Making it so the water can run

[Dr. Ernie]

No, you are not nuts... water doesn't lie and keeps you honest.


I use a Liaca depth master reciever and while it works well the water is the ultimate grade checker. Try rolling your bucket into the full dump position and using it that way to check the grade. I pull it to grade by eye then I will come back and check the grade after the last pass. If the previous pass was on grade it should be easy to tell if you are spot on. I f conditions are right I generally check the grade every other pass, sometimes I may go 50' between checks or more it just depends on how good I am that day...


I am just bloody good. .

 

[movindirt]

Have you seen the Trimble 2d GCS on the new Cat excavators? I wonder if that would work very well for what you are doing.

 

[Twisted]

Nice work on the ditches. I do many miles per year myself. I'm little East of you and don't have much slope to deal with either. My last one was .020% over a mile. Rarely do I go past .070%. Ditching is my favorite excavator work. Never perfect and I'm always trying to be better and faster. I hate rocks and trees as they just tear up machines. I just tore the thumb off my rig on a 52" Cottonwood. I have another 3/4 mile to dig then wait for the ground to stiffen up so I can hit the trees with my dozer.

 

[Twisted]

I'm not sure what happened with those sideways pics and I'm to dumb to rotate them so just tilt your head.

I'm using a CR600 on my stick right now but as you stated it sucks. Hoping to have a bucket mounted LD50 or LD60 for next season.

Do you charge by the hour, job or per foot?

 

[Shimmy1]

Twisted, nice work on the ditch. I have a CR600 for my hand rod. Couldn't imagine having to use that for digging. LR50's are only about $1500. General Equipment in Fargo sells them. One of the main reasons I put mine on the bucket is I put at least a 6' flat bottom on every ditch I clean. More if the ditch isn't too deep to make it impossible. Sometimes I have to pull 1-1½' off of both slopes to get my bottom. Lots of dirt. Having the receiver on the bucket allows me to keep the bucket perfectly flat, so my ditch bottom is flat from side to side. My biggest challenge is keeping the ditch straight. Kind of hard to judge from in the machine. Yours looks great. Any tricks? As far as charging, everything I do is by the hour. The last ditch I posted pics of was slightly less than a half mile. Spent 32 hours.

 

[Twisted]

Straight ditches??? I still struggle with that. So many factors can change the in-slope, out-slope, bottom width and top width. If the ground elevation stays fairly consistent with the ditch bottom elevation, it's easy. I'm never that lucky. If I have a new ditch to make and I have the dozer around, I'll line up and scratch a path with the blade and use the edges for reference. Pretty much anything will work to mark a reference line. I've used ATV tracks, pick-up tracks and even little orange flags. The worst is fixing someone's crooked ditch. I've found that people are generally impressed with my work even if I wrinkle my nose at it. Most are happy to see the water trickling down the bottom.

I generally charge by the hour but people always want a price. My guess for cleaning without looking is around $1/ft. That is to survey the site to locate all of the problems, cut the ditch, then spread piles with the dozer. This year I've charged anywhere from $.85/ft for a simple cleaning of a road ditch to $1.50/ft for the one I posted above. I average about 275'/hr on the easy ones and about 100'/hr for the one posted above. It was a brand new ditch and averaged 4.5' deep and about 15' wide at the top. I like to be sure I'm getting $125/hr for my seat time. I have a number of repeat customers that want me to work by the hour rather than a quote. They have figured out that I factor in a buffer for problems on my quotes and trust my work and pricing. What part of ND are you from? I'm about 1.5 hours NE of Grand Forks.

 

[RonG]

I pretty much got out of the game when this technology became popular so missed this ability to check my grade from the cab so I marvel at the things that I dreamed about while I was scrambling down in the hole with my locke level or my grade stick with the receiver on it.I envy you guys.Of course the rotary beam has been around for years with its own personalty and problems but it reduces the grade checking from a two man job to a one man job which was a miracle in itself but that was quite a while ago.Spectra-Physics had the hot setup back in the day.The things that you all talk about and seem to take for granted are just marvelous to me.One thing that you learn the hard way is that the self leveling feature can bite you if you set up the tripod on frozen ground then the sun comes out.
If you can disable the ability to self level and just watch that it is not out of level you are safe.Another problem is taking the laser from the shop in the morning and the guy that used it the day before did not charge it over night but of course that will be a problem today too I imagine.Thanks for sharing,it keeps the wheels turning here.Ron G

 

[Twisted]

I'm well aware of the issues you speak of. Most of the better units are temperature compensating and have a height-of-instrument check built in but.....there is a reason I'm having trouble trusting anyone else to cut my bottoms. A guy has to have a "feel" for the project as well. I can find almost anyone to spread spoils but have had a few bad apples there as well. I cleaned ditches for 10 years by the seat of my pants (or water )so I have a feel for it. I had to get lasers just to get jobs. Everyone wants a laser set up on a job now. I will say .040% is tough to do by eye accurately but I have learned a few tricks that help.. Sorry Shimmy1. I didn't mean to hijack your thread.

 

[Shimmy1]

I'm well aware of the issues you speak of. Most of the better units are temperature compensating and have a height-of-instrument check built in but.....there is a reason I'm having trouble trusting anyone else to cut my bottoms. A guy has to have a "feel" for the project as well. I can find almost anyone to spread spoils but have had a few bad apples there as well. I cleaned ditches for 10 years by the seat of my pants (or water )so I have a feel for it. I had to get lasers just to get jobs. Everyone wants a laser set up on a job now. I will say .040% is tough to do by eye accurately but I have learned a few tricks that help.. Sorry Shimmy1. I didn't mean to hijack your thread.

No hijack that I can see. I quit piling my spoils about 10 yrs ago. It gets to be a challenge to spread it out good enough with the hoe if I'm taking out 18", but I make it work. Couple trips by the farmer over it with a disc or cultivator levels it nicely. How do.you like the Kobelco?

 

[Twisted]

The Kobelco has been great. I feel that I got a good price for the hours/condition. I've only had it for 12 months and have put about 700 hours on it with zero issues except the ones I've caused. It is quite an upgrade from an old 1088 Case with probably 20,000 hours on it. Wore out would be an understatement. Both have the 5.9 Cummins so good engines. I keep the old rig around for back-up insurance.

I used to spread with the hoe but have found it way faster to pile then spread with the dozer. Doing a 180* swing vs. a 90* swing makes a huge difference over a day's time plus the dozer does a better job so everyone is happy. I haul my own junk around so it's not a big deal to haul another machine 5-20 miles to a job. The biggest benefit is that I can concentrate on the ditch and hire someone to come out after work to push for a few hours and spread what I've piled. Some times I get hired to ditch through a planted field so minimal damage is preferred. I come back after harvest to clean up.

I also do rock piles, fence lines, land clearing and other various dozing projects so it's just another weapon in my belt. Just as well keep the tracks turning.

 

[Shimmy1]

You must not do cattails very much, eh? When I used to pile, cattails were always the enemy. Then I figured out how to flop them out of the bucket dirt side up as if you were laying sod. Everybody seemed to like that, so that was the end of spreading with the dozer. I've cleaned through crop as well. Let's a guy know he's doing it right when the farmer let's you run crop down. You haven't asked yet, but if you're wondering, a tilt bucket is the next greatest thing after the laser.

 

[Twisted]

I haven't asked because I know. Crossing ditches sucks. The wider the bucket the worse. Looking at different coupler and other attachments as I type. This is my first full season doing this for a living so funds are a bit tight right now. I've owned/operated construction equipment for 15+ years and finally got sick of politics at work so walked away from a high paying job to do what I really love. 16 months and the bank hasn't called me bad names yet so I'm ok yet.

I try to dump all of my spoils bottom-up. Many benefits.


Cattails? Yea I've gotten into them a time or two.

 

[Twisted]

I've used the dozer to carve some terrain across a field as well. As long as the depth isn't more than 6-8", it goes very well. It's amazing how much of this I do for people with 500hp tractors and 16yd mounted scrapers or even people with excavators and dozers of their own. I've found that a little more time with the laser doing a good survey of the property in the beginning really pays off on the end result. I've had many customers report a return-on-investment in the first year.

In the beginning there are just sheets of beautiful black dirt rolling off the blade.



Bottom is cut.





Sides pushed out.

 

[Shimmy1]

Some more tree pics

Customer wanted 2 piles for a half mile tree row.

 

[Landclearer]

That's a lot of walking. I hate stuff like that. Are you going to burn it?

 

[Shimmy1]

That's a lot of walking. I hate stuff like that. Are you going to burn it?

We push them with the loader after 100 yds or so. After that it takes too long for the hoe to get back and forth. We have burned in the past, but some guys prefer to let the piles dry for a couple years before burning. These guys want to let them dry. I'm good with that. They have 8 other piles that I took out a couple years ago. When it comes time, I'll have about 4 days worth of burying burn piles.

 

[Landclearer]

Thanks for the info Shimmy. The reason I asked was because I only saw the excavator. Definitely the way to go using a loader.

I am not a big fan of burning. I guess it might be better in fields like you have but in tight areas it is no fun.

 

[movindirt]

Looking good as always Shimmy! Thats a high tech grade rod on your dozer blade there Twisted

 

[Shimmy1]

Almost done. Customer is squirming a little bit. Going to be close to $10,000. Not bad for 5 days of work.

 

[Dr. Ernie]

Looks like my size of brush piles. ... a great way to get rid of the evidence. .... no body no crime. ....