Buster F
Active Member
Cleanup is a huge part of city milling and can make you or break you at the end of the day. The company i work for prides itself on having a very efficient and thorough cleanup operation. We run 6 man crews which include a big mill operator, 2 screw men (one of whom is the foreman), a trimmer man, a skidsteer man, and a cleanup laborer. And lets not forget the sweeper, efficient sweeping is the key to timely traffic swap-overs and a clean and neat finished product (not to mention reduced costs for windshields). We prefer that our sweeping contractors use broombears for their ability to dump the hopper into the next pass thus not requiring a dedicated truck til the last pass, not to mention that the mobility of a truck mounted sweeper is a huge asset.
What kind of trimmer do you guys use? We have a small fleet of Rx10's and always have a spare on the job to reduce downtime due to breakdowns (our trimmers take a hell of a beating), a couple of our trimmers are 15 plus years old and still see regular service as back-up machines. Probably 6 or 7 years ago i was trimming a cutback in a local city (about 200 sq/yds with a dozen or so castings) and noticed a guy on the sidewalk watching me with great interest. He eventually stopped me and introduced himself as the local Wirtgen sales rep and told me that he and my boss had agreed to bring out a small Wirgen trimmer for me to demo (i believe is was an 800 but i could be wrong). He then said to me " i've been wathing you for a little while and can tell you right now that my machine will not do what i've seen you do with that RX10, but i'd appreciate you at least trying it for a couple of hours and see what you think". He was right - the Rx10 will trim circles around the Wirtgen in a city situation where there are clusters of castings everywhere. The biggest problem for me was not being able to see the drum, we don't use jackhammers and whatever mix is left around the castings by the trimmer as removed with a pick-ax - so as you can imagine getting as close as possible to the casting can be invaluable to the poor cleenup laborer. I'm sure that given more seat time i would have gotten better (i've seen a few guys who were aces on the wirtgen and did a very nice job), but for now i think i'll stick with my Roadtec/Carlson. If you check out my thread from the airport job you can see a pick or two of our trimmers.
Sorry for the long post, but it's early Sunday morning and i'm a bit bored. Take care, Roy
What kind of trimmer do you guys use? We have a small fleet of Rx10's and always have a spare on the job to reduce downtime due to breakdowns (our trimmers take a hell of a beating), a couple of our trimmers are 15 plus years old and still see regular service as back-up machines. Probably 6 or 7 years ago i was trimming a cutback in a local city (about 200 sq/yds with a dozen or so castings) and noticed a guy on the sidewalk watching me with great interest. He eventually stopped me and introduced himself as the local Wirtgen sales rep and told me that he and my boss had agreed to bring out a small Wirgen trimmer for me to demo (i believe is was an 800 but i could be wrong). He then said to me " i've been wathing you for a little while and can tell you right now that my machine will not do what i've seen you do with that RX10, but i'd appreciate you at least trying it for a couple of hours and see what you think". He was right - the Rx10 will trim circles around the Wirtgen in a city situation where there are clusters of castings everywhere. The biggest problem for me was not being able to see the drum, we don't use jackhammers and whatever mix is left around the castings by the trimmer as removed with a pick-ax - so as you can imagine getting as close as possible to the casting can be invaluable to the poor cleenup laborer. I'm sure that given more seat time i would have gotten better (i've seen a few guys who were aces on the wirtgen and did a very nice job), but for now i think i'll stick with my Roadtec/Carlson. If you check out my thread from the airport job you can see a pick or two of our trimmers.
Sorry for the long post, but it's early Sunday morning and i'm a bit bored. Take care, Roy