RDrancher's Photo Thread

RDrancher · Jun 7, 2015

dave1949 said:
Is that blue sky I see? Good to hear you are able to get back into your jobs list.

Yep Dave...blue sky sure looks good! Sand for the arena tomorrow, then back to the mudhole to finish pads and gravel. Next up are the poor folks that have been tromping through the mud back and forth a quarter mile from their home to their cars for over two months!

RDrancher · Jun 8, 2015

The arena had pretty much lost all of it's sand after the bar-ditch overflowed. Twenty inches+ of fall in 75 feet didn't help either.

After grading the arena to flow in two directions without making it too obvious, I built up the area above the new slope to redirect the water back into the bar-ditch with dirt from the new swale.

RDrancher · Jun 8, 2015

While I waited for loads of sand to arrive, I finished and rolled the pad, and dressed up the swale and slopes.

RDrancher · Jun 9, 2015

The pit was closed off from flooding for three weeks, so the sand delivered today was freshly dug out of the creek, vibrated through their screens and loaded on the trucks. I just tossed it out there to let it dry before attempting to grade it.

dave1949 · Jun 9, 2015

Nice work again John. It's good you live where people are prosperous with money to fling around. Somebody has to be there to catch it. :laughing:

I finally had to look up "bar ditch" since that is a name I hear a lot from folks in your region but wasn't exactly sure what it meant--as in what makes a ditch a "bar ditch" I wondered?
Bar ditch « The Word Detective

Threepoint · Jun 9, 2015

Great link, Dave. I had the same question!

John, beautiful work, as usual. I'd love to spend a week just tagging along on your projects. I know I'd learn a lot, but probably die of exhaustion just watching you.

Kyle_in_Tex · Jun 9, 2015

dave1949 said:
Nice work again John. It's good you live where people are prosperous with money to fling around. Somebody has to be there to catch it. :laughing:

I finally had to look up "bar ditch" since that is a name I hear a lot from folks in your region but wasn't exactly sure what it meant--as in what makes a ditch a "bar ditch" I wondered?
Bar ditch « The Word Detective

bar ditch is where you ended up after leaving the bar.

RDrancher · Jun 10, 2015

Thanks guys. I try to stay out of any bar-ditch unless I'm getting paid to work on it. Bar ditch = Chiggerville this time of year!

Threepoint - Come on down and play anytime. I'll set you up in the shade with a chair and a glass of sweet tea. You'll feel like you died and went to heaven...until the skeeters find you!

RDrancher · Jun 10, 2015

The tree guy's place has finally dried up enough to get something done. I put in a 35'x 45' pad for their drive thru building. First couple pics are my office view and a view of my foot. The second one was accidental, but I thought the track print in the sand looked cool.

I removed and stacked a thick layer of organic / wood chip material, then excavated the area down 18" and re-compacted it back in. Select fill was used to bring the pad up to finish grade. The material was pretty wet once again. In between trucks, I worked on some other grading and exposed a few embers while I was moving the burn pile. The owner said that they burned over a week ago, hadn't seen any smoke, and thought that it was out. I guess not!

RDrancher · Jun 14, 2015

For quite awhile now I've been meaning to get my flatbed set up to my liking. When I bought the Dodge, the bed had been transplanted from another truck and needed some work. Cracks and surface rust here and small 24" underbody boxes with greasable hinges that had never been greased. Even with PB Blaster and liberal amounts of grease, all of the hinges cracked at the welds when I tried to open them. So, after getting tired of jumping in and out of the bed to retrieve my Craftsman plastic toolbox from my tool chest, and then fighting all of the other stuff in there that immediately filled the space left in the box, I finally made headway and purchased a Montezuma road box from Rural King. Montezuma 30" x 15" Steel Portable Toolbox - Black ME300B by Quality Craft Industries Inc. for $299.99 in Tool Boxes - Tool Boxes & Cabinets and Benches - Tools : Rural King. The price is WAY low compared to every other place I looked.

Purchasing the box was one thing...but making the time to install it was another.

So, while picking up a chicken coop for my wife (that's a whole 'nother story.) I spied with my little eyes an orphan 105 gal. fuel tank, complete with pump. I've been rolling with a 35 gal. tank for quite a few years now, and it's never enough. I made a deal on the tank / pump, and decided to get off my lazy duff and git 'r done this weekend. I switched over my hose / nozzle and filter from the old setup since the new tank's hose was shot. The (new to me) tank had some surface rust, and since I'll be repainting the entire bed once I get things fixed up, I shot some rust converter in all of the places I'll (hopefully) never see again.

I welded up some brackets to mount my old tool chest to the new tank and bolted it down. I plan to get a new heavy duty tool chest that sits flush with the top of the tank, but for now this will have to do. Out came the plastic Craftsman box and all of the other "need 'em now" tools. The tool chest now houses all of the fluids I need to have along and straps, bottle jacks, seldom used tools, etc.

To finish up the flatbed mods (for now) I mounted the new box with help from my little shadow. We set it up with all of the tools I had in the plastic box, tools in the tool chest and other stuff I had strewn around in my backseat. There's also a nifty tray under the lower socket pegs that now houses all of my specialty junk. There's still plenty of room for additional tools in the main box as I collect them.

Color Johnny happy!

dave1949 · Jun 14, 2015

That's nice John. Would there be a point to bolting a sturdy stop plate in for the goose neck hitch? Might prevent a bent toolbox or fuel tank is what I was thinking.

RDrancher · Jun 14, 2015

Funny you mentioned that Dave. The toolbox is actually only 1" closer to the hitch than it was before, but I thought about adding a steel upright plate at that end of the hitch box today.

dave1949 · Jun 15, 2015

RDrancher said:
Funny you mentioned that Dave. The toolbox is actually only 1" closer to the hitch than it was before, but I thought about adding a steel upright plate at that end of the hitch box today.

I'm not doubting your driving abilities--but ya know stuff happens.

Green Power · Jun 21, 2015

So how many miles are on the ol' trusty Dodge? Has the CTL been in the shop much lately?

RDrancher · Jun 21, 2015

The Dodge just turned over 200k and I like the Cummins, but the rest of the truck is just okay. After owning our '99 Super Duty for 325k (which is still used every day by my beautiful wife), I really wish that Ford hadn't dropped the diesel ball for so many years. Compared to the Ford, the Dodge feels like it's made out of old Coors cans. I understand that the new Fords have been giving good service, but no way would I buy a new truck. I could buy another rental house in town for what they want for them these days!

The Case has been doing just fine...knock on wood. I had to replace another front idler and the high pressure side a/c line, but that's not a big deal.

RDrancher · Jul 4, 2015

Happy 4th of July to everyone!

I picked up a slightly used LandPride LR2584 landscape rake today for a song. I've been wanting one for job cleanup and my wife's arena for quite some time. All of the used Chinese junk I found was going for just slightly less than new. I got the LP for less than that.

Sitting next to the rake was an interesting Grademaster landplane. The front blade had a serrated edge and the second blade was a series of straight scarifiers. The third blade (yes...third blade) was a flip-over design with a serrated edge on one side and a smoothing blade on the other. The lady that owned the rake said that a guy had left it there over a year ago and she hadn't been able to get a hold of him to pick it up. She's going to give him one more try this next week. If he doesn't respond...the landplane is mine.

And last but not least, a cool '39 Ford Coupe I spied at the local fuel stop. Makes me itch to get busy on my Studebaker!

RDrancher · Jul 18, 2015

Thought I'd catch up on a few work pics since I haven't posted any in awhile. I've been busier than a three legged dog in a butt kicking contest.

Here's a few for entry to a new shop. I cut a swale, graded for drainage and spread roadbase with a topping of crushed limestone.

RDrancher · Jul 18, 2015

After all of the rain we've had this year, the common concern I hear from customers is drainage, drainage, DRAINAGE! Works for me since that's what I do. :thumbsup:

On this little project there was no room for drainage swales, so I built up the driveway 8-10" and crowned. Luckily there's a drain pipe running under the concrete approach to collect the water from that side of the road.