I thought Dozermans post was a joke...:beatsme
Well, he certainly livened up the thread!
I have worked side by side with guys with a very similar attitude to his, and despite being asked, told, and explained how I wanted it, they were set in their ways and would not listen. I was on a job with a 30 year experienced operator, both of us on D-10N's, and both tractors apparently equal to each other. We were sloping a waste pile about 120 ft tall from the angle of repose to a 2.5:1 slope.
I slot dozed, in an advancing wedge shape, so the beginning of the cut was a short slot, and about 5 slots behind was the one that finally got to grade and stretched to the toe. Each slot was cut to about blade height on the low side, and each one got deeper into the cut until the final one was at grade. Each of these slots was running downhill at the ultimately desired 2.5:1 slope.
The other operator refused to do it my way, and created his slope by making long passes from the top to the bottom each time, and cleaning up windrows as he went, even when there was 20 more feet of cut. He explained how much better of a job he was doing, because his "looked finished" all the time. My cut looked like a bombing range until the last pass when it all came together.
I was the job foreman, as well as the D-10 operator, so I ended up only getting 6 to 7 hours per 10 hour shift in the machine. The thing was, when I started measuring the daily production, I was producing 30 to 40 percent MORE, even while working 7 hours to his 10. We were working separate areas of the same pile, and leapfrogging one another as a section was finished. The pile was nearly 2 miles long. When the other guy noticed I was placing a stake at the starting points for each of us, the next day I noticed his measurement was the same as mine. I suspected funny business going on, so the next day, I put the stakes out, then put another set over the hill out of sight to check. At the end of the day, his stake had been moved a couple hundred feet to make it look like he did more work. At that point, I decided I did not need him any longer and finished the job myself, as it was costing nearly double for the work he was doing.
I have many times on jobs measured the piles in front of a blade per the directions in the Cat Performance Handbook in order to verify production of different machines. When I measured the pile I was moving in the slot, downhill at a 2.5:1 slope, I was amazed at the volume. I checked a few piles, and checked my calcs based on many times doing the same thing, and I found I was pushing close to 90 cubic yards per pass. I can't recall how many feet in front of the blade the pile stretched, but it was a really amazing pile for a D-10 to push. The material was perfect for this, wet crushed rock with enough binder to pile up and also afford great traction.
I have never since pushed in such ideal conditions, but the production advantage is there regardless of the conditions, unless there is a compelling reason for another method like Alco pushing down a shovel face. In some material while placing compacted fill with nothing but a dozer, you need to roll the material to mix the moisture into it, so spreading out each pass is needed, and I am sure there are others, but to bulk push material, a good hand slot dozing the right way will outwork any other method.
It seems to help even in the white stuff
