Tanksinking

Scrub Puller said:

Yair . . .

I found these pics on a historical site.

The tank is larger than normal station/farm tanks but style and batters are identical with all the water stored below ground level in "the hole", a flat apron or table and then, what in effect are spoil banks . . . just a place to stack the spoil.

The banks were battered off smooth and level and the old tanksinkers took a great deal of pride in the finish of their work . . . legend has it that one bloke used to do a final clean up with a wheelbarrow and shovel.

The point I was making is that in the "old days" this was how it was done and in these days of motor scrapers the "deep and steep" design philosophy has been compromised some what . . . those batters were no problem to a crawler tractor and scoop/scraper.

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Trust this old stuff I dig up continues to be of interest.

Notice those tractors (TD24's?) are scoop and ripper rigs only, they are not set up for blades.

Cheers.

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It takes real skill to get that finish scrub

Yair . . .

A bit more info.

That tank was built to supply 60 customers in the town of Ilfracombe in Queensland, was 100,000 cubic yards of excavation and cost 45,536 pounds in 1948.

A couple of posters have posted tank and dam sizes in mega litres which seems unnecessary and confusing.

I think of the excavation as being in cubic yards or meters and the water capacity of the structure in mega litres, gallons or acre feet.

To me stating that a 2 meg dam was built in such and such a time at such and such a cost is meaningless. The amount of dirt excavated must be stated and the hourly rate assumptions expressed.

To put it another way . . . is a 2meg dam in fact two thousand cubic yards moved in a day or did that days work construct an embankment behind which 2 mega litres of water can be stored. . . and is "a day" ten hours or some other value.

I just don't understand why an extra number has crept into the equation . . . keep it simple I reckon.

Cheers,

Interesting thread Scrub.

You mentioned Ilfracombe, we went through there last year and if you have seen the museum there, it is incredible.

There are a couple of tank sinking outfits in the museum, the only difference is, they are real scoops, not scraper/scoops.

Another early tank sinking outfit.

Now I know what you mean by a scoop. I've seen the same thing called a drag scraper, usually when it was pulled by hosses or oxen. This internet thing shows how we're separated by a common language. Like my pet machines, I'd heard them called tracked loaders, crawler loaders, traxcavators, most commonly over here Drotts (whatever make they actually are) but this "highlift" thing I'd never heard until I came on this forum.

Now back to the original subject, those pictures show a level of skill and pride you don't see every day, then or now. The last lagoon I worked on was dug entirely with a Cat 235 and 325 and wiggle wagons. I can't remember whether we used a landfill compactor or a vibromax on the back of a D6H, but at the end we trimmed the batters with the 325 to about 1 in 2, with radiussed inner corners. I remember wondering while I was removing all of the bucket edge marks why I was doing it, as all being well the inside wouldn't be seen again for years, but then I suppose it's what we do

Interesting tread......always enjoy seeing how things are done in other places.

ih100 said:

Now I know what you mean by a scoop. I've seen the same thing called a drag scraper, usually when it was pulled by hosses or oxen. This internet thing shows how we're separated by a common language......

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I used to think I spoke English, but from the little travelling I've done I came to realize I speak "American".....different language altogether.

Yair . . . ih100.

In my part of Australia "scoop" used to refer to any earthmoving jigger that was towed behind a tractor. . . these days I think we have been Americanised to some extent and they are sometimes referred to as "scrapers".

The Americans seem to use "can" or "towed scraper" you folks in the UK use "box", a term I have never heard in Australia.

It's all the same thing, two wheeled, four wheeled or no wheeled (i.e. tumbling tommy),if it picked up dirt, carried it and dumped it in Queensland it was a "scoop". . . a "scraper" was a self propelled motor scraper.

Cheers.

This has to be one of the most interesting threads I've seen here. Good job Scrub!

Not a dozer and scoop but a dozer and scraper. International E 200 Pay Scraper.

I worked for a damsinking outfit in 1970-71. They were based in Emerald QLD but had some work on a station between Mt. Isa and Camooweal. We drove the scraper up there towing a trailer.The Toyota towed the fuel tanker and the bus was also driven. About 700 miles. The 3 trailers on the trailer are the welder, generator lighting plant and the camp water tank made from 3 pairs of 44 gallon drums. The fuel tanker was supposed to be towed with the scraper too but the hitch on the trailer had a problem so the Toyota towed it.

Drilling to blow some rock, not real successfull. Notice the different dirt mid left, we hit a patch of sand there so dug it out and capped it. The dozer is parked with the blade up so we could push start it.

The TD18 push loading. Water, rock, sand and dust. That dam is on a small creek which is just behind the bank and tree line and there's a large pipe through the bank probably just above the scraper. That dam measured up at 32,000 yards.

#8 One of our camps. The tv didn't work.

Another dam.
Then it rained. I think this one was about 20,000 cu yards and was about half done when it filled up. We hired/borrowed a 4" pump from another property and pumped it out.

And thats how to move camp. Scraper towing trailer, fuel tank, water trailer, welder trailer and generator trailer. The dozer would be driven cross country.

Another camp, another dam. When we set up camp here that gully/creek was dry but there was rain further up and gave us a nice swimming hole. We did have big rain there later on also. One of the blokes was married hence the caravan.

Repairs in the outback, the hitch was cracking.

The dog loved swimming too and he could dive out of the trees. I turned 21 at that camp.

We were there about 12 months up there and when we were finished drove the scraper towing the trailer and the fuel tanker back to Emerald via Julia Creek and Charters Towers. When we went up we went Longreach, Winton way.

One of the D9 scrub pulling dozers pushing out a dam somewhere else.

Enjoy

And they're still there 45 years later, as they should be. A couple screen shots from google earth. The lat and long. are down the bottom if anyone wants a closer look.

Yair . . . diggerop.

Bloody marvellous mate, thanks for the contribution!!

I am sure there are pictures stored away in albums and drawers documenting the itinerant life of the tanksinkers and scrub pullers.

The camp life is long gone now I suppose . . . last year there was a young bloke raking a few hundred acres on a block out the back of our place and he was staying at the pub.

Who's D9's were those . . . Staceys perhaps?

Cheers.

Diggerop... Be nice and hard that Yelvertoft country too I'd reckon. Bit more rock then Barkley or Austral (where i might have scratched a bit of dirt) from the few walls I looked at passing over the place, I can remember passing through and there was a fair lump of a loader there desilting and enlarging a hole between the house and the Barkley boundary. Can't remember exactly what it was but I think it might have been a Michigan 675 - it says a lot when you need one that size to scratch a hole with huh..



Scrub... I haven't camped in a swag beside a bulldozer for... three nights now. I still do it occasionally as a night camp, but I haven't done the extended camp thing since my kids started school 10 years back. Before that it was a swag, fly, and fireplace show anywhere between Cape York and the Tanami for 6 months of the year. Can't say I miss it really, I like that hot shower at the end of the day too much now... cold bogey just wont cut it no more. And I don't know that I liked it when I did it but... when you're young, hungry, and up to your a$$ in debt on the gear you go anywhere, do anything, and save dollars where you can right?

Yair . . . Gotcha john.G..

Times change and things are different now.

Our camps were good though. A caravan with electric light and bunks and hot shower. Most times we even had a cook who doubled as gofer and off sider as needed . . . most of them were shearers cooks.

It was pretty good for young blokes, good pay, way better than a station and, like station, all found with room and tucker . . . and no place to spend any money. (big grin)

I know all about the dusty swag on the dozer thing.

I did a few seismic lines with spare fuel drums on the ripper, a jerry can of petrol tasting water and a case of bully beef and case of canned peaches . . . no GPS of course they just crinkled up a rolls of aluminium foil and wrapped it around an aluminium stake flown in with a chopper and planted on the highest points of the sand ridges . . . you could see the bloody things glinting for miles.

Cheers.

love the photos an info you guys are putting on, means a lot to as all ive farmed with are crawlers, d46u,d4d,d6c,d9e

Yeah Scrub, Stacey owned the D9's. He would have owned the scraper too, but his brother Neil was running that part of the show then.

John, the only rock we came across was in that first dam near the homestead. From memory I think it was generally pretty reasonable digging

Scrub Puller said:

Yair . . . ih100. you folks in the UK use "box", a term I have never heard in Australia.

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Which led to the terminology if one was heading for the dunny for a #2 ..... "I'm off to drop the box" .........

Yair . . .

This picture explains why I believe motor scrapers cannot properly construct a deep earth tank . . . in other words the tank design of "deep and steep" is compromised to suit the machine.

In most cases there is nothing wrong with that.

The job may well be cheaper but, in the "old days" they didn't struggle with horse teams to make tanks this shape with out good reason.

That reason is this tank could still have ten feet of water when the same amount of water in a shallow tank of larger area would have been lost to evaporation.

We are talking here of country that has evaporation rates of up to 11 feet per year and rainfall of 12-14 inches

I believe this 20,000 yard excavation was carried out by a couple of D4s with Britstand scoops.



Cheers.

Spose you would have built a few turkey nests in your time Scrub?
There was a bloke around Mundubbera years ago who had it down to a fine art.
He used three old Cletrac dozers, two with scoops and a dedicated ripping tractor.
Compaction is the key here, of course, and it appeared to be a painfully slow process to watch, but he rarely had a leaker.
There was always a long que if you wanted Fred to build a dam or a nest.
The advent of cheap fibreglass, then poly tanks have done away with the need for nests in this part of Qld.,thankfully.
Their biggest problem was that evaporation,sometimes, consumed nearly as much water as the cattle.
Cheers,Greg