The one man show to grow

I really appreciate the compliments. Makes it worth posting. A lot of times you can't get people/friends/family interested in what we do. I for one will always stop and talk about this stuff. Every now and then I'll get to talk to other graders, truckers, and truck drivers.

We got this house foundation cut out and on grade. I towed the Takeuchi and Caterpillar home yesterday. Another 70+ hour week and we're going back at it in the morning for a new week. Thought I had an operator until I googled him and found his felony conviction. Nope, I had enough trash to deal with this week. I hit the biggest trash pit I have ever seen on this last job. After hitting the mess I needed to take a walk. I walked to a neighboring lot where a one man show guy was clearing and grading on big house foundation. He had a Case track loader and a Case track hoe and would swap back and forth. Any way I learned from that builder that the seller or a previous owner had mentioned a tornado ripped through there in 1973 and they had buried all the trash and wasn't sure exactly where it was. Well it was everywhere on my lot.. I went about 16' deep in one place. I started digging it all out and loading it on dumpsters and tandems. Finally the soil engineer said to get below grade and cap it with good dirt. Gladly I said. I had already over cut a lot. Apparently they are going to use helical piles instead of digging it all out.

We worked through a couple of bad downpours.

There was really good fill on top of the buried trash. Well decent fill.

Kind of why I got off of You Tube it's just more trouble than it's worth. Like this post has flipped half of my pictures. I also have to manually resize every picture in order to post them. This has taken over 45 minutes. Takes all the fun out of it. My luck I guess. I'm sure I'm the only one who has to resize their pictures and gets their images flipped. I'm addicted to this site and sometimes addictions are bad.

im glad you take the time to post the pics of your work.. don't see any pools done that way around here. most are holes then a plastic/fiberglass shell dropped in it.. keep up the good work

I admit an addiction to this site as well. I have a photo thread elsewhere on the net. The uploader on the site has been screwed up for a couple of months now. Since it only lets me upload one photo at a time, I rarely put photos on there any more. Keep posting...I really enjoy this thread!

I have to resize also, it takes me so long I rarely post pics anymore. I really enjoy following this thread and following your work. Cant wait to see the pete back in action!

Hey Fastdirt,

Great looking work, you move a lot of dirt with a 312. I bet that was some hard digging in the trash pit.

Keep posting!

Fastdirt, don't know why your pics are turned upside down. As far as sizing goes, I use Mac but I found an easy way. Pic your photos you want to resize, click export, choose size and send them to HEF picture file - they all get resized in batch. JNB you should be able to upload 5 pics at a time.

Back to the thread. Fastdirt that's a nice looking foundation cut, I bet the footing crew likes to come in after you. Interesting those logs haven't rotted much in 41 years of being buried.

I had to join after reading this thread. I used to watch all of your youtube videos and you do great work. I wish you would put the video of your Pete driving through the mountains back up

That backblade work!!! Glad youre busy. I rented a tak 130 last week and want one now

Well. I appreciate it all.

Sterff, I will definitely do some videos of the 379 when it gets back. I feel like I'm in an out of body experience waiting on it. Especially when I have to make multiple trips with my tag along and the lowboy will haul them together. I imagine it is going in the paint booth any day now. Still have to floor the lowboy and install the lights, decals, wheels, etc. but I can do that in a weekend with my level of determination with this project. I loved that video too but we are not done yet.

Landclearer, I appreciate the comments. The 312 has a 40" bucket and a long stick with the L undercarriage. It is an amazingly balanced and capable machine and I am picky, but it never has me frustrated for the level I'm at right now. I've put 2500 hrs. on it since I got it two years ago and it has been a winner all the way around. The fuel consumption is outstanding too. It will run two full days on a tank. It has a big heart and is like a loyal Labrador always eager to please. It is going to Yancey Brothers to get everything tightened and back to new. Just got to rent a replacement and make it happen. I know what you mean on the logs being hard to excavate when buried. I just don't get too greedy on a problem log and work around a problem log till it frees up. They can feel like rock way down there all locked in with others.

CM, I don't know about the flipped pic thing either. I'll figure it out soon. Now as far as the footing crew goes they are going to have fun with the surprises they find when shoveling and staking. You know I learned awhile back that logs will not rot when buried if they are sealed from oxygen and water. From my experiences I have to agree. A good trash pit will produce logs that are as strong as live ones. sometimes harder or even petrified. Just my thoughts there... I did find some cool bottles, street signs, a transparent set of plastic blueprints, and beer cans. I started collecting bottles lately. I've heard they can be valuable if you find a rare one. I am getting old too Lol. I get around and have let too many go. Especially when digging pools in historic districts and downtown Atlanta. I've also learned that historic districts and Atlanta mainly have a thicker than average amount of rich topsoil.

Thanks, Bkrois, Nedly, JNB, Sawdus, Fservice

I'll try to load these the right way. I was really proud of the finish grading. Of course it's just a foundation cut but I always slick down my sites. Well 85% of them. This was a new customer and it was a main corner. I really wanted to leave a nice presentation for the builder and potential buyer. My guy has a pretty good background running a Takeuchi so I never even touched the grade. I did see him back dragging in a random method after he had it all on grade. I like straight lines so I took a about 20 minutes to keep it looking square and clean cut. It probably rained before it was seen and they wouldn't know the differences anyhow, but I'm in it for the attention to detail. Not to mention the tracks leave foot prints for rain puddles.. and it rains daily lately.





This was one nasty eye sore of a pile for all to see. It was the dirt between the logs and was littered with sticks and such. The hoe sure does hide it all though.

Today's job. Ok, me and the longtime woman split again so I am keeping busy. So I might over post here for awhile.

I used to not love this undersized ex county Mack dump. Now I love it, it will get in some tight places and I work with him a lot. He never complains either.





It down poured on us two times today. I never stopped. We hauled out about 10 or 12 loads and made a mess of the driveway and streets. An ole fellow walked adamantly up to me while on the machine and said "make sure you clean up "MY" streets when you leave"...at first I was like who the heck...and then I read his shirt. He was the city inspector. I changed my tone to super nice guy immediately and said yes sir we will as soon as we finish.

Absolutely beautiful dirt work. I picked up the term "paint it and sell it" back when I was a pool trimmer. You've got that down!

Back in the 70's we where digging a couple of blocks from the beach in Santa Monica. We had to move everything out of the dig at high tide since it would start to fill with water. Everytime the water went back down there'd be a new stash of old bottles. I still have most of the cool ones from that job and still collect them. I like all kinds of old stuff like that...especially if its got that nice rusty patina.

The pool work is very impressive. we've done a bunch of pools on jobs, but never anything that intricate. once the batter boards and stakes are in, its tough to get the deep end square unless you have enough room to walk around and cut it in from the back. generally we'll put 1.25" stone on the bottom then on the sides they put a plastic type material with metal webbing (attached is a borrowed picture of it) that gets sprayed with gunite.

Great looking work! I have done a good number of commercial pools but nothing like that. Takes a good operator to do that!

Well fast it looks like i have just been hired to dig my first pool. I am so excited. The price did not even matter to me, i just wanted to get the first one under my belt. I have never dug a pool, i normally dig footings and i build building pads. I can pretty much build a house or building from start to finish. I am skilled in almost everything besides building a pool. Of course this is all my wife wants. So it is time to learn. The owner called me because he knew i was local and they needed some one to remove the dirt from the site. We got to talking and he asked if i thought i could dig a rectangular pool about six feet deep. He wants it long and narrow, something like 15' x 40'. I am not really even sure how many loads will come out of the hole. I figure my 11,000 lb mini excavator (takeuchi tb145) with a two foot bucket should get the job done. I am guessing 2 to 3 days? Looking at your pics it seems i will need shovel men to clean and help prepare the walls. Do you have any advice? Whats a quick way to estimate how many tandem loads will come out of the hole? Will my mini get me through this job? I plan to start on the low end and work my way backwards toward the deeper end?

Thanks, JNB! That sounds like a pita job you did at the beach.

Bkrois, that dig looks so strange to me. It's crazy how different the methods can be. I know what you mean about being able to move around all sides of the pool.

Landclearer, thanks you gotta love the commercial digs.