first time running excavator

[welderboy14]

i was cereus what was the first excavator you ran and how old were you

i was 5 when i first ran a excavator by my self it was a 1998 ex60


thanks

 

[Robert_in_NY]

I was in my 20's. We rented a Bobcat 331 for a drainage project we were contracted to do. I have ran backhoes before that though but don't remember all the details. My daughter was still 3 I think when she ran her first excavator by herself. It was just a 1 ton IHI but she drove it up the hill, we let her dig in a gravel pile and then she drove it in the barn and parked it. this would have been quite close to her fourth birthday though so she may have been 4

 

[deniscimafinc]

I was 32, that was... 3 weeks ago, in ClearViewGroup's Takeuchi 175, running a DAH-080C head. I wouldn't hire myself just yet

 

[zzvyb6]

I was also about 5 or 6. An Insley (yellow & black). That was a cable and pulley drive operated machine. Had a pony motor in the back to start the diesel with an inertia clutch. About a 1 yard bucket. Levers, brakes, clutches, cable drums and foot controls. Learned how from the owner who needed an extra hand to help him stack railroad ties over rocks being dynamited. He did the tie arrangement, I did the bucket and chain rigging. Soon I was digging topsoil and he was driving the dump truck. I even made an operating scale model of the "digger" out of Erector set parts, wood, string and other stuff from an old toy crane. Used to make sewers in the sandbox using organge juice concentrate cans with both ends cut out. School soon interfered with that job....

 

[GT2]

Used to make sewers in the sandbox using organge juice concentrate cans with both ends cut out. School soon interfered with that job....

Ahh yes the school sand box . Not an excavator story, but we used to excavate the clay like stuff they used as a base material. We would then mix it with water and pour into small brick molds, then build miniature adobe houses.
We had quite the construction site going, till the school interfered!

 

[ClearViewGroup]

Fred, you did pretty good, I didnt know it was your first time...but then again you did have a great coach sitting in the "Git R Done" seat helping you along! hahaha

 

[farmboy12]

Never an excavator, but I ran a Case 450 crawler TLB all around and dug with the hoe at 9 back in '05. That thing was great, we'd still have it if the backhoe wasn't stolen. We disconnected it for a week or so on the other side of the property. Then, as I was dirk biking, I noticed it wasn't there. I talked to Dad about it. But when we investigated more, we noticed that whoever took it left their plywood there. 4,500lbs of wheeless, bulky, metal-STOLEN. We asked a scrapper what whoever took it could've gotten for it. He said around $400-500. We lost $8k. Bought it for $12,500 as TLB. Sold it for $4,500 as just a loader.


Kyle

 

[Johndeere3720]

Poor TLB. My first was a Kumatsu, i think a PC75? I was 10 and my dad had it sitting in my step mom's rock yard. What a fun toy. To bad he sold it since it was out of work. I have drivin numerous TLBs.

 

[EddieWalker]

I'm 43 and have never run an excavator. I'm deprived!!!

Eddie

 

[Eagleview]

Confucius say , better to be deprived than depraved .

 

[20 20]

Was late 20's now in my 40's. Allways thought BH's were great, which they are but that makes excavators a god.

 

[Taylortractornut]

zzvyb6 I envy you what I wouldnt do to get to run a cable hoe. I guess I was 4 or 5 mom took me to see dad on a job in Tuscaloosa. It was lunch time and dad took me up in the cab of a 235 Cat he was under cutting with and let me dip. Later I was about 10 he put me on any TLB he had here to let me play. My favorite he kept for Bonds was a 310 Deere hoe with an all weather cab it would be dusky and rainy when he brought it in and I would dig in a pile of rubble he had for filling in a gully. Then later he you let me run a 912 I think was the number of the Leibherr excavator in the gravel pit. and later a 230 Mitsubishi. When I was 16 my brother started his own company and had a 100 Komatsu and later a 120 Hitachi. Between them I went to work for Huffman Const out of Poplar Bluff Mo and ranPC300 Comatsus and later for Clark running a PC750 and a 400. When I was 24 I bought my first excavator a PC50 Komatsu. Im trying to buy my neighbors rubber tire Leibherr excavator right now for a road maintenance machine.

 

[kubota orange]

Broke my excavotr cherry a couple years ago on my old man's Kubota mini. Gotten pretty respectable on all size excavators since then. I've dug drainage adn irrigation trenches, loaded some big Terex end dumps too. Excavators are my favorite machines out there. So much fun to operate.

 

[mike69440]

I'm 43 and have never run an excavator. I'm deprived!!!

Eddie

Eddie,

I wuld not consider you deprived, but you are missing al lot not having an excavator.

Darn handy.

 

[Oleozz]

I hope to run one for the first time this fall. We will be putting in drainage tile over most of my farm, have a friend who has run one before that will be helping me. Should be an interesting job.

 

[farmerjim]

i'm 32 and have only just recently run an excavator to do some drainage work around my property, it was a rented kubota mini, if i remember it was a 1ton class machine i think the u-8000? anyway it had the movable tracks to fit through gates and only dug to about 6ft deep, what a dream to use compared to our old case 530 back hoe, which was a step up from the 1st back hoe we owned and i learned on at about 8yrs old, that was a truck mounted unit on an old reo cab and chassis.