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Old conventionals at work

colson04

colson04

Senior Member
Joined
Apr 11, 2016
Messages
2,087
Location
Delton, Michigan
DMiller said:
I am a guessin Colson could get the hang of that purty quick!!
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I'm sure if I had @John C. Or @Tugger2 time in the seat I could be decent. There's a guy about 3 miles south of here that has 2 old cranes with draglines sitting on either side of his pond. In the last 15 years, I've only ever seen one of them run for maybe a day mucking out the bottom. I know of one other crane, not sure make or model, sitting off in the woods near an old pond a couple miles to my east as well. Last time I saw it, it had a tree growing through it, but the engine still busted off and ran.
 
Tugger2

Tugger2

Senior Member
Joined
Mar 22, 2018
Messages
1,376
Location
British Columbia
John C. said:
I've run the shovel in my avatar as a dragline for awhile dipping out a coal wash plant fines pond. I can say from experience that the guy in that video has more than a few years of experience. The boom is about the angle I like, not so low as to make the machine tippy but low enough to get a good reach and coverage. He doesn't drop the jewelry on top of the bucket when it lands. He only pulls the bucket until full and doesn't try to use it as a bulldozer. The full bucket only comes up far enough to be able to dump efficiently into the truck. The dumped bucket has started the return just as the last of the material falls out. I'll bet at the end of the day he is just exhausted unless he has power controls.
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I can say that at the end of day running my machines with air controls im beat,especially doing logs with the grapple. When i first started doing jobs with the 22B i thought the hand frictions would be brutal, but i feel better after a shift on that. The Bucyrus s are so well engineered.The unused retract drum spins on its own for a bit after you shut everything down,a testament to nice bearing fits.
How far is it practical to cast the dragline bucket?
 
Tugger2

Tugger2

Senior Member
Joined
Mar 22, 2018
Messages
1,376
Location
British Columbia
colson04 said:
I'm sure if I had @John C. Or @Tugger2 time in the seat I could be decent. There's a guy about 3 miles south of here that has 2 old cranes with draglines sitting on either side of his pond. In the last 15 years, I've only ever seen one of them run for maybe a day mucking out the bottom. I know of one other crane, not sure make or model, sitting off in the woods near an old pond a couple miles to my east as well. Last time I saw it, it had a tree growing through it, but the engine still busted off and ran.
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We could coach you thru it ,its not that hard if you are keen and develop some understanding of the mechanics of the machine.
Id do a road trip to help you just for a holiday if it werent for this covid thing.
 
mitch504

mitch504

Senior Member
Joined
Feb 27, 2010
Messages
5,776
Location
Andrews SC
My brother in law can cast his bucket out from under the boom tip about 40' with a 45' boom. I on the other hand, do well not to just snarl it all up about halfway out.
 
John C.

John C.

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Joined
Jun 11, 2007
Messages
12,870
Location
Northwest
Occupation
Machinery & Equipment Appraiser
If you want that video carefully and note where the bucket lands each time, it appears the operator is getting the bucket past the tip of the boom about twenty percent of the whole length of the boom. The cool thing to me is that move in the middle of the throw where the bucket is dropping and the machine swing stops for just a moment. Then the operator pulls back just a touch on the drag and lets go just as he eases into the swing. An operator with good feel will pick that up after a day or so and be able to get it to happen perfect maybe twenty five percent of the time to start with. The operator didn't miss a beat through out the video.
The Koehring in my avatar was all manual and a little over twenty years old when I ran with the drag. I would have pain in the middle of my shoulders up into my neck. My thighs felt a deep burn for a few hours after I got off the machine. My dad spent ten years on that machine with a clam shell usually running ten hours a day. I never understood just how tired he was when he came home at night, until I got my turn on the machine.
 
Tugger2

Tugger2

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Mar 22, 2018
Messages
1,376
Location
British Columbia
Theres a knack for moving the bucket by playing with the swing. I do that with the clam ,sometimes to bring it in close to catch an edge. It saves booming up and the bucket gets a little wild when your boomed up high to. Ive only had the drag bucket on once we do a lot with the clam ,its slower but less disturbance i think.
Men were men when these machines did it all.
 
D

dirty4fun

Senior Member
Joined
Dec 29, 2010
Messages
1,188
Location
N. IL
I can still remember the first couple days I started out clamming brush off a ditch bank. Which wasn't bad because you got a break by moving the Linkbelt 78 Pipeliner. The first day of running the drag line bucket was a whole different thing. My legs were killing me, by afternoon, I was standing outside stretching and rubbing them when the boss's son drove up. He was laughing said he could remember his first couple days. He then taught me bunch of thing to make it easier. He could run it without using the brake pedals hardly at all. Then crossed his feet and operated the machine. He grew up running one, and was like his dad could make it look so easy!
 
Tugger2

Tugger2

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Joined
Mar 22, 2018
Messages
1,376
Location
British Columbia
Heres something different. A few years ago there were guys buying up a lot of our old conventionals and shipping them to Vietnam so we heard .
I couldnt resist watching this because of the American in it. If you follow this theres a complete circus over there of these sand and gravel barges navigating the rivers . Crash to pass .
Looks like they wanted tons,but got loaded with tonnes instead,ive seen it happen here.
 
DMiller

DMiller

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Feb 21, 2010
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16,560
Location
Hermann, Missouri
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Cheap "old" Geezer
Nearly all the old US stuff that can be utilized goes Offshore, either Asia or South American markets, some end up on Island paradise lands where can slowly salt water rot to a brown stain. Not much stays in US that is functional or reasonably recent construction but also get bought for pennies or scrap value.
 
John C.

John C.

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Northwest
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I don't know if there is much old stuff going over seas anymore. In the 2007 time frame there were pickers traveling the US looking for anything and everything. I haven't seen the phenomena for years. Most old stuff that I come in contact with just sits where it stopped running and nature hides it from people's view. A lot of stuff was found by the scrap man back in 2007 and early 2008. There is still plenty of twenty to forty years old stuff running today.
 
DMiller

DMiller

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16,560
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Hermann, Missouri
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Cheap "old" Geezer
What came around will circle back as time moves by, the foreign purchasers will need to replenish the Simpler limited or non electronic stuff that is now coming to 20-40 years on duty.
 
B

Birken Vogt

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Joined
Nov 30, 2003
Messages
5,320
Location
Grass Valley, Ca
DMiller said:
What came around will circle back as time moves by, the foreign purchasers will need to replenish the Simpler limited or non electronic stuff that is now coming to 20-40 years on duty.
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Coming from somewhat of a hacker/electronics background I would also expect foreign buyers will figure out easier and easier delete schemes since there is no EPA to breathe down their neck and no warranty.

Take a modern Tier 4 that some poor sap in the US has to sell for pennies on the dollar because he can't keep it running or stay in business to Vietnam, blank off the EGR, fix the VGT to some position that just works, remove the junk from the muffler and get some whiz kid to reprogram or replace the ECM with something that takes in cam position and fires the injectors when it's time and ignores all the punishment sensors.
 
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