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A few projects I have done recently

CM1995

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You want a valid reason why in my opinion companies are buying Chinese excavators that have marginal support at best is because its 30 to 40 percent cheaper over name brand and they cant get people to run them that care or the owner doesnt care so they never have resale value much above scrap anyway

There is a demo company here runs only komatsu I would buy anything he wants to get rid of with 8 and 10000 hours on it there is a grading and underground contractor with nothing but lease deere equipment nothing over 4000 hours looks like it has 20000 hours and the repair Bill's paid to turn in a lease machine are ridiculous

If you have minimum standards you get minimum operators cm has high standards I have high standards most on this forum have high standards so we get more out of guys or they go down the road if they even start

The striking thing is when you figure out what it costs to employ to tier talent and its productivity verse no to low talent and the down time and repair cost and machine depreciation from abuse and less productivity it's a no brainers to run nice equipment and pay for top tier help

AZ I guess this philosophy has worked for this demo contractor somewhat with equipment although he does have some name brand iron.

We've had 4 of their "operators" including a foreman ask if we were hiring...that's says a lot about the demo company.

All the time your guys took to keep the clean out in good shape and it looks like it’s getting replaced

Yeah JMAC the CO is getting replaced. The wall to the left of the CO comes out and in the same area a new set of escalators will be installed. Basically the area we have cut down and hauled off is the new main entrance for the arena. There will be a 3 story wall of glass and steel. People will enter the arena through a landscaped plaza through the glass curtain wall and take escalators or stairs up to the main concourse.

Here's a pic of the inside where the said demo company is shoring up the pre-cast in order to cut and remove this area. This will be a 3 story club level with suites, lounge, etc.

The sunlight on the right is where the exit doors used to be.

IMG_1422.jpeg

What I have experienced is once you let the equipment get beat it becomes more like junk and gets beat on even more. Dump trucks are the worst, I bitch everyday about what drivers do to them, garbage they leave in the cab, it’s a matter of respect in my opinion and some guys do not care, you don’t find out for a while either. Some scratches are going to happen or it came that way, very rarely do I buy something brand new but I have and that is even more depressing. The pay doesn’t necessarily mean good help, sometimes higher paid guys are just as bad.

Jmac that's why I repair and replace items on our iron when it breaks or wears out. Glass gets replaced, A/C gets fixed immediately, etc, etc. Couldn't agree more that equipment that is not in tip top shape regardless of age will go down quickly. Our equipment puts food on our tables and I remind that to my guys on a regular basis. Just like in the old days - you take care of a good mule.:)
 

CM1995

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Our other crew was lowering a fire line on our lake project.

Foundations and building underground are starting to wrap up.

IMG_0711.jpeg
The existing 4" PVC (actually it was well casing..) was from 1-4' to high with the new grades for the proposed parking lot. Luckily had a valve on the upper end to tie to and we added another valve on the lower side connecting back to the existing. No way we are testing anything other that what we put in.

Went back with 4" C900. Coming off our new line there is a FH and a building lead in. 4" C900 on a warm day can be manipulated a little to follow a not so straight ditchline.

IMG_1005.jpeg

Single piece 4" stainless steel lead in for the building addition. The footing rebar cage will placed over and the lead in will be poured monolithically in the footing.

IMG_0710.jpeg
 

CM1995

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This is the first time we've used an onsite concrete service and I have to say we will use them again.

Locally owned and operated company that I have seen grow from one truck to several running all over the metro area.

We had 4 kickers to pour at 1/3-1/2 yard a piece for the fire line and we had to get the line back in service the Friday before Memorial Day weekend so we decided to give them a shot. A short load of redimix runs $400-450 for a couple of yards with all the fees.

They produced 4,000 PSI with calcium added for 4 kickers and the bill was $325 bucks - no brainer. We're never mixing bags or calling the plant for a short load as long as these guys are around.

IMG_1007.jpeg

The operator can change design mix on the fly. Currently making 3,000 and need 5,000 - pulls a lever and boom. All the ingredients are dropped on a belt dry and mixed with water in the auger.

IMG_1006.jpeg

The auger/shoot is all remote controlled where the operator can put as much as you want right where you want it within the chute's radius.

IMG_1005.jpeg


Tee and valve for the hydrant.

IMG_1008.jpeg
 

CM1995

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Why stainless everything here is ductile and the wrap it for a lead in

The majority of the time we'll build a lead in out of ductile especially if it's 6" or larger. Since this is 4" it was a little cheaper and easier to go with a one piece SS riser.

The plastic and duct tape is to keep the concrete from corroding the pipe - kinda a belt and suspenders thing.
 

hvy 1ton

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I wish someone around here had a volumetric truck. Despite it not being my favorite, I've wound up doing lots of utility work lately and the number of ~1 yd pours that I've ordered from the redimix plant makes my head spin. I've even found myself in the situation where a volumetric truck could have poured flowable and sidewalk mix on the same trip (different holes).
 

CM1995

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I've even found myself in the situation where a volumetric truck could have poured flowable and sidewalk mix on the same trip (different holes).

That is this setups leg up in being able to change mixes on the fly. We're not a concrete company but we do need mud from time to time. This setup is slick.
 
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catwelder

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Our other crew was lowering a fire line on our lake project.

Foundations and building underground are starting to wrap up.

View attachment 218232
The existing 4" PVC (actually it was well casing..) was from 1-4' to high with the new grades for the proposed parking lot. Luckily had a valve on the upper end to tie to and we added another valve on the lower side connecting back to the existing. No way we are testing anything other that what we put in.

Went back with 4" C900. Coming off our new line there is a FH and a building lead in. 4" C900 on a warm day can be manipulated a little to follow a not so straight ditchline.

View attachment 218238

Single piece 4" stainless steel lead in for the building addition. The footing rebar cage will placed over and the lead in will be poured monolithically in the footing.

View attachment 218235
did you finally buy a mini ? or other contractors
 

CM1995

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did you finally buy a mini ? or other contractors

No. There are 2 303's on this site one is from the GC's internal rental fleet and the other from our local Cat house.

However we did rent a 303.5 for the arena job to do some sensitive digging. Used it for a couple of days and sent it back. Still no justification for a mini, it's cheaper to rent.
 
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catwelder

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No. There are 2 303's on this site one is from the GC's internal rental fleet and the other from our local Cat house.

However we did rent a 303.5 for the arena job to do some sensitive digging. Used it for a couple of days and sent it back. Still no justification for a mini, it's cheaper to rent.
you got that 321 and 328 for machines though are those your only excavators?
 

CM1995

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you got that 321 and 328 for machines though are those your only excavators?

That's right, currently have a 321DLCR and 325FL - those are our only excavators. Also have a 420DIT backhoe that we don't use that much but still keep around.
 

DGODGR

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Hammering is awesome it basically becomes a license to print money
There are certainly a lot of pit falls to avoid if using big hammers. Especially on hard rock. Once you get your poop together there is good money to be made. Though I can often get bored while running the hammer I would love to have more hammer jobs. Especially if I can run my other trackhoe to muck out or crush. I agree with you on the hourly deal. In my area the rock (and thus production) can vary greatly even over short distances. The worst case being rock that will not fracture. The kind that simply turns to powder under the tool and one must basically hammer every square inch (scaling) to have any progress. It takes for EVER, and I find it extremely boring.

That's why I bought one too.:) The arena job will pay for it and it will still be nearly new when we're done.
The first job for my hammer was to hammer 1,800 yards off of a cliff face for a foundation dig out. That one job more than paid for the hammer.

I am just sorry you bought a cat hammer lol

But really I heard the new cats were much better than the previous generation I am curious hoe it holds up for you
Who is making Cat hammers now? At one point I thought that they were being made by Rammer. Upon recommendation of a friend (who started out running CAT hammers) I went with Toku for my 5,500# breaker. They are marketed here in the US as Striker. They are also selling them as Komatsu hammers. They used to be marketed in the US as BTI hammers. BTI had a great reputation until they were bought by a holding company which moved production to a lesser quality Korean company.
I'm curious as to what you paid for that Cat Hammer CM. I know that when I was shopping a for a hammer back in '16, my local CAT dealer quoted me that hammer for $70k. They tried to market it as a "superior brand" thusly justifying the higher price. I didn't drink the cool-aid but maybe now they are a better tool than when made by Rammer.
AzIron, what brand and size of hammers are you running? What brand carriers do you use? What type of rock do you run into down there in Cave Creek?
 

AzIron

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I personally have slobbering love affair with npk and particularly old npk at that 2 of my hammers ar as old as I am another is real close and then the last 1100 pounder that I bought is only about 4 years old and it's no were near as good as my h4xe

We run 2 sizes at the moment 1100 pounds and 1500 pound 7x but I have not ran another 1500 pound hammer or really 2000 pounder that will keep up with either 7x they are hard hitting so I tell customers it's a 2000 pound hammer because when I tell them it's only 500 more pounds then the 4x they want to call someone that has a 2500 witch I get but there option is based from no experience hammer weight doesnt even account to maybe half of the equation for production

We mainly run backhoes 416 and 310s for the smaller ones and a 446 for the bigger tho I did just acquire a 314 excavator so I have that for the 7xs now

We used to have a kobelco 210 LC series 2 that was a wore out girl when we bought for like half of scrap it cost double what we paid for it to plumb it and the we hung a 10 x witch is 3500 or 4000 lbs I think we owned that machine for about 6 years and 2000 ish hours and i probably put at least 1200 of them on it never had to fix a thing on that machine we sold it right before in 08 before I got out of high school

As far as rock you get a variety like granite and white granite blue granite both of witch will eat a point fast if your not paying attention then you get all varieties of cleach and last but not least you get malipi witch is pretty much straight lava all this rock comes in a variety of hard ness but my favorite is what we call baby powder rock cause you literally grind it to dust cause it dont break off in any pieces

It can get boring but it pays by the hour it's a good challenge I have taken on quite a few rock jobs others have given up on it makes a challenge sometimes frustrating especially when you wipe out a point but I have never had a machine failure from hammers abusing equipment and at one time dad had 7 of them banging everyday
 

CM1995

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I'm curious as to what you paid for that Cat Hammer CM. I know that when I was shopping a for a hammer back in '16, my local CAT dealer quoted me that hammer for $70k. They tried to market it as a "superior brand" thusly justifying the higher price. I didn't drink the cool-aid but maybe now they are a better tool than when made by Rammer.

DG I think Cat makes them in house but not 100% sure. The hammer we bought is a 130 GC which is a gas fired hammer. It also has a hammer mounted auto-greaser for the hammer paste tubes.

It was $69,000 for the hammer, hydraulic quick coupler and mounting including pins for the QC and hammer. The hammer was $56,000 QC $9,700 and the balance in sales tax.

What I'm looking at next is a ripper for our 325.
 

DGODGR

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I personally have slobbering love affair with npk and particularly old npk at that 2 of my hammers ar as old as I am another is real close and then the last 1100 pounder that I bought is only about 4 years old and it's no were near as good as my h4xe
I think NPK makes good hammers. I was also considering one of those when I bought my 5,500# hammer. I looked at your thread and one of the small hammers you had looked pretty old. Not judging by scratches/cosmetics but by the lower casting (where lower bushing would be housed). It almost looks like it is from the "Art-Deco" era. New hammers are expensive (see Cm's last post) and if you can keep that older hammer running well I see no reason to replace it. A new one won't bring you any more per hour.

We run 2 sizes at the moment 1100 pounds and 1500 pound 7x but I have not ran another 1500 pound hammer or really 2000 pounder that will keep up with either 7x they are hard hitting so I tell customers it's a 2000 pound hammer because when I tell them it's only 500 more pounds then the 4x they want to call someone that has a 2500 witch I get but there option is based from no experience hammer weight doesnt even account to maybe half of the equation for production
I almost bought a hammer for my 416. If I were still in CA I am sure I would be running one. Back when my '97 416C was new I was a bit fearful of what a hammer would do to my pride and joy. Funny thing is I was invited by CAT to go to Peoria and demo the prototype D model 420. While I was being debriefed (by the guy who was responsible for TLBs at CAT) I asked what CAT found to be the attachment that put the most stress on a backhoe. I thought (for sure) that he would say a hammer but he did not. He said that their research indicated that a compaction wheel was the most stressful. I moved to CO before I bought a hammer and ironically I had already been running a compaction wheel (on and off) for a few years.

We mainly run backhoes 416 and 310s for the smaller ones and a 446 for the bigger tho I did just acquire a 314 excavator so I have that for the 7xs now
I started out with a 416B. The last TLB that I bought is a '97 416C. I bought both new and I still have the 416C. It has about 13,000 hours on it now.

We used to have a kobelco 210 LC series 2 that was a wore out girl when we bought for like half of scrap it cost double what we paid for it to plumb it and the we hung a 10 x witch is 3500 or 4000 lbs I think we owned that machine for about 6 years and 2000 ish hours and i probably put at least 1200 of them on it never had to fix a thing on that machine we sold it right before in 08 before I got out of high school
My girlfriend's brother owns a Kobelco 210. He is an owner/operator and I think he said that he has a bit over 10,000 hours in it. He claims that he has had no major issues with it and currently doesn't have any plans to replace it. Your thread showed your dad sitting in a Hitachi 210 with an Okada hammer on it and you did not mention either in your reply. Was that a rental?

As far as rock you get a variety like granite and white granite blue granite both of witch will eat a point fast if your not paying attention then you get all varieties of cleach and last but not least you get malipi witch is pretty much straight lava all this rock comes in a variety of hard ness but my favorite is what we call baby powder rock cause you literally grind it to dust cause it dont break off in any pieces
As I mentioned in my last post I have something similar in my neighborhood. The "b*****d rock" here is a mixture that the geotech guys call "sandy limestone". What point design do you usually run on your tools? Do you notice that one type works better than any other? I have been running chisel points on mine. It doesn't take long before they are "blunts". I just had one re-chiseld (cut to factory spec by a water-jet cutter) and am anxious to see how it does. I plan to use it tomorrow. Another irony is that the MFR recommends blunt tip for bedrock. I'm not sure if I agree-which is why I'm inquiring.

It can get boring but it pays by the hour it's a good challenge I have taken on quite a few rock jobs others have given up on it makes a challenge sometimes frustrating especially when you wipe out a point but I have never had a machine failure from hammers abusing equipment and at one time dad had 7 of them banging everyday
A new tool for my hammer is only about $1,300 (for OEM). If we run the hammer long enough to wear out a tool I should have also generated enough revenue so that I won't worry about buying another. I bought the hammer and crusher to specialize in rock jobs (as they can be lucrative) so I don't shy away from them either.
 
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catwelder

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DG I think Cat makes them in house but not 100% sure. The hammer we bought is a 130 GC which is a gas fired hammer. It also has a hammer mounted auto-greaser for the hammer paste tubes.

It was $69,000 for the hammer, hydraulic quick coupler and mounting including pins for the QC and hammer. The hammer was $56,000 QC $9,700 and the balance in sales tax.

What I'm looking at next is a ripper for our 325.
you can always make yourself a ripper if you got he right stuff laying around the yard instead of buying one save a couple bucks
 

DGODGR

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DG I think Cat makes them in house but not 100% sure. The hammer we bought is a 130 GC which is a gas fired hammer. It also has a hammer mounted auto-greaser for the hammer paste tubes.

It was $69,000 for the hammer, hydraulic quick coupler and mounting including pins for the QC and hammer. The hammer was $56,000 QC $9,700 and the balance in sales tax.

What I'm looking at next is a ripper for our 325.
That sounds better than my quote as it did not include the coupler. I was also going to buy a 323 (which included a Q/C) at the same time so one would think I would have been offered a pretty sweet deal on the hammer. I did pay substantially less for the TNB 190 and it does have a slightly higher energy class rating. Oddly enough CAT states that the 130 has a tool diameter of -5.91" (I"m not sure why they put the "-" in front of the number. I doubt that it's so small that it would have a negative number!) and the TNB has a 5.5" diameter tool. It would make sense to me that the higher energy class hammer (the one that produces more energy) would have a larger diameter tool as it would require more energy to penetrate rock with a larger diameter tool...Wouldn't it? More on that below...
My TNB 190 has a nitrogen bladder at the top (no accumulator) and generates the energy to move the piston at 70% rebound off of the bladder and 30% from hydraulic power. I think that this greatly reduces stresses to the carrier and operator. Toku also claims that there is only 2 moving parts in the hammer. I checked out the 130 on the 'net and it looks be a very different design than the original H series of hammers. It sounds like it has similar features to my hammer. I do feel that CAT has always been good at matching the correct tool to the correct carrier/application. Too bad we weren't closer. We could do a head-to-head comparison (Wouldn't that be cool!).
It will likely be a while before you can comment on reliability, useful life, and COO but I would love to compare notes.
Speaking of comparing hammers I am frustrated at the whole "energy class" matrix used by the MFRs. Have you ever noticed that all MFRs are a little bit different despite the weight of the tool/recommended carrier size being similar. I am not sure that there is a SAE standard for calculating this and I wish that there was. I have heard that it really boils down to the weight of piston and diameter of tool. I broached this subject a little bit above and it seems to be an ever-present topic whenever one is comparing hammers. As an example AzIron mentioned that he likes the NPK brand. NPK publicizes very high energy output when compared to similar sized hammers of other brands. Can anybody comment, or elaborate on this?
CM, did you have any such discussion/consideration (out loud or in your own mind) when selecting the CAT hammer?....Or did you use other parameters when making your decision?
 

CM1995

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DG I went with the Cat hammer for several reasons -

1. I'm a Cat guy and have a great relationship with my dealer.
2. Wanted to add a QC. Our 325 already had the coupler lines we could have done it easily but it was part of the package. I have only had a Cat pin grabber coupler in the past and wanted to go with one again.
3. Cat Financial is offering 0% for 24 Months on attachments which is $2800 a month for the package. Going into the arena job I needed to watch my cash flow up front until we get into the first couple of billing cycles. Instead of renting a hammer and machine for $14K a month I get a new hammer for $2800 month. The arena job will pay for it in a couple of months.
4. The manual thumb bracket needed to be lowered on the stick to work with the bucket in a
different position with the QC. Cat dealer has great welders that I trust to weld on my machine - this was included in the $69K quote. More on that below.
5. Warranty, see #1 above. If we have any problems with the setup then I have one number to call. More on that below.

More from #4 -

So the dealer gets the QC installed and even with lowering the manual thumb plate the bucket and thumb wouldn't work as designed. Salesman called me to discuss and the solution was to order new tines which are longer and designed to work with a QC. Now here's the boot - at no charge to me.

Now for more on #5 ...

Thursday while my super was running the hammer the hyd. circuit stayed in the ON position and would not turn off with the rocker switch on the joystick. Stopped the machine, turned it off and removed the hammer selection in the monitor just to see if it reset. It didn't.

Let the machine sit for more than an hour and I tried it again. As soon as I turned the key the lines on the hammer pulsed - not good. Limped it to the parking lot for the mechanic that would soon be headed that way, under warranty of course. As I limped the tractor to the parking lot you could tell the aux. circuit was pushing oil as it was robbing power from everything else.

Dealer service showed up last Friday and started breaking it apart. One of the valves is stuck in the on position on the aux valve block. This unit is not serviceable - remove and replace with a new one.

The aux. valve is on the front of the pump.

IMG_0703.jpeg

Specifically this one -

IMG_0701.jpeg

Part number -

IMG_0702.jpeg

Mechanic comes over to tell us they have one in Atlanta which normally would be in Birmingham the following morning if ordered by 7. However being a holiday weekend and we were leaving at lunch it turned into a we'll get it back running by Tuesday afternoon. Fair enough.

30 minutes later the mechanic comes over to tell us the bad news. Atlanta stocks the part normally but they are out and the closest ones are in Australia or Germany. I know the parts guy that made the mistake and he was sick over it. By Friday afternoon the parts guy had found a used one we could get by Tuesday but me and my PSR decided against that route on such a new machine.

So they get the one from Germany coming and it will be here this Friday. Now at this point I have the service department, salesman and PSR all working on this but the problem is we have a hard shutdown with a 5 day window at the arena job to take a heavily reinforced 18" concrete wall down. The GC is shutting down the access to the lower arena level for obvious safety reasons so we had to produce and need a hammer in combination with the pulverizer to do it. Like I told my salesman and PSR in a not smart assed way - I wouldn't bought a hammer if I didn't need.

So here's the bright spot and goes back to #1 above - At 5 PM on a Friday before a holiday weekend I call my salesman to explain what we have coming up and he tells me he'll get me a machine out there we can use until ours is fixed Stuff breaks it's the nature of heavy equipment it's how people handle it that matters.

Thankfully I have one entity to look at to fix it - the dealer. The 325FL is under warranty and of course the new kit is so it's their's to make right. I shudder to think if I would put another hammer on it - the finger pointing would have cost me thousands.

Now I am very worried about debris in the hydraulic system but I'm not going to borrow trouble at this point.
 
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AzIron

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So I remember when our cat dealer dropped nok cause cat bought out Stanley hammers and badged them cat and man those things were only good for a paper weight they would hit at a million miles an hour but if you would stand next to it and feel it working and listen to the tone it didn't hit near as hard as npk I tell everyone I train to hammer most hammering is done by sound anyway I can tell with pretty good certainty across the job if an operator is making head way from the tone of the impact the sound becomes more evident in telling you your not hammering correctly as well

As far as hammers stressing machines that's all operator related dad consulted for cat from the conception of b series thru the start of the e series when they quit listening about issues I have no idea how many stress test we did for cat with compaction wheels hammers and rippers. A ripper or ripper bucket will put about 3 times the stress on a boom and dipper than normal digging that's when we scrapped all our ripper buckets now what brought that on was the last run of bs and first run of cs had boom failures particularly the c did cat was using a new supplier so it took a while to sort it out but one machine we had went through 2 booms in one year and it was not because of the operator

As far as cm buying a cat hammer his post is prime example my cat dealer wouldn't take care of me like that here they would stretch me out to get by until I unload a fleet of iron in there driveway

Cat uses internal dampaners on there hammers that's the problem in comparison to npk the small hammers I have dont have any kind of dampener and the bigger one like 2500 lbs and up have external dampners the problem with internal dampners is they cushion the hit to reduce vibration it's not a solution I like you dont want to cushion the strike of the piston that does the work you want to insulate the hammer kick back from the machine witch is why you put external dampners on between the hammer and the holster

DG if you want answers to the other questions move them to my thread I dont need to derail cm any mo red e than we have
 
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