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Grapple or Thumb

Wolf

Senior Member
Joined
Apr 4, 2006
Messages
1,203
Location
California
When i talk about scraping the slab, we are talking about using I beams as dozer blades. When wrecking heavy industrial multi story structures, everything revolves around the 3/4 machines that are on the front line of the project. A lot of these structures have concrete floors poured over steel sheets, and sitting on I beams. When you have a big pile of sorted metal that needs moved, you team up a few machines to shove it out of your way. When you are wrecking a tall structure where you trip a section of building, sometimes you need to pull and drag material to make up for a lack of reach

Some great pictures Turbo and a great debate with our friends in Norway. Very interesting insight that you both have.

The info about the I-beams is fascinting. The front line is where it is at.

By the way, who are you working for now, and what kinds of jobs have you been doing lately.
 

thodob

Well-Known Member
Joined
Aug 10, 2009
Messages
77
Location
Norway
DRG65_3.gif


afdecom%20016_275x182.jpg
1951_10.jpg


grapples (typical demarec like the pics over) - is very suited for brick demo:
Jeppes_275_275x182.jpg

You can easily demolish any interior structures (wood, residuel, steel beams etc), the brick facade could then be demolished whatever you like - bucket, crusher, grapple etc. The picture above is from a project we had, where the facade was preserved.


Turbo: i think why we disagree a little bit is due to different grapple types and that you use more directly mounted equipment. We also use beams, coloums (wood, concrete or steel) the same way, if we dont have oilquick on the machine. A pro using your type of grapples i see, is less tear loading or moving the scrap.

Shear used for frontline demo:
Sørenga%20004_275x182.jpg
Høyanger%20069_275x182.jpg


got a lot more pics on the job computer which shows my point better...
 

thodob

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Joined
Aug 10, 2009
Messages
77
Location
Norway
Thodob: Why did you have to preserve the facade on that demo job? What was the purpose of that?

that question do you have to ask to the preservation goverment over here. they even wanted to preserve this building in the middle (the left one is preserved):
img650x367.jpg


another keeping the facade project:
Bilde165_275x182.jpg
 

Wolf

Senior Member
Joined
Apr 4, 2006
Messages
1,203
Location
California
that question do you have to ask to the preservation goverment over here. they even wanted to preserve this building in the middle (the left one is preserved):
img650x367.jpg


another keeping the facade project:
Bilde165_275x182.jpg

how often do you guys have to preserve the facade? that seems so silly. the rest of the building is gone, and it makes the demolition so much harder to keep the front of it standing. what a waste. who makes those decisions about what goes down and what stays standing? are the laws pretty strict? how old are the facades that you keep standking? are there any other parts of the building, like interiors and decorations, that you are required to preserve as well? Very interesting how you do it over there.
 

Turbo21835

Senior Member
Joined
Oct 20, 2007
Messages
1,135
Location
Road Dog
turbo: Is it a volvo700 on those pics?

Yes it is a Volvo 700, I believe it was the first in the country. It was a good machine for the company, but it didnt fit in to their plans. It was too small to run the same attachments that were run by the Cat 375s. So it's only use was as a grapple machine, so it was not versatile enough.

I understand where your rotating grapples would be a good attachment, I just dont think they would fit into most companies here.


Wolf, Im working for a local company. They do civil and environmental work. Most of our work is gas station remediation, and other environmental jobs. I was hired to run a civil crew, but recently our environmental jobs have picked up, so im currently doing excavations at gas stations.
 

Wolf

Senior Member
Joined
Apr 4, 2006
Messages
1,203
Location
California
Most of our work is gas station remediation, and other environmental jobs. I was hired to run a civil crew, but recently our environmental jobs have picked up, so im currently doing excavations at gas stations.

There is a lot of good work in gas station remediation. I'm glad to see you were able to plug into that in these tough times. Around here, you see the fencing go up around almost every gas station in the city, down they come, the tanks come out, and they usually end up building condos there.

Good luck to you in your new outfit. Where are you located, NW or MI now?
 

thodob

Well-Known Member
Joined
Aug 10, 2009
Messages
77
Location
Norway
how often do you guys have to preserve the facade? that seems so silly. the rest of the building is gone, and it makes the demolition so much harder to keep the front of it standing. what a waste. who makes those decisions about what goes down and what stays standing? are the laws pretty strict? how old are the facades that you keep standking? are there any other parts of the building, like interiors and decorations, that you are required to preserve as well? Very interesting how you do it over there.

I'll try to answer as best i can:
We do not very often keep the facade, maybe one job per year in total. They keep the facade on structures from a certain time period, eg the jugend style, to preserve the impression of an area. It is not many old brick buildings around here, so they try to preserve as many as possible. They are from 1880-1930 approximately. It is not a big problem to keep it, just need some addional support until the building work is finished.

To be allowed to demolish, the curator (either on a city, county or national level, or all..) must agree to the work. They are not always very capricious, so they often end of with preserving strange, tumbledown wrecks/objects. They are not elected and have endless power, like a dictator... And they dont support the owners with any money either. :pointhead

if your living in an old building with the strictes regulations, you need to apply for any changes. Eg. heard of one living in old building from around 1750, who wasnt aloud to change the old wood banister to a modern duplicate, since this would be hard to see its new. End up getting the order to change it to plastic! sick. Another crazy example is a waterfall pipeline (full of lead, PAH and PCB) which the energy Directorate order the company to remove, is temporary preserved, in anticpation of any decision to what to with the nearby old tramroad... (we would really like that demo work, 62 degrees slope :D )

This reply do maybe sound like it coming from a demolition worker ;)
 

thodob

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Joined
Aug 10, 2009
Messages
77
Location
Norway
example of taking out pieces of a facade and how we demo a brick building.
really complicated project, since the demo site was very narrow. Neighbour entrance was approximately 2m from the house and was open during the whole project.
 

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thodob

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Aug 10, 2009
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77
Location
Norway
some more pics from the same project.
We had discussion with the builder's advisor whether we were able to pick out the window whole with a machine - damn good operator - window didnt break:)
 

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thodob

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Joined
Aug 10, 2009
Messages
77
Location
Norway
some other examples of use grapple in demo of single house buildings and use of bucket to scrape the pad.
 

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Demo_Andy

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Joined
Jul 20, 2008
Messages
61
Location
England
Occupation
Demolition Machine operator
Hard to beat a roto grab:
 

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Demo_Andy

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Jul 20, 2008
Messages
61
Location
England
Occupation
Demolition Machine operator
Smallest I've seen was between about 150-200kgs.
 

thodob

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Joined
Aug 10, 2009
Messages
77
Location
Norway
Those are hard to beat for an attachment. how small do they make them? I just don't think the "finger" grapple is worth the money.

At least down to 5tons machines, very useful for indoor/partial demo
 
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