Motor-Grading Techniques

Had these sent to me a while back. I guess this is a good place to show them.

This operator may have had a fixation on his "slope meter" and forgotten to look and plan ahead. Must have been mesmorized by the nut moving back and forth on the string.OMG

nope, i m pretty sure that a slope meter or a nut on a string isnt gonna help him here.

Maybe he had the tape on the nut instead of the string?..lol

BAHAHAHAHAHAHA LMFAO!!! Thats funny right there!

How you do that lol that blade is sunk!

Didn't read the whole thread, but I wish I would have taken some pictures today of a road job. Ran a few different blades but mainly run a cat 143. . Also your water truck driver, and roller hand make a huge difference in the quality and final product. We have slope meters but your eye is your best friend imo. Seat time is where its at, there is many ways to do a job do it the way it works best for you.

On finishing slopes it's as much about what you don't do which is just go back and forth and hope it works out.
Finish to me means line and grade.
Doesn't matter on the flat or slope.
Cut your highs fill the lows, get it to line and grade.
On the flat that would be like the shoulder of a road that's low and needs material pushed into it.
On a slope until you get the toe of the slope and the top of slope on grade you don't know what you have.
It's the same for bluetopping.
Cut the cuts, fill the lows, then when you make it pretty it's right.

Truckin4life said:

How about tips for getting unstuck?

Side shift the circle to the side your trying to move toward, lift front tires off ground and side shift the front of the blade over. Did this a few times today and it worked out for me. The ground was reasonably firm i just sunk the rear in some sloppy mud and couldn't get traction...


I've seen other operators do this and it worked, which is where i got the idea from...

What do ya'll think on the technique?

Also, suggestions on working slopes? Need to get them pretty close to grade, working behind a dozer and compactor, i can see the slight hills and dips, but when i get up close to them on the blade i lose em. Is this a by feel kind of thing or do you have suggestions?

I want it to look as good as it can, make me look better as an operator and right now im just not happy with it. I told the boss man i would work on it some more when i got some time in between everything else. He says its good enough, most likely they will have a finish hand come back and finish it up.
I dont have alot of seat time, but our finish operator is a good guy and has been giving me pointers, so if he says its good then ill be in the seat longer...

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Thanks for the advice. Pretty straight forward.

Ive spent more time on slopes over the last few days and ive found it to work best for me to not turn my blade as much and let gravity carry the material out the heel of the blade, so i have about half the blade cutting and the other half to follow the last pass. Leaves it clean and neat looking in a quick manner.

I took a few hours today working in an area trying to get it as uniform as possible. I didnt run the rippers through it which would have made things much easier. But in working it and re working it a few times the final product came out looking pretty good in my opinion. From what it was, which was a slope by a rough excavator operator just smoothed up, i got it looking fairly sharp. Its not to any kind of grade as far as stakes go, but in the area i worked i got it all as uniform as my eye see's from the seat.

I do believe that i will see the imperfections better as time progresses. I can see and feel the slightest differences when im in a properly set up loader. So i would think with some more seat time the fine tuned feel and sight will come around too...



Also, just something i have noticed in talking with several different blade hands. I think i can count on one hand the amount of guys who didn't chew, dip, or whatever you want to call it...

Seems the best ones i have seen were the heaviest dippers. Just out of curiosity, who in here does dip and does it affect your work in anyway? I used to, but gave it up and wont be going back to it...

Seems the best ones i have seen were the heaviest dippers. Just out of curiosity, who in here does dip and does it affect your work in anyway? I used to, but gave it up and wont be going back to it...

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Well..I'm gonna tell you a story about that..There was this guy from out Minnesota way that used to be a heavy snuff user. They say he was a real good grader operator..he decided to quit chewin..and after that he went all to hell...couldn't even unravel sod right anymore with a grader...sad..very sad..

Haha, i see!!!!

Well i was taken off the Blade on our current project, had to do some shuffling around with equipment going down and operators coming back from vacations.... So me being the one with least experience i got the boot... Which is to be expected. I will continue my reading and question asking here though. I've already read and learned quite a bit...

Was that a serious question come on! Chew should not make or break you lol

It was half serious, i was more curious at how many people who run graders actually chew, i know of 3 personally who dont, out of 14 i can think of....

Yes i know it wont make or break you. haha

Well lets see my boss is the best blade hand around here and he use to chew but quit and is still badass on the blade. Our other good blade hand chews, and the other one smokes, couple other blade hands we have had didn't. Its a bad habbit that I hope to quit some day. I took some pics today i need to upload them and post them!

I have done a variety of jobs, but it seems that the best of the best are typically chewers, and occasionally a smoker ( knew one ) Just found it odd was all, i gave it up bout 6 months ago, haven't gone back since and am glad i havent....

Hi guys! My name is Tyler Polk. FnS stands for fast and Smooooth! haha I just found this forum recently. My first post. Little about myself before I give a tip.
My "father" Has been a blade hand in Alaska for over 30yrs (never, ever, took ANY time out of his life to teach me how to operate btw) and my uncle (his brother)is a 40yr vet as well ( " on the teach thing). I guess its kinda in my blood.. I found myself on my own @ 15yrs old (32 now) so I worked, for a friend of my moms side, who owned a landscape co. in Phx, AZ running skid steers, loader, backhoe, trencher, gannon etc.

Eventually I worked for the union and various dirt contractors building home subdivisions, shopping centers, major streets/freeways/highways, industrial buildings and LOTS of O/X inPhx and Vegas during their "big boom"! I ran scraper for yrs, gannon tractor for yrs, loader, dozier, hoe, etc. I picked up most on my own as far as using whichever "tool" in the shed I had to get a job done. I eventually got on a blade and haven't run anything else for the past 5yrs. Played with automatics, gps, sonar...cool, I guess, for a blade hand who can"t operate or be trusted.... or a good blade hand who has become just....lazy. You REAL blade-men can understand that one rite!? Ha Ha. I had the privileged to have a very special man enter my life named Donnie Mc around 7yrs ago. He is one of those guys that loves to teach, has genius knowledge, an excellent blade-hand and is my best friend to date. He didn't so much teach me how to pull the levers but taught me how to see the "big picture" of a job, the ins and outs of running a job smooth and efficiently, how to spot architect flaws then make 'em work and pretty much how to run the job from the seat of a blade like I currently do.

On the side, I am a professional athlete. I travel the world performing at various events like monster truck shows, concerts, town festivals, biker rallies, etc. doing back-flips and other acrobatic maneuvers on a dirtbike called Freestyle Motocross or FMX. You can simply "google" search tyler polk fmx or click: http://www.google.com/search?q=tyle...s=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a
to see some of my accomplishments.

Plates and screws have gotten old and I decided to give up that crap so I moved to Odessa/Midland, TX where the $/work is good.
I run jobs from an '05 Cat 120h w/14' moldboard @4600hrs! Don't have a single complaint about this machine! More weight and power would be cool, but don't tell her I said that. ha! For we have been together for 9mo. now.

Seems like JDOFMEMI and YelloMtlmilitia know their stuff and gave tips I only learned on my own through T&T. Grader4Me couldn't have said it better about float and back-dragging. And IMO, the backwards board thing.......If I was owner of the co. and seen ya doin' that, I would doc ya an hr. or 2 for wasting time and playing around. I would say, "show-off on your own machine on your own time!" haha! I don't mean any offense to anyone, it's a cool thing to do n' stuff, I couldn't find any Real production in doing it except for making my girlfriend think I was the BEST blade-hand in the whole, wide world! haha! Or confusing my boss when he looked over at the line up in the am...or the time we hired a new guy (pre-Madonna "finish" blade-hand) to help me on this mall parking-lot, he said things like "I forgot more than you know" n' "I was runnin' a blade since you were an itch in yo daddys pants" n' stuff...so I put grease on his door handle and turned his board around! It was sooo funny watching him try to put it back! He was soo mad! He tore off the headlight then, later that day, he backed into a fire hydrant and was terminated. funny stuff... Anyways...

Tip:

I do this-
-Never over work my material (like mentioned earlier)
-I like to finish Aggregate Base Course with my moldboard rolled all the way back.
Though it's nice to roll it forward 2-3 inches to allow for adjustment without
activating/adjusting the rams, I'll explain why I don't........
Although its hard to judge depth perception do to absolutely no visual of any part of the lower board I would usually use as a "marker", cutting my final passes this way seems to push or mash the rocks down into the material while leaving the fines evenly distributed or spaced in between the rocks. Leaving, IMO, the best finish for a paver. After a numatic roller compacts such a pass, the rocks seem to be embedded into the fines and evenly "poking" up above the fines about a hundredth giving the asphalt mat something to bond to and not "move". It could be a little too "picky", but it works and it's a challenge I've mastered IMO.

Rolling your board over to see the cutting edge just pops the rocks out of the material and seems counter productive and messy. + it takes the rocks out of the material leaving you with sand sticking to the drum (if you use a steel wheel roller). Nothing sucks more than chasing rocks around!

Also, on a moldboard with lots of hours, 3 or so feet of each end of the board is usually bent back a little. Which cuts the rocks out even deeper in the middle of a pass while rolled over. I got away from that. Besides, I couldn't seem to carry much material before rocks started getting trapped into the "V" angle (you produce by rolling it forward) and just riding up and over the material. Looks like I would make the cut but, put a string on it and always had to take more out. Even with the board at the "choice" cutting angle didn"t work for me. ALL the way back is my preferred method.

That's my tip that I picked up along the way....everything else is a piece of cake! -Ty

CAT_MAN said:

Was that a serious question come on! Chew should not make or break you lol

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Oh but it does. I know a graderhand from eastern Canada. He worked for the government there. He decided to quit chewing snuff. He quit by using the "mind over matter theory". Homm....Hommm. Bwah hahha. Anyways to make a long story short, he got crotchety from the withdrawl symptom's. Real crotchety. It actually got so bad at work, all his co-workers took up a collection,, sent the collection money to a contractor in another province, and that contractor hire this fellow, we'll call him "snuffy" for conversation's sake.

Well ol "snuffy" he couldn't refuse the big dollars this contractor offered him , so he took a leave of absence from his job, wife, family. While working in the strange land "snuffy" had an urge to take back up chewing. Being in a remote area and no snuff available, "snuffy" tried chewing a moose turd. They fit in his lip individually quite well and he also found he could keep several in his pocket nicely.

Well "snuffy" continued to be crotchety and so the contractor returned the money to the original owner's and sent old "snuffy" back to the government job.

So you see Catman...... chew does have a huge bearing on an individual and that's all I gonna say about that!!!! ef ef

:falldownlaugh:jawdrop:OMG.....wow! your head has to hurt thinking up a yarn like that.....

Worked with your dad over the years, just getr' done, everyone has their own ideas!!!

I can't post a thread yet so......

Question: When I pull my consul forward everything electric shuts down. A/C, lights, etc., and it goes into neutral. I have to pull the consul so far to me that my shifter hits the control bar. A mechanic at Warren Cat said that it may be a short in the electrical harness by the hitch. Anyone else have this problem????