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Deas Plant

Senior Member
Joined
Jan 21, 2006
Messages
1,533
Location
Gold Coast, Queensland, Australia
Buy you a drink.

Hi, JeffD.
I don't drink alcohol but I suspect that, if we were to meet someday, I'd happily buy you a drink. You have had enough courage about your convictions to put them into words for all to see, to air your objections and asked that they be addressed.

Good on you.

Or put it another way and borrow an expression from another well-known member of this forum,


YEEE-HAAAWWWWWW!!!!!!!!!!!
 

digger242j

Administrator
Joined
Oct 31, 2003
Messages
6,628
Location
Southwestern PA
Occupation
Self employed excavator
When I read Jeff's post #137 this morning, I was afraid somebody might have to step in, moderator-wise. But then when I thought about the two individuals, I realized that wouldn't be necessary.
 

Squizzy246B

Administrator
Joined
Sep 9, 2005
Messages
3,388
Location
Perth, Western Australia
Occupation
Digger Driver
When I read Jeff's post #137 this morning, I was afraid somebody might have to step in, moderator-wise. But then when I thought about the two individuals, I realized that wouldn't be necessary.

I thought..."How could we shut down the funniest forum thread on the internet?"...but my fears were totally unjustified:notworthy
 

Deas Plant

Senior Member
Joined
Jan 21, 2006
Messages
1,533
Location
Gold Coast, Queensland, Australia
Funny story invovling a truckie and another with not a truckie in sight.

Hi, Folks.
Here is a story involving a truckie. I just happened to see this incident 'cos I was stockpiling gravel for these trucks to haul away. This and the following story are taken from a book that I am - slowly - writing.

Quote:
"At one stage of the construction, a large front end loader was loading gravel onto trucks to be hauled down to the dam wall for a particular part of its construction. One day while being loaded, one of the truck drivers was out of his vehicle and was taking a drink of icy-cold water from a container that he carried with him in the truck. He drank most of the cupful that he had poured himself and then threw the remainder at the bare back of the loader operator. The loader operator arched his back in shock when the cold water hit, but carried on loading without so much as a backward glance to see where the water had come from. However, as he was pouring the last bucketful of gravel into the back of the truck, he left a couple of barrow-fulls of the gravel hanging on the teeth at the front of the bucket. He then reversed his machine away from the truck and moved it forward again so that the bucket with its left-over gravel was lined up with the open passenger’s door window of the truck and was about six feet away from the window. He then ‘flicked’ the remaining gravel through the open window into the driver’s cabin. The driver, he who had thrown the cold water, was not favourably impressed, but had no one to blame but himself for starting it."

Unquote.
And another story from the same job with not a truckie in sight.

Quote:
" One of the scraper operators on this job was a rather small man whom we’ll call ‘George’, a very good operator and a thoroughly nice bloke, but nevertheless a small man. Some years later, after I transferred over to Sydney with Leighton Contractors, I heard a story about a night on the town in which he played a leading part. Back in the early Sixties, a dam was built at Logue’s Brook near Harvey in the South-west of Western Australia and one Saturday night a group of the workers on this job went into Harvey for a night of drinking and relaxation. As they were walking from the pub back to their car, they had to pass the local Post Office. Some-one happened to notice the old-fashioned parcel post chute that some Post Offices used to have and got the idea of ‘posting’ George. As small as he was, there was not an awful lot that George could do about it with three other men trying to stuff him down the chute and he was there in the Post Office until the postal staff came in and opened up on Monday morning.

The man who told me this story was known far and wide as ‘Wombat’."

Unquote.

And thanks for the votes of confidence, Digger and Squizzy.

Wrenchbender, thanks and read the message I posted for Grader4me.
Till next time.
 

MKTEF

Senior Member
Joined
Apr 5, 2007
Messages
1,013
Location
Norway
Occupation
Production manager
Hey deas, are you so old that you were working on the big dams?

A lot of years ago, i beliewe in the 60's, they were building the big dams down there.
A lot of Norwegians went down under and worked on them.
They had a celebration some years ago and all who were alive was invited.
I know a guy who was there on the celebration. You where too?

And then the story: (you started with the stories)

This happened on a tunneling site some years ago.
After shift on saturday the workers had a party, a lot of homeburnt were consumed.
The site was far away from people, so this wasn't a problem. Rather normal on saturday and sunday evenings.:drinkup
This was in the winter, dam cold outside, minus 30-35 degres celcius.
Late in the evening one of the guys found out he was gone take a drive to the nearest town. Drunk as few.
The other guys knew his Ford Granada wouldn't start in that cold, so they let him go out.
He got in the car, cranked it for a lot of minutes, a lot of dirty words where heard.
The Granada wouldn't start, OK, that was ekspected thought the guy's.

Problem was; the tunneling loader started imediately.(was used earlyer that day)
Broommm, broomm.
Cat 980, with a sidetipping bucket, slammed the bucket into the Granada, multiple times. Drove over that xxxxing car.
Before the guy's got their ass out to stop him, the car was flat as a pancake.
He was taken out of the loader, loader was parked, key's were locked inside.
Guy put in his bunk, to sleep for the night. No more driving!

The guy didn't remember anything the next morning.
Bad hangover, realy bad, this one.:p
 
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Deas Plant

Senior Member
Joined
Jan 21, 2006
Messages
1,533
Location
Gold Coast, Queensland, Australia
I'm not quite fossilised - - - - yet.

HI, MKTEF.
No, I didn't work on the Snowy Mountains Hydro-Electric scheme, which is where those Norwegians would have been. I started operating full-time in February, 1965, by which time most of the Snowy scheme had been completed. Blowering dam was still under construction then but I was working on the iron ore railways in the Pilbara area of North-west Western Australia back then.

The dam that I mentioned was the South Dandalup dam about 60 miles South of Perth in Western Australia, where I worked in 1972. (see the photo, fresh from Google Earth, captured by Snag-It) The town of Dwellingup, South of the dam, was totally burnt out by a bushfire in about 1966/7. It has been rebuilt since. There is a silvery-white ball just North of the dam in that photo. That is the village of Banksiadale, with a population of about 30 people. Perth, the state capital is around 60 miles - 90 Klms - North-north-west of the dam. Just as a matter of interest, they tell me that Perth is the most remote capital city in the world, in terms of the distance to the nearest other capital city.

Story:
"One day, two of the scrapers came back together after a short hold-up down on the dam wall and had to wait a couple of minutes while I pushed out some rocks that were in the way. While they were waiting, they parked side-by-side in the area where we were loading from to have a chat. When I had finished with the rocks, I came in behind them with the ‘dozer to start push-loading them. I then noticed that they were parked close enough together for me to be able to make contact with their scraper push-blocks, one on either side of the ‘dozer blade, allowing me to push-load both together. It took several loads for them to get the idea that they had control the depth of their cut fairly carefully when
loading together because, if one dug more deeply than the other, it would be harder to push and the ‘dozer would slew that way.

Once they got that sorted out, the next question came from the spotters on the dam wall whose job it was to show the scrapers where to dump. They wanted to know why those two scrapers were always coming in nose to tail, sometimes one in front and sometimes the other, instead of having around a minute gap between them. I didn’t tell them and I don’t think either of those scraper operators did either, but somebody must have because they found out eventually. The thing that surprised me though was that, while it normally took about 45 seconds to load one scraper and then I had to travel back to pick up the next one, it only took an average 80 seconds to load the two together, saving ten seconds on the loading time and eliminating the travel back between those two scrapers. In short, in terms of time taken to get loads out, it was more efficient to load the two together than one at a time. And this was using a Cat D8 ‘dozer, not a D9 which was more commonly used for pushing these particular scrapers."

End of story. (I cheat a bit, MKTEF. I already have a lot of these stories written up and simply have to copy and paste them.)
 

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Tegian

Active Member
Joined
Apr 11, 2007
Messages
43
Location
Sweden
Problem was; the tunneling loader started imediately.(was used earlyer that day)
Broommm, broomm.
Cat 980, with a sidetipping bucket, slammed the bucket into the Granada, multiple times. Drove over that xxxxing car.
Before the guy's got their ass out to stop him, the car was flat as a pancake.
He was taken out of the loader, loader was parked, key's were locked inside.
Guy put in his bunk, to sleep for the night. No more driving!

Had a similar thing happen in my rural town here in Sweden. This man , quite well known in my town, a more then decent hockey player and heavy machinery operator with a taste for beer. After yet another wet night out he wants to take a taxi home. The cab driver informs him that he owes money for earlier trips though so he wont get a ride home. He is mightly offended by being told that he owes money. He always pays any debts! So our "hero" walks home to his house where he have his wheelloader parked (an old Michigan or something like that I dont remember exactly).

He gets the keys starts the machine up and wheels down to the taxigarage. Parks the loader with the bucket hanging over one of the taxis and goes into the office tells the man sitting there that he have been denied service by the taxi company because they claim he owes them money, he informs them that he doesn't owe any money and asks them to take that claim back. He gets told that he indeed does have debt for previous taxitrips. He asks them if they are sure to which the answer is yes. Our drunk and angry operator goes back out to his wheelloader and slams the bucket into the taxi .....

I never found out if he did owe money (Before slamdunking that car!) or not! He still to this day claims they were wrong :Banghead
 

LowBoy

Senior Member
Joined
Nov 23, 2006
Messages
1,149
Location
Southern Vt. on the Mass./NH borders
Occupation
Owner, Iron Mountain Iron & Equipment (Transport)
Not the way to go I hear them canics get nasty and fight dirty.:p

I'm appologizing ahead of time, given the sense of turbulance in this thread, but here it goes...

Them 'canics ain't gotta knowed how ta fight, all's they gotta do is take an' spit a big 'ol wad 'o "backer juice" in their eye, and their opponent won't be able ta do nothin'...D :bouncegri :laugh :falldownlaugh :pointlaugh :stirthepot

I don't care who ya are...that's pretty derned funny right there...(quote from "Larry")

Forgive me for that, Lord...I did not mean to say that...:falldownlaugh

YEEEHAWWWW....
 

wrenchbender

Senior Member
Joined
Jan 17, 2007
Messages
489
Location
Belton SC
I'm appologizing ahead of time, given the sense of turbulance in this thread, but here it goes...

Them 'canics ain't gotta knowed how ta fight, all's they gotta do is take an' spit a big 'ol wad 'o "backer juice" in their eye, and their opponent won't be able ta do nothin'...D :bouncegri :laugh :falldownlaugh :pointlaugh :stirthepot

I don't care who ya are...that's pretty derned funny right there...(quote from "Larry")

Forgive me for that, Lord...I did not mean to say that...:falldownlaugh

YEEEHAWWWW....

Ya ain't right Lowboy ya just ain't right............ :lmao :falldownlaugh
 

digger242j

Administrator
Joined
Oct 31, 2003
Messages
6,628
Location
Southwestern PA
Occupation
Self employed excavator
Tegian said:
Had a similar thing happen in my rural town here in Sweden. This man , quite well known in my town, a more then decent hockey player and heavy machinery operator...

Is this a story about Nick Drew? :D

;)
 

Lashlander

Senior Member
Joined
Jan 4, 2007
Messages
1,226
Location
Kodiak Ak.
I thought about this thread today at work. I was cutting a road down with our 10N and look what rolled off the cornor bit.:Banghead Says right on it SAVE!!!!!.....So I put it in the back of my pickup:D
 
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digger242j

Administrator
Joined
Oct 31, 2003
Messages
6,628
Location
Southwestern PA
Occupation
Self employed excavator
I thought about this thread today at work. I was cutting a road down with our 10N and look what rolled off the cornor bit.:Banghead Says right on it SAVE!!!!!.....So I put it in the back of my pickup:D

We all knew we could count on you to do the right thing. :yup
 

wrenchbender

Senior Member
Joined
Jan 17, 2007
Messages
489
Location
Belton SC
I thought about this thread today at work. I was cutting a road down with our 10N and look what rolled off the cornor bit.:Banghead Says right on it SAVE!!!!!.....So I put it in the back of my pickup:D

I really don't think that is an offical grade stake it don't have any tire marks on it. Is that the reason for putting in the pickup?
 
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