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square yardage....

Buster F

Active Member
Joined
Mar 19, 2007
Messages
42
Location
Stoneham MA
Cleanup is a huge part of city milling and can make you or break you at the end of the day. The company i work for prides itself on having a very efficient and thorough cleanup operation. We run 6 man crews which include a big mill operator, 2 screw men (one of whom is the foreman), a trimmer man, a skidsteer man, and a cleanup laborer. And lets not forget the sweeper, efficient sweeping is the key to timely traffic swap-overs and a clean and neat finished product (not to mention reduced costs for windshields). We prefer that our sweeping contractors use broombears for their ability to dump the hopper into the next pass thus not requiring a dedicated truck til the last pass, not to mention that the mobility of a truck mounted sweeper is a huge asset.
What kind of trimmer do you guys use? We have a small fleet of Rx10's and always have a spare on the job to reduce downtime due to breakdowns (our trimmers take a hell of a beating), a couple of our trimmers are 15 plus years old and still see regular service as back-up machines. Probably 6 or 7 years ago i was trimming a cutback in a local city (about 200 sq/yds with a dozen or so castings) and noticed a guy on the sidewalk watching me with great interest. He eventually stopped me and introduced himself as the local Wirtgen sales rep and told me that he and my boss had agreed to bring out a small Wirgen trimmer for me to demo (i believe is was an 800 but i could be wrong). He then said to me " i've been wathing you for a little while and can tell you right now that my machine will not do what i've seen you do with that RX10, but i'd appreciate you at least trying it for a couple of hours and see what you think". He was right - the Rx10 will trim circles around the Wirtgen in a city situation where there are clusters of castings everywhere. The biggest problem for me was not being able to see the drum, we don't use jackhammers and whatever mix is left around the castings by the trimmer as removed with a pick-ax - so as you can imagine getting as close as possible to the casting can be invaluable to the poor cleenup laborer. I'm sure that given more seat time i would have gotten better (i've seen a few guys who were aces on the wirtgen and did a very nice job), but for now i think i'll stick with my Roadtec/Carlson. If you check out my thread from the airport job you can see a pick or two of our trimmers.
Sorry for the long post, but it's early Sunday morning and i'm a bit bored. Take care, Roy
 

hoosier

Active Member
Joined
Oct 19, 2009
Messages
30
Location
south carolina
Buster,on our cleanup (we did not have a dedicated cleanup crew which is a big reason why everything was always screwed up when it was time to be off the road) They had a 2ft mill attached to a cat skid steer,a bachoe ,1 broom tractor and a vacuum truck...
The other half of the company I was with demo'ed a dynapac trimmer,they brought it down to columbia on a city street contract that had a ton of manholes...It was alot faster popping the asphalt loose with the backhoe,but it also was probably the guy operating was still learning how to operate it.
 
Last edited:

milling_drum

Senior Member
Joined
Aug 19, 2008
Messages
725
Location
out west lately
Occupation
asphalt mill operator (ret)
Up north I've seen quite a bit of cleanup where they used Jackhammers, down south its usually a bobcat or backhoe which pops the little pieces off.

Alot depends on how well the big machine does going around or over the iron, the closer the better in most cases, in overlay if the cut is just to take the upper layer of asphalt off, then its easy for cleanup to break the pieces left, in some cases its nice if the big machine digs a little deeper (1/2 or 1/4 inch) around the iron so that clean can get an edge to grip and rip the remainder up.

Maybe its time a broom thread too huh? hahahaha
 

krisjanik01

Member
Joined
Dec 12, 2009
Messages
10
Location
australia
depends if the downer boy is wearing his cowboy hat or not hahah.do american fullsize mill operators wear a cow boy hat to haha the downer boys here do?? i operate bobcat mill case 465 s3 600mm goes hard
 

SAH

Member
Joined
Nov 29, 2009
Messages
11
Location
north central PA
Occupation
equipment operator, mills,dozers, scrapers, articu
the company that i work for has a case 460 skidsteer, i believe with a mill head and a bucket attachment, a sweep truck, and a laborer with a jack hammer in the clean up crew behind the big mills. I'm one a smaller mill with a 4' combo cutter doing widening, base repairs, and shoulder work. if we run outta work for the small mill the usally put us with a big mill doing main line work.
 

Blue Collar

Active Member
Joined
Nov 25, 2009
Messages
37
Location
Indiana
our small mills work about 1 month longer than our big mills here. Does all the companies you guys work for have you haul your own machine around from job to job, where i work every machine has its own lowboy and the operator of that machine always is in charge of hauling. Its a good way for us to rack up a lot of pay hours.
 

milling_drum

Senior Member
Joined
Aug 19, 2008
Messages
725
Location
out west lately
Occupation
asphalt mill operator (ret)
Maybe Krisjanik can give us an idea of what a "downer" is?

Even in Texas I didn't see an operator wearing a cowboy hat, mostly cause its wayyyy to windy for such.

The operation that Blue Collar is with looks like it would be alright, the operator being responsible for hauling means its alot easier to get around without the waiting for the lowboy to show up which is especially good on city work.
 

Blue Collar

Active Member
Joined
Nov 25, 2009
Messages
37
Location
Indiana
i would of that companies, especially ones that work in the remote areas in the western states would have their own rigs for each machine just for mobility to do random jobs that might pop up that were'nt scheduled
 

Buster F

Active Member
Joined
Mar 19, 2007
Messages
42
Location
Stoneham MA
The company i work for has 2 fulltime milling crews and somewhere around 10 paving crews thus requiring many lowbed moves on any given day. If i'm counting right we have 5 company lowbeds and at least 3 hired beds on any given day. Both milling and paving each require 2 beds for a move - 1 for big mill, 1 for trimmers or 1 for paver/ lead roller, 1 for back roller/water truck. Each crew also has a dedicated service truck which is driven from job to job by either a laborer or operator and carries fuel, tools, spare parts and pulls the skidsteer.
 

milling_drum

Senior Member
Joined
Aug 19, 2008
Messages
725
Location
out west lately
Occupation
asphalt mill operator (ret)
Ohhh ok, I thought it was a term reserved for those special types of "operators" or something.

Do they mill all year in Austraila?

Buster I think the logo I saw on your equipment was Agreggate Industries? I thought they were a highway milling bunch....
 
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