First of all, Leo congrats. on your new endevor. Thats what made our country is people willing to take a chance and work hard to make it. The story of the "Little Red Hen" isnt told much any more. You work hard and take the risk, and every one else wants it. Dont aim to hi-jack your thread, or bore you with a long story. But I started out just like you. I had owned and run a auto-truck repair shop for over 30 years and was approching the age where I was going to start getting my socalist security and wanting to still stay busy and have fun too. About seven years ago I waws bulding my own house and developing another property. I needed some dozer work done, from time to time, just small jobs, a hour or two, more than I wanted to do with my tractor and scraper blade. I had three dilfferent dozers out to do small jobs. I fully understand the cost of doing business and I know that you have to have a minumin to do a job. But to charge for four hours and not give you a good 2 hours or I could do move the same amount with my tractor in 4 hours. And half the time they were working on their dozer trying to keep the tracks on (one guy could make left turns only) or keeping it running. I decided to purchase a small dozer. I was dumber than a bale of hay but still knew what I wanted and some how to go about it. First I learned that the 2 or 3 big dozer makers had not made a small (10,000lbs) since about 1985. Meaning most were old or wore out. I wanted to stay with the "tinker toy" dozers because I could use my 1 ton dump to pull it and my existing trailer, without going to CDL, more insurance, and bigger eqipt to move it. I ran onto a little Massey Ferguson 200B (1985) that I noticed had been sitting in a field for about 2 years. I tracked the owner down, he said the wireing had caught on fire from mice in it. I made him a offer, he took it. I got the dozer to the shop, rewired it and started doing the small dozer jobs I got it for. One day I had it in the shop painting it, and a customer came in who was in the septic business for me to work on his truck and recognized the dozer and said his dad had purchased it new, owned it for a few years and sold it. We got to talking and he asked me if I would be intersted in doing some dozer work, after hours and on Sat. (I was still running the repair shop) He said I could close up after he did a septic instillation and he could move his crew and back hoe on to another silte. All he had at time was a back hoe and that is not very efficent in closing up and smoothing out a leach field. We agreed on a price and things progressed smoothly. I made money and he save alot by being more efficent with his crew. Wasnt too long and I would pick up other jobs from the home owners, and others would call me to come over and do a small job tha other dozer operators would not do. There were alot of operators with JD and Case 450 but just didnt want the small jobs. I learned that if it is painted "yellow" you get out the "green" when you needed parts. It even seemed like the yellow paint cost more than the blue, green, or orange. I found that parts for the ** were non existant. It was made in Italy. I had it painted up and looking really good, some farmer made me a real good offer on it. I sold it and bought a little Case 350. It was a pretty low hour machine but still a old dozer (1983) I also had to do a little work on it and give it a good paint job. (I like my equipt, looking good and dependable and ready to go to a job) I used the Case for awhile but it wasnt the dozer the ** was. I was made a real good offer offer on it by a kid who just got out of high school and wanted to do some dozer work on his farm. I sold it and made a good profit. I never liked the JD 350's. I run onto a little Allice Challmers HD4 (1962) that was in really good shape. (Been kept inside) It needed a complete undercarrilage. ( I found a complete set of tracks, rollers, and front idlers for $3000.) After getting it going I had a nice little dozer. I think Allice had the best of the "tinker toy dozers". I really liked it but it was a 1962 and only parts available were used. ( I never really needed any thing I could not locate) Things progressed pretty good with my work and I closed my shop and retilred from the repair business and kept doing small dozer jobs and working for the septic contractor. He came to me and asked if I would be intersted in getting more involved and more work. (I had also bought a skid steer) and asked if I would be intersted in using it to help him. I said yes. He was getting fustrated with help, insurance, taxes, and general employee complaning. So he let them go and just him and I did the work and he would use a "gofer kid" to help. I made some good money and he made alot of money by eliminating the help. This went on for a coupls of years then he was offered a good sum for his company, by a larger company who had all the eqipt and full crew. This left me back to doing jobs on my own. I kept my little dozer pretty busy. In the winter months, I bought a cab and chasis, and found a old "field jenny tank" and made up a septic pumper and got my license. I just wanted to stay busy, pay my taxes on my property and make a few dollars. I didnt want to expand. I enjoyed the dozer work. Last year I thought about updating my dozer and there just wasnt any thing newer. The Case 350 or JD 350 are no longer made and Allice went south a long time ago. All that was left was the little Komatsu 20 series a the Mitsubishi Bd. I looked for over a year, most were wore out, or rusted pretty bad, and I couldnt see sellling a good old dozer in A-1 shape for something newer, wore out or rusted. I finally found a 1998 Mitsubishi BD2J with only 700 hours on it. It looked to be in good shape and not rusted. I had looked at a few Komatsu's and talked to used dealers who sold both. They felt the Mitsubishi was a better dozer, but parts very hard to come by and no one to work on theml. Where the Komatsu, you could get parts for them at least. I stilll purchased the Mitsubishi. It steers like a dream compared to the other dozers, and at my age, 6 or 8 hours is a killer on a dozer. (I still dont think it is the dozer the Allis was) Rollover Pete give you some good advice, "keept the doors open with octpus tenicals, equiptment will need repair." I think there is a nitch in the job market for the fellow with the really small dozer. I know you cannot do what the guys do with the larger dozers or as much work in a days time. But there are alot of small jobs they wont touch. Last year I had some one call me from over 100 miles away to come and give a estimate. I went and looked at the job and told him " cant you fine some one local." I had seen severs 450';s sitting around. He said no one wants to work. I told him I would have to charge for travel time. He said just do the job, you are the only one who came out to look at it. I made some good money. (By the way I ran on the high scool kid I sold the little Case 350 not long ago. He did the same thing and said he had the money saved up to buy a almost new JD 450 as his business had out grew the Case 350. So be positive in your work, give a honest days work for a honest days pay and good luck.
