Making it so the water can run

[Shimmy1]

Well, it's that time of year again. I figure I "only" have about 6 miles left to clean so far. This one got a little sketchy in spots.

 

[Shimmy1]

Few more. I should have taken some before pics. I couldn't even see the ditch in a lot of spots. Average cut was 15".

 

[JNB]

Looks good Shimmy. Those are crazy distances you work with!

 

[Shimmy1]

Looks good Shimmy. Those are crazy distances you work with!

We have close to 100 miles of assessment drains in our county, plus countless miles of private drains. I have worked in many sections of land that had 2+ miles of drain. I'm going to throw out a wild guess here, there might by 1500 miles or more of ditch in our county. The counties around us are jealous; our county was very proactive starting in the '60s and continuing through the '80s establishing an assessment district, constructing mains, and facilitating private landowner drains. They didn't get after it, and now in their counties it's very difficult, if not impossible to clean what did get built.

 

[Landclearer]

Ditches look good Shimmy. The pic with your Dodge in it really gives you a good perspective of just how far you are going. Are you digging these level or putting fall on these?

 

[Shimmy1]

Ditches look good Shimmy. The pic with your Dodge in it really gives you a good perspective of just how far you are going. Are you digging these level or putting fall on these?

They all get whatever slope that they can handle, usually set by the culverts. The curvy ditch was cut at a 0.035%, and the straight side was a 0.010%.

 

[Shimmy1]

Made some modifications to my tilt bucket today. Had larger cylinders built this spring, hadn't had a chance to put them on. Today was the day. Cylinders on, and also installed counterbalance valves. The valves might have been enough on the little cylinders, but after researching quite a few other buckets, I decided to get bigger rams. The old ones were 2.5" diameter, new ones are 6.25". I can lift the hoe with the corner of the bucket now.

 

[Landclearer]

Those are some tilt cylinders

 

[delectric123]

Wow! nice work Twisted and Shimmy1. Very consistent contours. I've never considered having the laser receiver on the bucket. I'll definitely give it a try. I wish we would invest in a ditching bucket. But the ditches I've worked on were a major overhaul requiring 3 passes with the banks sometimes going out 3o feet each direction so a ditching bucket would not have been a big help there. One pass in center to establish the bottom and grade, then passes on both sides extending as far as the excavator reached. I've wondered how it would have worked with a long reach excavator but just think, now that would require a high degree of skill and a high rental fee. What has worked great and fast for large ditches is just a regular digging bucket. I don't take time to get the trails of dirt, just make sure the slope is going in the right general direction, then smooth everything out with a tractor and box scraper or even a pass with a disc before going over with a box scraper. All those ugly trails of dirt and undercuts quickly disappear. Its a big waste of time trying to make it look good with a 54" digging bucket.

So do you plant something in those finished ditches? Do you ever have to combat the issue of the banks eroding?

 

[Shimmy1]

But the ditches I've worked on were a major overhaul requiring 3 passes with the banks sometimes going out 3o feet each direction so a ditching bucket would not have been a big help there. One pass in center to establish the bottom and grade, then passes on both sides extending as far as the excavator reached. I've wondered how it would have worked with a long reach excavator but just think, now that would require a high degree of skill and a high rental fee.

So do you plant something in those finished ditches? Do you ever have to combat the issue of the banks eroding?

Thanks, Delectric. I've done quite a few ditches like you describe. To me, it's just dirt. More passes mean more $$$$. Only reason I would even consider a long reach is if the ground was too unstable to get close enough to the ditch, or if it had too steep of backslopes to work with the normal hoe. A long reach has its place, but on ditches like we work on, we'd need a 40 or 50 ton machine to get a big enough bucket to be productive.

As far as reseeding, most of the excavator ditches are through prairie or grassland and they grow back pretty fast. A couple of growing seasons and you can't even tell it was all tore up. Sometimes the banks wash a little, but usually not enough to cause problems. The grades are so flat that there are no issues with the bottom eroding, and the less vegetation you can have in the bottom the better for water to flow and silts to keep moving.

 

[delectric123]

I agree on what you say about the long reaches. We rented a Volvo 290 with 70' boom to clean out ponds. You had to pull the arm in about halfway before it was able to lift the load.

It sunk in overnight just how handy it would be to have the laser receiver on the bucket. I guess I didn't think it would be able to take the bangs and jolts, but it can't be much worse than on the arm. I have a Leica MC200 Depthmaster which has never given problems over several hundred hours mounted to the arm. I see no reason why that strategy shouldn't work nearly as well as a $15,000 high tech system with multiple sensors.

When doing such precision work, do you have the engine at full throttle? I imagine you aren't able to go at high speed.

 

[Shimmy1]

When doing such precision work, do you have the engine at full throttle? I imagine you aren't able to go at high speed.

I usually run on "A" mode, which I would guess is a little more than 3/4 throttle. Sometimes I run in "SP" (speed priority) which is basically full throttle. The hydrauics can pretty much do whatever you want, so throttle position isn't really an issue.

 

[Shimmy1]

I like a good challenge. Tough slope, fence, powerline for good measure, bring it on. Glad it's done.

 

[Shimmy1]

Cleaning out a river channel. Well, not an actual "river" like you'd think, but it's not a man-made ditch either. A waterway, that's what we'll call it.

 

[DoyleX]

I will say you do some very nice seamless work. Love looking at the perfection and detail.

 

[Shimmy1]

I will say you do some very nice seamless work. Love looking at the perfection and detail.

Thanks, Doyle. Been waiting for someone to comment on the piles, but this customer wanted me to leave them instead of spread them out. Didn't save them a lot, maybe $500, but makes my job easier.

 

[Neily]

Hi there, got some silly questions. What's a tile field? And just curious how come you guys use an excavator to clean drains (ditch) out instead of a grader, to wet?

 

[Delmer]

Sometimes you see a grader doing little ditches, but most of those that Shimmy is working on are so deep you'd be going back and forth so many times it's quicker with an excavator. The depth varies also, so some places a grader would work, but you'd need an excavator anyway for the deeper places. Plus getting stuck.

Here's a tile field. Imagine trenches dug out in a grid to drain the whole field, or the wet sections of the field. Tile is now corrugated plastic, but it's still called tile AFAIK.

 

[Scrub Puller]

Yair . . .

Neily The concept of "tiling" blew me away too when I started lurking around US and European forums.

The hassels these folks put up with to get the paddocks drained is quite amazing.

If you Google images "tile ploughing" you will find some amazing purpose built machines.

Our American friends seem to do it with brute force where the Europeans and Russians tend pull the ploughs with winches.

It is a fascinating subject quite alien to anything I have known . . . although by the look of some of the paddocks down in central NSW they could do with abit of drainage just right now.

Cheers.

 

[Neily]

Hey delmer.yeah can see your point there, I guess it's just a matter of the best tool for the job. This tile business is quite interesting, any idea of the cost of it $ac?

Scrub. It's an interesting idea that's for sure. your not wrong about these forums, it never seces to amaze me how much one can learn and different things you see on hef. It's a brilliant resource, great people too.

Yeah bog a duck here atm, getting sick of slopping around in mud all the time. I know I've got a few earthmoving jobs to do after harvest to sort some drainage and divert water. Usually we are screaming for an inch this time of year.