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Scrapers for the big boys !!!!

Dozerboy

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I still don't really see a real value to the S18.
 

JDOFMEMI

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SoCal
It all comes down to the local conditions. Think about the horsepower and weight. Couple that with the speed and you have a killer fill machine, plus stripping, in the conditions they work in that sounds important, and plus it has finish ability.

I would love to try it out. My mind is working overtime with all the things I could do on a job with it.

Plus, double bonus points for how unique it is!!
 

EGS

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Jul 27, 2009
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I think that S18G would be great for a big scraper spread working wet areas.

Like where we are working right now.:)
 

Gavin84w

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Mar 29, 2007
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Australia
I still don't really see a real value to the S18.

Well, you don,t have to but real dirtmovers can always find a better mouse trap and this is Prarie Road builders go and they are no doubt doin it, like anything, at the end of the day there is only one person you need to please.
 

Kman9090

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i agree with dozerboy, think its a waist of time and money! And in the wet conditions we work in, you wouldnt be able to get that thing off the float before it was stuck.

Yes there is silly crap that, that particular machine would excel in, and make money, but the price tag in building it dontjustify it
 

alco

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but the price tag in building it dontjustify it

So, you're saying you know what it cost him to build it? I'd put money on the cost being a whole lot lower than you might think.

As for what it can do, have you seen it work? Once again, I think you might be surprised what it can do, and how well it does it.
 

qball

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they all laughed at r.g. letourneau, too.
 

Kman9090

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But you have to charge it per hour on the job, how much is that? I know we charged right around 800 for a pair of 627's, so that machine around here would be around $500 an hour to run. And like u and me both said there are certain things on a job that it would come in handy to use, but then the other 90% of the time what will it be doing? Proably sitting! And i dont know what it can do so please enlighten me? And dont say windrow top soil up so scrapers can pick it up.
 

alco

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I can guarantee you it won't be sitting. I was using the example of one thing it can do when I was talking about stripping topsoil. If it was deep coil, it would have very little use, but for shallow cover on the sides of a road widening job like this company does a lot of, it would be great to use instead of a cat, which is what they do now. Do you figure it would be better to windrow topsoil that is 4 inches deep and make one pass through with buggies to get it, or run the buggies all over the area and pick it up at a much slower rate?

What they have been using it for is maintaining haul roads for the buggies and trucks. Mostly, this consists of the grade for the road they are building, so the GPS info is there for the machine to work to. You should see it go! It's running at about 3 to 4 times the speed of a grader, and therefore is replacing about 3 machines with one, that right there is a huge cost savings. Not to mention not having to pay going rate for a blade hand.

It's great at leveling the fill as the buggies are dumping, way faster than a cat, or a packer with a blade, and the scrapers don't have to slow down and spend time maintaining their fill area. Speeds up production there quite a bit. It can even make trips through the cut and knock down the rough spots so the cats don't have to , and the buggies can literally fly in, grab a quick load and are gone....speeds up production there too.


There are tons of things it's capable of, but I don't really feel like sitting here and typing for as long as it takes to explain it all since you likely won't listen anyhow.

It's a support machine. It's not going to make money on it's own, but with the number of machines it can replace and the way it helps production, it more than pays for itself around the job. Keep in mind, this thing isn't on hourly jobs. This company bids large jobs, and then does them fast, very fast. It's not like it has a set price they have to charge it out for, but it lets them get more out of their other iron and that's where they make their money.
 

Kman9090

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3-4 times as fast as the grader? If are blade hands cant maitain a haul road in 3rd or 4th gear they get ran off and all of are blades have GPS.i dont see this machine going anyfaster then that, just watching that video and how fast its going watch the rear engine bounce around, which is very hard to control in a scraper in any gear beside 2nd, also just curious when he is using the blade does the cushion hitch have to be down? Windrowing top soil up to make one pass yes sounds very afffective, leveling the fill out, no i dont see that, unless your working in material where u dont have to use a compactor, but around here we have to have a compactor in the fill to mee compaction. And with 12 657's i would figure you would need at least 2 8's in the cut or 1 10, so they should be able to keep the cut in good shape.
 

95zIV

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Cincinnati, OH
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RR Contractor Super.
There are tons of things it's capable of, but I don't really feel like sitting here and typing for as long as it takes to explain it all since you likely won't listen anyhow.

Alco,

Going back and looking I see a bit of a one way streak running here:

LOL ^^^There you go^^^ What didnt you get about my post??? When you finish main line on a highway some spots will be high and some will be low! I dont know about you but i have never seen a blade pulling a pan, where if he had a low spot in the highway he could just go pickup a load of dirt and dump it where he needed it or if he had a high spot he could just wind row it up and pick it up and take it some where for waste! You usualy have to have a blade and scraper or blade and dozer, where this machine elminates one machine and one operator!!! Think about it then post!

If it's not good for him, I guess it's not good for anyone.

i agree with dozerboy, think its a waist of time and money! And in the wet conditions we work in, you wouldnt be able to get that thing off the float before it was stuck.

Yes there is silly crap that, that particular machine would excel in, and make money, but the price tag in building it dontjustify it
 

Dozerboy

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I'm listening but I don't hear anything other then pissing match over job size. Is there anything that it really excels at other then stripping? I can only speak from my experience and work environments so enlighten me.

There ain't no way its close to that much faster then a blade for haul roads. Ok wet ones with heavy cuts maybe, but if your going that fast in soft stuff I wouldn't think the road wouldn't be close to smooth.

In the fill it probably ain't much better if at all then a wheeldozer and you can't just though it in reverse at the end of the fill. You have to make a a U-turn which is something we have tried to avoid where I have worked. Other then that you can't angle the blade on a wheeldozer,but often thats not needed in the fill.

There is tons of stuff it could to, but there is iron out there that can do the same things already. What are the specs on the S18 Hp, weight, and blade width?
 
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alco

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3-4 times as fast as the grader? If are blade hands cant maitain a haul road in 3rd or 4th gear they get ran off and all of are blades have GPS.i dont see this machine going anyfaster then that, just watching that video and how fast its going watch the rear engine bounce around, which is very hard to control in a scraper in any gear beside 2nd, also just curious when he is using the blade does the cushion hitch have to be down? Windrowing top soil up to make one pass yes sounds very afffective, leveling the fill out, no i dont see that, unless your working in material where u dont have to use a compactor, but around here we have to have a compactor in the fill to mee compaction. And with 12 657's i would figure you would need at least 2 8's in the cut or 1 10, so they should be able to keep the cut in good shape.

Remember, the video you have seen was just playing with it in some dirt to do some testing. Seeing it work on a real job is way different than simply watching the videos you have seen on YouTube. So, your graders blade a haul road in 3rd or 4th gear, so that would be around , what, 5 to 7 mph? This one runs along nicely doing about 15 or so mph, and when you couple that with a wider blade, yeah. 3 to 4 times the production would be about right.

To be honest, I never even paid attention to the cushion hitch, so I couldn't honestly say whether it is up or down while running.

The fills around here need compaction too, but to put the packer on leveling duties slows it down, so by not slowing it down, you increase production....see a trend here?

As for the cut, the push cats don't have time to slow down and maintain the cut. As fast as they can back up, they have another buggy to push, not to mention the ripping on the way back to catch another buggy. By making a few passes through the fill when it gets to that end of the job, it....wait for it.....increases production.

Alco,

Going back and looking I see a bit of a one way streak running here:



If it's not good for him, I guess it's not good for anyone.

Yeah, that's why I think I'm going to call it a night and go to work. You can only try to explain something so many times before you realise it's obviously not going to get through.
 

alco

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I'm listening but I don't hear anything other then pissing match over job size.

Can you show me where I got into a pissing match over job size?

Is there anything that it really excels at other then stripping? I can only speak from my experience and work environments so enlighten me.

I gave a few examples already, and they are finding new things everyday.


There ain't no way its close to that much faster then a blade for haul roads. Ok wet ones with heavy cuts maybe, but if your going that fast in soft stuff I wouldn't think the road wouldn't be close to smooth.

It's the speed it can run that lets it clobber a grader on haul road maintenance. Like I said, it's running around 15mph doing the general grading on a haul road. Now, obviously, when it gets into heavy going, it's not going to be pounding along at that speed, but for general maintenance, it trucks right along. An added bonus is that with the added speed, the buggies aren't held up as much trying to get around it.

In the fill it probably ain't much better if at all then a wheeldozer and you can't just though it in reverse at the end of the fill. You have to make a a U-turn which is something we have tried to avoid where I have worked. Other then that you can't angle the blade on a wheeldozer,but often thats not needed in the fill.

Can you explain how you turn your buggies around at the end of the fill then? I'd love to see how a wheeldozer would be as productive as a machine with a wider blade that can work both directions instead of having to back up for every pass.

There is tons of stuff it could to, but there is iron out there that can do the same things already. What are the specs on the S18 Hp, weight, and blade width?

Of course there are other machines that can do the same things already, but instead of having to buy more of those machines, they built this one out of parts they had laying around.

Couldn't tell you the hp or weight, but it has an 18 foot moldboard. The hp should be pretty easy to figure out though, it's built out of an old 637E.
 

Kman9090

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Its not a pissing match, just a disscusion.

But i dont see how hes running that fastbladding the haul road, im notsaying it cant be done, but whenever i ran a 27 if you went to fast while draggin the rear engine would start to hop alot and making the road worse then it already was. I would think this machine would do the same, but being 200feet long idont know if that comes into play? Also if you have to have the cushion hitch down while bladding that make for one ruff ride at 15mph. I would either have to see more videos of it in action, or would have to see it myself.

On are haul road we usualy use a blade and a box blade, the box blade can cover more area but cat quite cut the hard ground like the blade can.
 

qball

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kman, my uncle ralph freeman, r.i.p. was a pusher at brown and lambrecht, and later, tj lambrecht. i would spend hours as a young man listening to him talk earthmoving. he was trying to indoctrinate me to the lambrecht way as being the only way.
that outfit can move some dirt, but they ain't the only game in town.
seems like some of these canuck outfits could give old t.j. a run for it's money, huh?
 

Burnout

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Holy crap guys this is getting interesting. As also has explained this machines uses, some people will just never figure it out. I seem to have left my C.P.H. in my truck but what does a 16 run for horsepower 295hp? How about a 637....950hp?

You ask how this beast will blade going that much faster than a 16? How about 3x the horsepower? As alco said yes this machine is an older unit, and I guarantee he's right the build cost on this unit is a lot lower than you would think. Yeah it's probably gonna bounce a bit, oh well nature of the beast. The S18 may not be the next BIG thing in earthmoving, in 10yrs not everyone is gonna have one. Prairie does though.... I know some people at a very large well known earthmoving company here that could put 95% of dirt outfits out there to shame and they have said it's a great idea on the right job. Think of some of the big outfits around.... everyone has their edge over the competition.

Prairie is known for moving dirt quickly and efficiently. The S18.... D57T... 834 Special yeah they are odd looking units. You might not get the idea at first but do you need to? Yes a 16 or 2 could do exactly what the S18 has been and is currently doing, but this is how new machines come to be. Back in the day some guy with a single engine scraper and a push cat said hey... that s.o.b. could use another engine and people probably thought he was on crack.

Earthmoving here is dirt work on steroids. 657's are the norm.... D10's run rampant....16's maintain roads and watch for 1100hp bearing down on em in 8th gear. The S18 has its flaws, but at the same time it's making a dent in the ground and doing it well.
 

Vantage_TeS

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May 28, 2008
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Hey so if this thread is labled scrapers for the big boys, why do you keep talking about 27s? :D

Speaking of which, if it's costing you $400 an hour to run a 27 you're doing something majory, majory wrong. I'm not sure where you're getting your numbers, but if your figures are like how you move dirt I doubt you'd last very long around here.
 

Burnout

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I second VantageTeS comments... and raise you a...........

Unless this isn't one the big scale you were talkin about.
 

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Kman9090

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The only twin engine scraper i have been on is a 27, and i dont think you get what im saying, next time you get on a twin engine, put the cushion hitch down and try dragging in 5th gear, and you will see what happens. You can even try it with the cushion hitch up, you will still get the same effect, the back motor always starts to hop and you cant keep a smooth haul road, thats what im asking here, does it do the same thing??? Yes $400 an hour is what they charge to the job for a 627, dont ask me i dont set the prices, a john deere pulling 3 pans is right around $275-$300 Thats why they like to use them, there hauling twice the amount of dirt for cheaper.

Not last long, im pretty good at what i do, thats why im already a dirt moving foremann at the age of 24. My last job we moved 1.3 million yards in 4 months and made the company 6 million, when they said they would be lucky to make a quarter of that.
 
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