cat D5B, which I do a bit of again these days. When bulk pushing, I tend to watch the movement of the dirt above the top of the blade to see how much I am cutting, if any. At the same time, I am also aware of where the cutting edge is and what it is doing.

When I am shaping a job, I tend to largely ignore what the actual tractor is doing and concentrate on keeping the cutting edge where I want it to achieve the desired result. This may seem a little contradictory (Have I read something about contradictions in the thread before?) but when you have blade tilt, you can get your tractor in some awkward positions and still keep your cutting edge where you want it, so long as you know the limitations of your machine.

LDK, 'blind spot' is perfectly acceptable if that is what you want to call it, especially if you believe that it IS a blind spot.

Dozer 575, unless an operator is 20 feet tall and made of rubber and there is NO cab to stop him getting his eyes into the appropriate positions to see EVERYWHERE around his machine, or unless he/she has X/ray vision, there ARE blind spots with EVERY machine. The trick is to learn to work around the blindness of those spots so that you don't do any damage and only cut where cut is needed or fill where fill is needed.

Happy debating, gentlemen.

 

[Deas Plant]

'Kummagutsas' backing up.

Hi, Alco.
I was 'speaking' specifically about LGP's and swamp dozers there. Believe it or not but I have never had a normal Kummagutsa in wet going except for the D355A that I ran for a while. Now it was a strange beast. A 'real' yellow submarine - it would sink down until it hit firm bottom and just keep plowing until it came out the other side. I did one job with it, digging out a largish wet spot, where it was sinking 3 feet into the mud - around halfway up the tracks, pushing around 2/3 of a bladeful, and never looked like getting stuck. The owners told me it behaved that way before I went to that job but I didn't really believe it until I actually had the machine doing it. It backed up through the same ground pretty well too.

 

[LDK]

Turn on the light!!

Hi, Folks.
Now how did we get to 'blind spots' from Sum Foters??????????

O.K., so we're here at 'blind spots'. I have been operating for a LONG time on a LOT of different machine and I have yet to operate a machine that was made completely of clear glass. CountryBoy, you got it dead right the first time - if you can't see there, it's a blind spot.





O.K., how do we operate these travelling blind spots without wiping out everything within shooting distance of us? Well, memory and observation are the keys. Observe where the obstacles are, memorise those locations and work around them. The better your powers of observation and your memory, the better you are likely to be at missing the obstacles.

Quote: "Now blade visability is another thing on some dozers, older oval D8's
and D9's are the best for that as is a D375 Komatsu." (Dozer 575.)

On the D8H's and K's, you could see the bottom of the back of the blade above the tracks over the front idler. GOOD blade visibility!!!!!!! I loved it.

On the D9G's and H's, the closest part of the back of the blade to the ground that you could see over the front of the tracks was about 10" - 250mm - ABOVE the ground. GOOD blade visibility?????????????????????????????? But I still managed to grade haul roads with them. Not to a grader finish, but certainly good enough to run dumpers and scrapers reasonably quickly on.

I have never run a D375 'Kummagutsa', so I'm not qualified to comment on them but I have run a couple of D155's and an older D355. I liked the blade visibility on the 155's and I was cutting road boxes with the 355 to around 1"-2" above finished so the blade visibility can't have been too bad there either. I ran a D455A with a U-blade for a few hours too and didn't have any trouble cleaning up with that either.

Personally, I DO watch the corners of my blade, especially when doing fine work - and that includes cutting to +/- 1/2" with laser monitoring on a Cat D5B, which I do a bit of again these days. When bulk pushing, I tend to watch the movement of the dirt above the top of the blade to see how much I am cutting, if any. At the same time, I am also aware of where the cutting edge is and what it is doing.

When I am shaping a job, I tend to largely ignore what the actual tractor is doing and concentrate on keeping the cutting edge where I want it to achieve the desired result. This may seem a little contradictory (Have I read something about contradictions in the thread before?) but when you have blade tilt, you can get your tractor in some awkward positions and still keep your cutting edge where you want it, so long as you know the limitations of your machine.

LDK, 'blind spot' is perfectly acceptable if that is what you want to call it, especially if you believe that it IS a blind spot.

Dozer 575, unless an operator is 20 feet tall and made of rubber and there is NO cab to stop him getting his eyes into the appropriate positions to see EVERYWHERE around his machine, or unless he/she has X/ray vision, there ARE blind spots with EVERY machine. The trick is to learn to work around the blindness of those spots so that you don't do any damage and only cut where cut is needed or fill where fill is needed.

Happy debating, gentlemen.

I am on the same page as you entirely, as to where I am looking when dozing. If I can see the the corner shoes that is where I will be looking. Out side of that I will be looking at the part of the blade that is closest to the ground and still visable. On the pre high track 4,5 and 6 LGP's that point was a long way of the ground. Sometimes you are lucky enough to have a seam of weld that lines up with the top of the track and your eye when you are level and I will use that. Never liked being in the dark!

 

[LDK]

Hi, Alco.
I was 'speaking' specifically about LGP's and swamp dozers there. Believe it or not but I have never had a normal Kummagutsa in wet going except for the D355A that I ran for a while. Now it was a strange beast. A 'real' yellow submarine - it would sink down until it hit firm bottom and just keep plowing until it came out the other side. I did one job with it, digging out a largish wet spot, where it was sinking 3 feet into the mud - around halfway up the tracks, pushing around 2/3 of a bladeful, and never looked like getting stuck. The owners told me it behaved that way before I went to that job but I didn't really believe it until I actually had the machine doing it. It backed up through the same ground pretty well too.

Deas,
Yeh funny when you get a layer of wet like that on a firm base a standard track dozer will often perform better than an LGP, unless of course you are having to push that material into a heap that you have travel over.

 

[alco]

Hi, Alco.
I was 'speaking' specifically about LGP's and swamp dozers there. Believe it or not but I have never had a normal Kummagutsa in wet going except for the D355A that I ran for a while. Now it was a strange beast. A 'real' yellow submarine - it would sink down until it hit firm bottom and just keep plowing until it came out the other side. I did one job with it, digging out a largish wet spot, where it was sinking 3 feet into the mud - around halfway up the tracks, pushing around 2/3 of a bladeful, and never looked like getting stuck. The owners told me it behaved that way before I went to that job but I didn't really believe it until I actually had the machine doing it. It backed up through the same ground pretty well too.

Hi Deas,

I should have specified there myself. I was speaking of our D155 Komatsu Tailings Dozers. They have a few issues for sure, but the biggest seems to be how the blade won't lift high enough to clear the slop in front of the dozer when they nosedive as you back up in really soft stuff. If there was a firm bottom, this probably wouldn't be an issue, but the hard bottom is typically about 50 to 150 feet below you, so it may be a bit too deep to get to easily....lol. Since you can't find a hard bottom to work from, you have to float along. And since you can't get the blade up high enough to clear the slop, it acts like a giant anchor. You would think with all the modifications they have done to the machines, they would have been able to remount the cylinders or mount different cylinders to overcome this shortfall.

Brian

 

[Deas Plant]

Interesting Observation.

Hi, Alco.
That is an interesting observation that you make, that with all the alterations already done, the lift rams could also have been re-configured to better cope with the conditions. It would be interesting to know if this problem was brought to the management's attention at the time - or since - and whether or not it was passed on to those responsible for the alterations.

 

[Wulf]

That is an interesting observation that you make, that with all the alterations already done, the lift rams could also have been re-configured to better cope with the conditions. It would be interesting to know if this problem was brought to the management's attention at the time - or since - and whether or not it was passed on to those responsible for the alterations.

You are right guys, with the amount of local modifications done to the machines the cylinders could have been reconfigured or cylinder stroke lengthened. I think the blades are made by IMAC in Alberta (?) so the push arm and cylinder mounting points or geometry could also be very easily modified to provide necessary depth of cut and also allow the blade to be raised when you need the clearance.

 

[Deas Plant]

Modifications???????????

Hi, Wulf.
Are you saying that somebody stuffed up here? Now how can that be? We all 'know' that management/admin is up there because they are so much smarter than us lowly operators. LOL.