A few projects I have done recently

[CM1995]

Nice shots. What takes the place of the pond? A different structure? Ponds seem like a waste of space but water needs a place to go.

Well the man with the checkbook said fill it in.

Seriously, these were settlement ponds for surface run off during the major construction phase of this commercial parcel. I'm not sure how many acres this development is but it has a Publix grocery store and several out parcels.

The remaining parcels are heavily grassed so there is no need for the settling ponds. Scott a lot of what I do makes no sense to me since I don't have P.E. after my name. We'll construct a 4K SF building on a 3/4 acre lot and have to install a StormTech system or other underground detention system, then on other projects much larger there are no retention/detention ponds or systems. At this point in my career I've come to the conclusion that we get paid to put it in not design it..

Thanks for the compliments on the shots. That's the new iPhone with the 3 camera thingy.

 

[ScottAR]

A shirt I found and should have bought said it best. "I built it like you drew it."

 

[grandpa]

Damn... is that the way you southerners spell it..... dam, I've been writin it wrong all mah life.

 

[willie59]

Damn... is that the way you southerners spell it..... dam, I've been writin it wrong all mah life.

Well, you're from Minnesota so you get a pass. Dam is a structure that blocks and impounds something, like a river. Damn is when one doesn't understand the difference between dam and damn. Like...just damn.

 

[grandpa]

The way we tackle these types of projects is start at one end of the pond building a damn and slowly progress the damn towards the outlet point, forcing any surface water out of the pond.

Soooo, what part of Minnesota are YOU from?

 

[CM1995]

Soooo, what part of Minnesota are YOU from?

Nah - I'm originally from North Dakota.

My fingers gravitate towards the curse word spelling..

 

[dirty4fun]

Sure some very nice looking work you are doing. Always enjoy seeing what you are up to.
How do you like the new I Phone? I thought I was going to have to get a new phone a week ago. After tearing down two houses a garage and a block storage building. I had to break the basement walls down 2' below the new parking lot going over them. My phone was abnormally quiet, no spam calls even. The hydraulic hammer on the skid steer had shook me and the phone so much that the SIM card was no longer in place. One was a 10" concrete wall with gravel and lots of rebar. The other was an 8" concrete with limestone instead of gravel, much easier to break.

 

[CM1995]

Sure some very nice looking work you are doing. Always enjoy seeing what you are up to.
How do you like the new I Phone?

Thanks dirty. As far as the iPhone goes - it's a phone..

The phone I had before was an X and it did everything I need it to do. The 11 Pro has the 3 cameras and a few software/user shortcuts. One I really like is if I need to text a picture or a contact the latest text conversations come up that you can scroll through which is nice if you are on a group text.

Other than that I haven't found any groundbreaking new features.

 

[Raildudes dad]

Scott a lot of what I do makes no sense to me since I don't have P.E. after my name.

Well I do have PE behind my name and I get to review plans designed by folks with PE behind their name. There is some real lack of commonsense out there. Like 2 catch basins, 1 on each side of the driveway on the TOP of the hill. Sloped down to the street and sloped down into the property.
Another one I checked the grade of the flow line of the 12 inch culvert pipe to the finished grade of the driveway. Ah, the top pf the the pipe is 9 inches above the finished grade. My solution since the drive sloped away from the road was fill the depression it was draining and let it sheet flow where it has always drained. Their solution was to increase the slope of the culvert to get it under the pavement. The manhole on the other side with a catch basin grate was then 7 feet deep and needed an outlet pipe. The CB would catch about 15 feet x 75 feet of runoff water from the road. I said NO!! No pipe, no MH . I saved their client about $3500 in pipe, $2500 in a structure and $1500 in concrete end sections. And CM1995 didn't get stuck trying to figure out how to bury the pipe for an engineer that won't go explain to the client why the contractor wants an extra.

 

[CM1995]

Well I do have PE behind my name and I get to review plans designed by folks with PE behind their name. There is some real lack of commonsense out there. Like 2 catch basins, 1 on each side of the driveway on the TOP of the hill. Sloped down to the street and sloped down into the property...

I can only imagine some of the designs that come across your desk RDD.

There is a particular engineering group here that has been around for ever that creates some screwed up drainage plans. Just goes to show what "reputation" and more importantly name recognition will get you.

They love to run 300' of 18" RCP to the highest point on the project to serve one yard inlet.

Here's an example from said engineering company - 4x4 yard inlet and 100' of 15" RCP run up the highest point on the job.

 

[CM1995]

It's been while since I've posted. We had a busy end of the year close out and took off some time over the holidays - 2 weeks to be exact. Gave the guys the from the 23rd of Dec to Jan 1 off with pay. We all needed a break.

Back to the grind. We have some pre-meditated downtime so we can bring some of the iron in to the yard and do some much needed maintenance.

The 321DLCR got new rails and sprockets. Original Cat UC went 7,000 hrs before we started having pin failures. With it's age and hours I decided to go back with aftermarket since it was 1/2 the price of Cat. Plan on replacing this hoe this year if work load goes as expected and didn't see the value in going back with Cat.


Ordered the rails, sprocket segments and hardware from TracksNteeth as they have a DC in Atlanta. Placed the order on a Monday and the LTL truck showed up the next day around lunch time. We'll see how they hold up.



I was reading the other thread where the OP was having a devil of a time getting pads off the rails. Well we didn't have any real issues that the 1" Harbor Freight gun couldn't handle. There were a few bolts where the gas axe had to come out but only 1/2 dozen or so. Not bad for 9 years and 7,000 hours of use.



So what's something creative to do with a set of wore out 321 chains and a set of well worn 953 chains other than giving them away to the scrap yard?



That grey iron is just structural steel leftovers we've picked up from jobs over the years. I've got a boat load of I beams and angle iron.

 

[CM1995]

So we got the newest 279 hooked up to run the auto grading blade. Sitec guy came out, installed the harness and got the machine set up. We already have the monitor, receivers and other hardware just needed the harness installed on this machine. BTW Sitec can be a little salty on pricing..


This is a better install than our older 279D. Now they have a new plate that secures both wiring harnesses - the machines standard and the grader blades. Sitec had to weld a separate bracket on our older one next to the factory plug.

 

[Metalman 55]

Very generous of you to give the employees the paid time off for the holidays...…..I am sure they will reciprocate in other ways.

On the excavator are the rollers & idlers all good yet? Nice to see your equipment maintained!

I just purchased a Sitech hand held rover & that was a pricy one too. We have some inhouse development projects that we hope to justify it with...….

Like that blade attachment too!

 

[CM1995]

Metalman we had a good year, the holidays lined up to take off and we finished up 4 big projects in Dec. It rarely lines up that way and we decided to make the best of it.

The original rollers and idlers are still in good shape - those are the original pads as well.

The blade is an ace in the hole for grading building pads and putting down stone. I hope to add a D5 with GPS this year and take the next leap.

 

[willie59]

I see you still got that old Gradall telehandler.

 

[John C.]

Wow willie59, you picked that up like someone who has left liquid on one a time or two. I had to go back and look for it.

 

[willie59]

Wow willie59, you picked that up like someone who has left liquid on one a time or two. I had to go back and look for it.

LoL, yeah, I already knew he had a 534D, I spotted that Gradall blue in that first pic straightaway.

 

[DGODGR]

So what's something creative to do with a set of wore out 321 chains and a set of well worn 953 chains other than giving them away to the scrap yard?

Ive seen people use them to hold up mailboxes. I assume one must tack weld each link. Would give your mailbox a little heavy equipment style!
If you still had pads I've seen them used for low height retaining walls. I thought that they were pretty cool looking, especially after rusting a bit.

 

[CM1995]

I see you still got that old Gradall telehandler.

Willie I wouldn't sell her for anything. If my life depended on one engine starting that would be that little Cummins.

 

[CM1995]

Ive seen people use them to hold up mailboxes. I assume one must tack weld each link. Would give your mailbox a little heavy equipment style!
If you still had pads I've seen them used for low height retaining walls. I thought that they were pretty cool looking, especially after rusting a bit.

We were kicking around the idea of making a sign by the street for the yard. Use the chains in a "S" pattern, double rows and attaching a 18 or 24" concrete pipe on top. Then get some metal letters and spell the company name out.