The lost art of slot dozing!

Yair . . . Thanks for that JDOFMEMI. You may note that I too have spoken of a "train" of gravel moving ahead of the blade . . slot dozing is a tried and proven concept I have been teaching and promoting for over fifty years.

Even in this enlightened day and age I still see operators like Dozerman costing themselves or their employers money by using incorrect wasteful techniques.

Way back when I first started posting on HEF I got a bit of a serve by saying I thought that less than (I think I said) 5% of dozer drivers knew how to get the best out of a machine . . . judging by what I have seen in the past few years on job sites not a lot has changed.

I believe this is inexcusable and is a reflection of poor management. These blokes are mostly competent, they just need some guidance and toolbox sessions to learn best practice methods.

No one ever came onto my jobsites and did it "their way" it was the correct way (not my way) or the road.

On those ring tank jobs I even went to the extent of a diagram on a blackboard showing a simple excavation. When asked how they would carry out the task most new operators weren't even in the ballpark . . . most in fact worked like Dozeman pushing rills through from the back.

Cheers.

Hey Scrub, could you please define "ring tank".

Thanks!

I used to try to help greener hands to produce more but it got very frustrating. Now I just do my thing and let others do theres, so long as its safe and not destroying equipment. At the end of the day some come around to a more efficient way of thinking while others think they know it all. Dozerman may be the best dozer hand ever, I don't know, nor do I care, it's how he does it and if he sees fit, well so be it.

JDOFMEMI said:

I have many times on jobs measured the piles in front of a blade...I was amazed at the volume.

Click to expand...

This is some what of a poor depiction, and I had to stop to take the pictures...

Bear in mind, this is only a JD 750c, with a 6-way, about 9 feet wide I think... how much dirt does anyone think

that blade would be carrying, if out of the slot, on flat ground???


The area is not very finished looking at the bottom either, but that took very little time to accomplish...


As I said... it's not the best example of slot dozing, but it is an example...




OCR

I guess what dozerman is failing to realize is that if the machine is still able to cut and material is rolling off the side of your blade from the start of your cut till the end you are not actually pushing what that machine is capable of pushing.

td25c said:

It seems to help even in the white stuff ......

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Yup td, that's exactly how I do it, about every week or so... when making a new pad for my shop...



OCR... lol

Yair . . . Oxbow. this is the first time I've tried this dunno if its going to work . . . this is a ring tank, I'll follow with text if it posts.

Yair . . . Another one for practise.



Cheers.

Yair . . . Well I can post pictures from the net now, I'll do some words tonight.

Cheers.

Yair . . . Oxbow and anyone who's interested. Ring tanks (I think) are an Australian aberration and it has always been a bit of a mystery to me as to how they pencil out.

They must turn a profit though as many were built from the late sixties through to the nineties. With the price of diesel compared to that of grain and cotton I reckon it's unlikely we will see the likes of the ring-tank building boom again.

They could be any size. The largest I worked on was basically pushing up a twenty five foot high wall around a two hundred acre paddock. I believe in later years it has been divided into bays to help counter wave erosion and give some extra options for managing the water. those early ones were built pretty much exclusively with dozers and we hired in a motely crew of machines from D6 size to Nines.

The later ones used scrapers to get better compaction although I believe that during the construction of the tanks on Cubbie Station they had forty odd D8 and larger tractors on the site . . . some of the tanks there are over a thousand acres in extent.

I should add that the point of them is to catch ephemeral seasonal cross country flows and, some times, to harvest from rivers when the flood reaches a predetermined height.

They can be empty for years but the farmers still need to maintain them and the several thousand installed horsepower they have on the twenty to thirty six inch flood lifter pumps.

If anyone is interested I can dig up some extra info and pictures and maybe start another thread.

Cheers.

Please do

Thank you very much Scrub, I have heard you mention them many times but was unsure exactly what they were.

Thank you very much for the great information both the Senior Members and Members are giving on the procedure of "Slot Dozing". I have only used this method on a small scale to expand a parking-lot. It only added another 50 parking places, but it was the perfect time to try this method of "Slot Dozing" I had only read about. I found it to be a very effective and efficient way to move material. The Case 750 Dozer I was using was up for the challenge. I will certainly try this method again when I get the chance. Works Great!

Glad to be able to help,
Where you at in N.Y.?

Rochester

Scrub Puller said:

Yair . . . Well I can post pictures from the net now, I'll do some words tonight.

Cheers.

Click to expand...

Ah, you have turned over a new leaf.

It seems you can teach an old dog new tricks!

Thanks for the info on the ring tanks. I figured they were a pond of sorts, but did not realize how big they were.

ALL DO RESPECT TO EVERYONE!

JDOFMEMI, I like the methods I use. I'm easy going and can run the machines (with out an attitude) any way the Bosses want me to.

AustinM, I have gone side by side with operators slot dozing. I have always finished my 1/2 first then help them with their 1/2.

Oxbow, I have tried slot dozing, I feel the machine is fighting harder by going deeper in the same paths verses staying on top of cuts centering windrows.

bigshow, I enjoyed your post #43. Even snow plowing, I plow different than most. At O'hare Airport I started plowing a gate in terminal-3 the same time another operator started the gate next to me. He came to me said I was doing it all wrong. I said give me a chance to show you my way. He did, I got my gate done and 1/2 way done with my next gate before he finished his gate. After 2hrs I looked back and saw him trying it my way.

vapor300, I do believe I get the max out of all the machines I run.

Dozerboy, If I worked side by side with you, I am certain you would not be laughing at my techniques.

ScrubPuller, I will ease up on this slot dozing thing. I was only trying to post what works for me and the people I've worked with. I normally get sent to the job site with the earliest deadline.

Dozerman, the reason the machine fights harder on the slot is because it's the only time traction is the limiter on what you can push (not cut), as you are pushing the max possible without it spilling past the side of the blade. Now when Cat and Komatsu recommend slotting for max production (as does just about every opencast mine, army engineers, Seabees etc.) how can they all be wrong? You need to get the blinkers off and ask just how good are these guys you've outperformed.

Yair . . . dozerman400. No worries you go on costing yourself or your employer money.

As I have mentioned I have re-educated many operators who work a lot like you.

For those who won't listen and learn I sort of compare it to trying to teach pigs to tap dance. I just wont do it any more.

It drives me crazy that they just don't get it and it pi$$es off the pigs.

You have a good Christmas now.

Cheers.

I feel there is some dissention here