questions??? Again. bear with me.

LowBoy · Jul 23, 2007

chipsearthworks said:
Uh well,:drinkup :drinkup is out of the question then, as I am 27, but I guess that is what they make non acholic for??? j/k

PHP:

Well, in that case, I guess you're safe.

I could still see you guys hanging around though. He's a good kid and wouldn't mind the company.

P.S. What's the actual POINT of non-alcoholic beverages? If it's for the meer taste, I'm thinking it's not worth it.:idontgetit

CM1995 · Jul 23, 2007

LowBoy said:
PHP:

P.S. What's the actual POINT of non-alcoholic beverages? If it's for the meer taste, I'm thinking it's not worth it.:idontgetit

:lmao :lmao :thumbsup :drinkup Exactly!

BTW - Enjoy reading the thread, just don't have much to offer.

surfer-joe · Jul 24, 2007

Just a thought on my mind. When I went to college lo so many years ago, we got a pretty good discount on new tools from Mac, Snap-On, and the Cornwell guy. I spent thousands of my GI Bill money on tools, and I still have many of those today, along with thousands of dollars of others I have bought over the last 35 years.

If I had known better at the time (and if there had been any around that area), I could have saved myself a kizillion bucks buying good quality used tools at pawn shops. Also look at garage sales and equipment or manufacturing company auctions. Sometimes you can get a good deal from the tool guys on stuff someone bought but couldn't handle the payments on, and the tool guy took em back.

biggixxerjim · Jul 24, 2007

is this starting to scare anyone else???

fhdesign · Jul 26, 2007

I've worked in construction here in fairfield county for 25+ years...in my opinion if you don't have a strong desire to be either an operator or a mechanic, I would go to school to become a mechanic. This is assuming you want to stay in Connecticut.
Good Luck

Dozer575 · Jul 28, 2007

I've done both operator and mechanic.
Surfer is right on. Plus there are somethings he missed. Right now your young, and all your body parts are in fairly good shape. If you choose to be a mechanic, get used to oil soaked clothes, grease impregnated hands (girls don't like that or the smell of oil and diesel) did I mention being smelly of oil, dirt diesel etc.? As a standard mechanic, your job would be fix it stuff, crawling in mud or dust, oil pouring down your arms and soaking you good, but you can't just leave and go take a shower in the field the boss expects the job to be done and the machine running asap. Get used to the idea of possibly loosing a hand or a finger if your not careful I have a friend that did mechanics for years, his hand slipped and about lost all his fingers. You most likely will have to weld and cut steel as a heavy equipment mechanic. Get used to being set on fire, getting burned by molten steel etc. I've been there done that. You gotta becareful with those hydraulic systems, that high psi can kill you. I know of a mechanic that got killed when working on a D8 track recoil spring. Mechanicing is not all the fun you think it is and nothing like working in a class room joking with some class mates. If you do it long enough maybe when you retire you'll be lucky if you can still use your hands, or have all your fingers, eyes etc. as a mechanic on those cold mornings you will be crawling under some machine freezing your fingers off.
As an operator you get to sit on your butt all day long pulling levers, cruising around on the job site, in cold areas most all machines have heated cabs, and in warm areas A/C. In the nice newer machines you don't even get dusty. Operating is much easier than mechanicing. Also if you are not the type that has been twisting wrenches since wearing diapers, it may not be for you.

surfer-joe · Jul 28, 2007

10-4 on all the above, cept for the women. They like dirty brawny types.

biggixxerjim · Jul 28, 2007

surfer-joe said:
10-4 on all the above, cept for the women. They like dirty brawny types.

Maybe in your neck of the woods.......

Xcopterdoc · Jul 28, 2007

I'm a third generation mechanic. Been doing so for pay since I was 16. Started in an old Ford dealership working on trucks and farm tractors. I've turned wrenches on everything from a weedwacker to a Boeing 737. I love my work, it pays well, but it's a pay to play world. I have more wrapped up in tools than some do in their cars or even houses! I've always been able to provide for my family and after 33 yrs on someones payroll, I've never had to draw one day of unemployment. I have worked mostly in the equipment rental side of the industry. It's everything from small engines to large stuff. Not a bad gig, pays well, good bennys. Medical for me, to include vision and dental is only 50 bucks every 2 weeks. I'm a road mechanic, so I have a truck, complete with welder and aircompressor, oil tanks ect, that I drive to and from work. Thats a big savings there in gas alone! We get 1 free pair of workboots a year, uniforms are payed for. 10 days vacation, plus 6 sickdays a year and one personal day. We get factory training, plus we now have a set up through John Deere U. We take the courses, the company pays the for the course, then upon completion we get paid 75 dollars for doing it on our own time. We have been 2 guys short for almost a year now. We just can't find anyone who is well rounded enough to fill the job or at least trainable. Amazing!
Cat has an outstanding program for those just starting out from what I understand. Check with your local dealer and see what they have to offer.
Good operators appreciate a good mechanic and same goes the other way. Feedback from an operator is a good diagnostic tool the mechanic can tap into.
Whicever road you decide to follow, always do yur best, be on time and be ready to work. Be dependable! You'd be surprised how far that goes now a days!
Good luck in your career choice.

Dozer575 · Jul 29, 2007

Some other real good advice.

Just like we have all been told "don't put all your egg's in one basket".
I say the same goes for jobs, especially nowadays, since we all seem to last a very short time at jobs. I've hired in and quit many times. And besides you can stay at one job for years and then the day comes and they go outa business, then your in the cold. What I'm saying is learn a variety of jobs, learn the operating, and some of the mechanics, like the guy above said they can't find people to even learn it, so you really don't need to learn a bunch to do the simple average wrench twisting, what you do need is the apptitude for it, that alone will cover your butt, any shop will show you what you need to do most of the time anyway especially if they don't have to pay a top wage. Its way harder to learn to operate heavy equipment than to mechanic, mechanic is a knowledge type job that does require some skill level, but operating and welding are a skill level job that requires lots of practice and experience to do.
Then there are other jobs like machinist, electrician, plumber, carpentry etc.
If you learn all them you will always have a job, but again apptitude.
One of the nice jobs would be a electrial controller, meaning your monitering all the electrical system grid etc. it would be a sit on your rear and read the newspaper type of work, or even sewer or water moniter, and they usually get some real good pay and benifits as well. The day you smash your hand wrenching, and take a good soaking of oil, or a nice burn or cut, you will remember what I said here. By far operating is the most satisfying job, cause you can someday tell your grand kids, hey I build that road or that whole area where all those houses sit.

CascadeScaper · Jul 29, 2007

Turning wrenches is incredibly thankless, especially when it comes to working on iron. But, for some, it's their calling and if they like doing it far be it for anyone to stop them. I do a little of both, makes you well rounded. I don't abuse equipment becuase I know how much time it could take to get that machine up and running if I do.

chipsearthworks · Jul 29, 2007

Dozer575 said:
Some other real good advice.

Just like we have all been told "don't put all your egg's in one basket".
I say the same goes for jobs, especially nowadays, since we all seem to last a very short time at jobs. I've hired in and quit many times. And besides you can stay at one job for years and then the day comes and they go outa business, then your in the cold. What I'm saying is learn a variety of jobs, learn the operating, and some of the mechanics, like the guy above said they can't find people to even learn it, so you really don't need to learn a bunch to do the simple average wrench twisting, what you do need is the apptitude for it, that alone will cover your butt, any shop will show you what you need to do most of the time anyway especially if they don't have to pay a top wage. Its way harder to learn to operate heavy equipment than to mechanic, mechanic is a knowledge type job that does require some skill level, but operating and welding are a skill level job that requires lots of practice and experience to do.
Then there are other jobs like machinist, electrician, plumber, carpentry etc.
If you learn all them you will always have a job, but again apptitude.
One of the nice jobs would be a electrial controller, meaning your monitering all the electrical system grid etc. it would be a sit on your rear and read the newspaper type of work, or even sewer or water moniter, and they usually get some real good pay and benifits as well. The day you smash your hand wrenching, and take a good soaking of oil, or a nice burn or cut, you will remember what I said here. By far operating is the most satisfying job, cause you can someday tell your grand kids, hey I build that road or that whole area where all those houses sit.

Wow Dozer that has to be some of the best advice I have ever been given! I appricate all of it and I mean this hole heartly. Thank you very much for yours and everyones elses comments and like I said I am meeting with the rep from baren instuite for the mechanic course tommarow and we will see what happens with that, Then I will also be checking into the operator cours up in NH. But again keep the comments coming and thanks again.

Grader4me · Jul 29, 2007

Its way harder to learn to operate heavy equipment than to mechanic, mechanic is a knowledge type job that does require some skill level, but operating and welding are a skill level job that requires lots of practice and experience to do.

You know, this statement kind of grabbed me a bit and I will try and tell you why. I personally feel that being a mechanic is very skilled level job, that also requires lots of practice and experience.
I'm a firm believer that you are born with god given talents and being a mechanic is one of these talents. I have said this before...I can operate anything, and the equipment that I have operated I have done it well. Any thing that I have not operated, give me a few hours and I will get it down. I also can do my own maintenance, small repairs etc.

Having said all of that, I am not a mechanic. I just marvel how they can take stuff apart, repair it, put it back together and get you going again, and this is just a small part of things that they do.They are really no different than operators...The more experience they get the better they become. To me it would be way harder to be a mechanic that be an operator.

surfer-joe · Jul 29, 2007

Xcopterdoc did remind me that most Cat dealerships do indeed have good apprenticeship programs, usually thru a local community college. You work some, you study some. Be a good bet to check with your local Cat house, maybe the Deere people, even the foreign brands. Check with the State Highway Department where you live, they quite often have vocational setups to train new and young hires. I did that in Michigan when I first got out of the service long ago. This was in cooperation with an excellent university by the way.

I do disagree with Dozer575 on the difficulty of becoming a skilled mechanic tho. It's damned difficult these days with the proliferation of brands. You have trucks heavy, trucks light, cars, mining equipment above ground, mining equipment underground, small utility stuff both commercial and consumer, all kinds of construction equipment, forestry equipment, and everything in between. There isn't much that's "simple average wrench turning" anymore! It's like everything else, you get an education for an entry level position. No one expects you to have 25 years of experience going in. It takes time on the job to learn the 'tricks' of the trade in every craft.

In over forty years of operating, driving trucks, turning wrenches and being a supervisor in 43 states and 3 foreign countries, I can point to hundreds of jobs "I helped build," from highways to dams, to pipelines, to railroads, to streets, commercial building and that's not to mention the mines I have worked in. You don't have to be JUST an operator to be able to say that. To tell the truth, I often got bored with truck driving and operating equipment. It's very repetitious work. Not very often I ever got bored with mechanical work however. Operating scrapers is probably the one exception to my last remark, just about the most fun you can have with your clothes on.

Steve Frazier · Jul 29, 2007

I have to agree with Grader4me, it is every bit as challenging to be a good mechanic as it is a good operator. This is especially true today with the influx of computer sensors. Good mechanics who truly understand the mechanical principles that are at work in a machine are few and far between anymore, many of today's technicians are lost without a diagnostic computer.

A mechanics who can diagnose a problem without the computer is worth his weight in gold! I've had several problems with my newer trucks that have plagued me for years that the dealers can't fix because the computer doesn't tell them there's a problem. Now that they are out of warranty, I guess I'll have to pay to have it done.

I also agree that we are given talents to work with, I have an employee who is absolutely dead on with his eye for grade. Unfortunately he is not good with machinery, but he excels in the brick and block work I do. I don't need a laser on the job, I just have him eyeball my work as I dig and when we are done we're within an inch of what we need.

Operators need mechanics to keep their machines running and mechanics need operators to keep bringing machines to be repaired. I'd rather not see an argument break out over who is more important.

BrianHay · Jul 29, 2007

I agree 100% operator/mechanic both take experience and natural ability to be good at it. A good example of what a difference a really good mechanic makes is a company I worked for not long ago (same one as in my avatar im number 7 in the pic). We had 2 637G, 2 637 series II E, 2 627G,and 2 627F. There was one CAT mechanic in our area that was exceptional when it came to working on them, Tod was him name. When I pulled into the pits when Tod was around it seemed like there was nothing he couldnt fix and fast. He knew the machines inside and out and very rarley did he get stummped if the computer had nothing to tell him. Then one day he decided to take a transfer up North to work on the really big iron. I cant even hazard a guess how much money the company lost to down time after Tod left. Cat (actually Finning is who is contracted to Cat in Alberta) still had some really good mechanics in the area, just not any that knew the scrapers like Tod does. When a machine went down that would normaly only be down an hour with Tod working on it, it was now down for several hours. When you consider the average low three bids on projects in Alberta last year was $6.40 a cubic meter and a 637 hauls about 30 meters per load. Down time is huge $$$$. Having someone experienced around like Tod is worth some very serious money. As someone else said the schooling will get you a trade certificate and an entry level position. But natural ability and experience is something that you will need in ether carear to get good at it. And thats something you cant get at any school.

Dozer575 · Jul 29, 2007

Well the reason I said what I did about mechanic ing. Is because it is a learn by book type of deal. Operating isn't. Just look at all the folks that write on these forums on the internet and talk about the car engines they rebuilt. Most have pretty much zero mechanic experience yet they some how accomplish the deed. And yes some fail big time. But the catch is you can be a mechanic of sorts without experience. Some one can talk you through it. But with operating that is not the case. With operating you have to be on the thing and learn the feel, and how to work in different situations. The difference with a skilled and not so skilled mechanic, is supposedly the skilled one knows all the basics and how the thing works and how the parts fit etc, and how to go about the job. But then again there are lots of mechanics or so called mechanics that learned how to, by book, and common sense. I guess that is how I learned as a kid. Never went to school for it, and taught the teachers in highschool shop how to do some of it.
Learning to operate took many years, well to do it good enough anyway. Anyone can get on a machine and lean to move it around pretty quick.
When learning and doing mechanics as a 10 to 13 year old, it was pretty much a day or two thing. Gosh I was overhauling automatic transmissions for other people, before I was in high school. And yeah they even worked good.

klyons · Jul 30, 2007

http://local478.org/index.cfm?id=48

klyons · Jul 30, 2007

the above was for chips and there was somebody else talking about sending there kid to a school in ct., but now cant find the thread

if accepted all it cost is sweat and time

ointhead

digger242j · Jul 30, 2007

The difference with a skilled and not so skilled mechanic, is supposedly the skilled one knows all the basics and how the thing works and how the parts fit etc, and how to go about the job.

I've heard the distinction made in this way: There are people who are just parts changers, and then there are mechanics...

questions??? Again. bear with me.

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