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California big dirt scraper operators

Ray Welsh

Banned
Joined
Dec 6, 2007
Messages
134
Location
Queensland Australia
i totally agree. one winter being layed off, my third year on a scraper i stopped in at the local bar the old super and his foremen were in having a "gouge" so i stopped in, many beers and stories later along with some tips about dirt, since i was only 21 i mostly just listened, but i worked up the nerve to ask when he thought we could be back to work, he just smiled and said "once you get this business in your blood you will never be the same", and it was true.

Maybe I'm too old already. Has anyone heard of "MK" (Morrison Knudsen) spelling?? They were large road builders in 1960 to 70s, and took on projects worldwide in difficult conditions. Another one I worked alongside in Bougainville was "Dillingham". Of course this was when D8H and D9G were the latest new toys and before excavators even existed. Self propelled scrapers were small and slow back then. Cat 619 and DW21 were the best of a bad lot.
Times have surely changed with computers and satelites guiding engine power and dirt moving.......C ya........Ray
 

992G

Well-Known Member
Joined
Jan 24, 2008
Messages
120
Location
Illinois
Inaddition to who you listed here in So Cal you have:

Varner Construction -637,657
Dennis Post - 637
Chino Grading -657
Shelton Construction - 641,651
Titan Engineering -637
Mckenna/Grade Pros - TS24
ECM- Earth, Construction, & Mining - 641.651
Reed Thomas - 637
FM Construction - 637

and Rental Fleets you have
Cobra(just sold all their equipment)
Tony Crissali - 637, 657
LD Anderson - 637
Coburn - 637, 657
Jagur Tractor - 637,657

Do you know how big of a Rental fleet does Peed Equipment Co. has?
 

bjl14

Member
Joined
Feb 6, 2008
Messages
13
Location
Western PA
KBR no longer is tied to any oil companies, they're a contractor much like fluor or bechtel. i can't believe the stuff that goes on in California, here in PA we're lucky to see a highway job with a 385 and a D8T doing the cut/fill, grading isn't even a vocab term used in construction here. everything just gets cut and filled and then on to the drainage crew. i have a friend who runs small projects for a regional heavy/highway contractor and they use scrapers on site development jobs but it's rare to see scrapers on a highway job. any of you guys heard of lane construction? they're big, but they don't venture out west, future employer, lets hope it goes well
 

calhusker

Member
Joined
Jan 15, 2008
Messages
16
Location
so cal
Calhusker, Why did cobra sell all their equipment?
CARB rules (California Air Resource Board), most of their equipment would need to be retrofitted. Also about a year ago most of the dirt work came to a halt with the housing crunch.
 

Mass-X

Well-Known Member
Joined
Nov 18, 2006
Messages
167
Location
CA
bjl14: "KBR no longer is tied to any oil companies, they're a contractor much like fluor or bechtel"

I should have been more clear in my post. My friend doesn't work for KBR, he works for a different company, but in the last year that he's been in the middle east he's been around KBR's jobs and employees quite a bit. That's where he's gotten the information about some of their projects that he's passed along to me.

calhusker, do you know anything about a toll road in Southern California that's supposedly kicking around on Schwarzenegger's desk?

I've heard rumor from a few different sources of a planned toll highway in SoCal that, if passed, would generate a tremendous amount of scraper work due to the topography in the area that it's planned. Curious if you know anything about it?
 

Burnout

Senior Member
Joined
Jan 20, 2008
Messages
1,448
Location
Edmonton AB
Occupation
Operator at Sureway Construction
Hey... has there been a Ritchie Brothers auction in California lately? Or has some big land scraper company done some shuffling around of equipment?

I was talking to one of our foremans for the dirt crew today, he and another guy just flew down to LA last week to start dismantling and loading 10 657G's that we just bought. I was told we weren't getting any more land scrapers this year, but thats 16 or so 657G's they have already bought since january.
 

Ray Welsh

Banned
Joined
Dec 6, 2007
Messages
134
Location
Queensland Australia
Hey... has there been a Ritchie Brothers auction in California lately? Or has some big land scraper company done some shuffling around of equipment?

I was talking to one of our foremans for the dirt crew today, he and another guy just flew down to LA last week to start dismantling and loading 10 657G's that we just bought. I was told we weren't getting any more land scrapers this year, but thats 16 or so 657G's they have already bought since january.

Ask your purchasing officer if he has heard about fuel costs rising? Maybe the seller sold out at the right time.
What price is scrap steel in USA these days??..........C ya..........Ray
 

Burnout

Senior Member
Joined
Jan 20, 2008
Messages
1,448
Location
Edmonton AB
Occupation
Operator at Sureway Construction
We buy directly from the refinery. We also won 2 big jobs that haven't been made public yet, 1 is for 400 million over the next 2 years, and the other is over 1 billion over the next 8 years. Purchasing officer? I don't know if we have one. The owner of the company is a iron man, he likes going to auctions to buy the biggest newest equipment he can find.

As for fuel usin a lot of fuel..... bah they make new fuel everyday!
 

calhusker

Member
Joined
Jan 15, 2008
Messages
16
Location
so cal
It was pretty ugly, they were all freshly painted. Most of them had a set of newer tires on the front or back, and the brought around $35-30K on average.
 

calhusker

Member
Joined
Jan 15, 2008
Messages
16
Location
so cal
No "G's" in the Auction. In fact never seen a "G" in an auction. Only a few companies have them out here. Still mostly "B & E's". If you are spending the money for a "G", you probably wouldn't send it to auction to sell it.
 

637slayer

Senior Member
Joined
Dec 22, 2007
Messages
486
Location
wyo
Occupation
scraper hand
b and e models that sounds better but still pretty cheap, so is there a 57 c or d? i always forget the order of the 57s, i know they skip letters sometimes.probably not too many gs in need of fresh paint yet either.
 
Last edited:

Burnout

Senior Member
Joined
Jan 20, 2008
Messages
1,448
Location
Edmonton AB
Occupation
Operator at Sureway Construction
They were G's, I saw them the other day sitting at our shop all stickered up now. I was told what they were bought for and it definately was a hair more than 35g's.
 
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