What do you consider a worthless piece of equipment?

[Willie B]

I'm going to add any deere crawler models Mt though 450b any with dry clutch. Some of my earliest memories is fixing rusted together clutches........

I see them advertised for sale often "......Just needs steering clutches......." Been sitting in the weeds 10 years because you can't steer them.
Even if it were true, steering clutches are a lot of unpleasant work. Then these abandoned beasts need years of TLC to revive them. If you don't live in Arizona, you might have to do it twice.

 

[77Ford]

I'm going to say a box blade on a light duty tractor in rocky ground, drives me insane how terrible that combination is.

 

[Welder Dave]

That seems like more a wrong tool for the job deal than a useless tool.

 

[stinky64]

How about the life support system for a vagin...Nah not going there

 

[alco]

HR says I'm not allowed to call people useless anymore. So I think I'll just keep quiet on this one.

 

[Welder Dave]

Some people are worse than useless and cost you money and time.

 

[cuttin edge]

New machines come along all the time to replace old ones. More power and comfort. The younger crowd moves towards them, and condemns the older ones. But take an old cable run shovel and put it in the hands of someone with a lot of time in the seat, and suddenly it's not so useless anymore. One guy hates a tree shear, and another finds it quite useful. Tit for tat I guess

 

[92U 3406]

I've always been the guy that could care less about creature comforts. As long as the heater works good in the winter and it doesn't break down excessively I'm all good. Don't even really give a crap about A/C. Rarely even use it in my pickup lol.

 

[NepeanGC]

As someone who owns a tree shear, and has worked out in western Canada, I agree a tree shear would not be my weapon of choice west of the rockies. That said, here in Eastern Onterrible, 90% of trees are less than 8-10" DBH, so a tree shear works very well, and doesn't have the liability of firing material like a feller buncher. For us, they work exceedingly well on a 10-15 ton shovel, and can easily clear/stack 1-2 acres a day, which is about all we every seem to do for new custom homes.

My vote for most useless machine is skidsteer backhoe. Tried one once. Never again.

 

[cuttin edge]

As someone who owns a tree shear, and has worked out in western Canada, I agree a tree shear would not be my weapon of choice west of the rockies. That said, here in Eastern Onterrible, 90% of trees are less than 8-10" DBH, so a tree shear works very well, and doesn't have the liability of firing material like a feller buncher. For us, they work exceedingly well on a 10-15 ton shovel, and can easily clear/stack 1-2 acres a day, which is about all we every seem to do for new custom homes.

My vote for most useless machine is skidsteer backhoe. Tried one once. Never again.

And you know what it's like to run a real excavator. But to some guy renting one, with no equipment experience, he might think it's way better than shoveling. I've run a back hoe, and I know the convenience of swinging my seat around. Imagine my annoyance the first time I ran a back hoe attachment on a farm tractor with a cab. Getting out of the tractor, climbing on the back hoe. Maybe not being able to quite reach, and having the front bucket half dug in the ground to keep from moving when you dig. Climbing down, back into the tractor to move a foot. Left the bucket flat that time. I was annoyed with it, the guy that owned it loved it. Just all a matter on our personal preference I guess. I carry a plate tamper, and a jumping jack in the back of my truck for compacting places where the roller can't get. New guy on my crew keeps wanting me to ditch them both and get a 1000 pound tamper which he prefers. My work truck is only a half ton, and my lift gate will barely lift it.

 

[92U 3406]

I worked at a rental shop that had a skid steer backhoe attachment. In the couple years it was there I think it might have went out once.

 

[OzDozer]

I've seen very little, by way of worthless equipment - but I've seen a lot of worthless operators!

 

[Old Doug]

I worked at a rental shop that had a skid steer backhoe attachment. In the couple years it was there I think it might have went out once.

I think it would be ok but it would need two operators or one very young one.

 

[kshansen]

I've seen very little, by way of worthless equipment - but I've seen a lot of worthless operators!

And I saw more than my share of worthless upper management people! Most of the immediate supervisors were not bad but seems like the last few years every level you went up the ladder they got worse. Just too far removed from the actual work to understand what was needed to make things work!

 

[Acoals]

Backhoes. A poor excavator and a lousy loader. Something only a farmer could love . . .

 

[ianjoub]

"
What do you consider a worthless piece of equipment?"

Tits on a bull.

 

[Tyler d4c]

"
What do you consider a worthless piece of equipment?"

Tits on a bull.

My own nipples just there for looks

 

[Pantano]

A worthless piece of equipment, my first wife!

 

[hvy 1ton]

Tree shear

I'm allergic to junipers and black locust thorns are poisonous; both grow like weeds here. I have 2 shears.

 

[Willie B]

I worked at a rental shop that had a skid steer backhoe attachment. In the couple years it was there I think it might have went out once.

I'll say backhoes on very small compact tractors are very limited in usefulness. I see hundreds of them rusting away unused.
I have sons & extra sons. I was installing invisible fence one weekend, my son & his friend showed up with a little 23 HP Kubota backhoe loader. They traded for the weekend. With my full sized machine, I could drive the teeth vertical into the sod, part it, make a shallow trench 6" deep. Working 8 feet at a time, I could lay the wire & squish the trench closed. I didn't need to actually dig a ditch. With the little machine it was necessary to straddle the property line & actually dig a shallow ditch with 10" wide bucket. It was a slower project, but it worked. Got to the gravel driveway, took 2 hours to dig across.

Same machine, different day, we had a customer had installed his own underground conduit for utility power to his home. He overshot the power pole & the conduit came out of the ground 3' past the power pole. Instead of hauling my backhoe to do the job, we took the little Kubota. What would take minutes to excavate with a full sized machine took 6 hours with the mini. Worst problem was the reach so short the spoils kept falling back into the hole, had to move often to move the spoils pile.

Best to limit their use to those who retired too young & want to plant posies or shrubs.