Looking at buying a dozer.

Industrial Toys · Aug 6, 2019

I have all kinds of equipment, but not BIG IRON, and always hired it in. Good value for money if you ask me. There are heavy equipment operators out there that will take advantage of those they can. So just watch out.

fried1765 · Aug 6, 2019

Sawyer Rob said:
When you see how much money it WILL cost YOU to keep a cheep older dozer running/working, you will think the "hire it done" price was a bargain!!

No matter, a 350 is too small anyway...

SR

^^^^^^what he said!

4570Man · Aug 6, 2019

Industrial Toys said:
I have all kinds of equipment, but not BIG IRON, and always hired it in. Good value for money if you ask me. There are heavy equipment operators out there that will take advantage of those they can. So just watch out.

I’d like to have a full size trackhoe. It would cost less than the midi I’ll likely own eventually but too hard to move.

CADplans · Aug 6, 2019

When you get the Komatsu dozer stuck in your sandy soil, with no way to move it,,,
the excavator option will look cheap,,,
YouTube will show you plenty of dozers stuck in sand,,
they use excavators to free the stuck dozer,,, :laughing:

I have a neighbor that does this for a living,,
his excavator rips every thing out,,
the CAT dozer does some finish grading,,
the CAT 953 loader only runs when he needs two machines at the same time,,
The Kobelco SK170 does basically EVERYTHING,,,

:thumbsup:

caver · Aug 6, 2019

Watch that kid on youtube letsdig18 and most of the jobs he does with his excavator.

STERLING351 · Aug 7, 2019

CADplans said:
When you get the Komatsu dozer stuck in your sandy soil, with no way to move it,,,
the excavator option will look cheap,,,
YouTube will show you plenty of dozers stuck in sand,,
they use excavators to free the stuck dozer,,, :laughing:

I have a neighbor that does this for a living,,
his excavator rips every thing out,,
the CAT dozer does some finish grading,,
the CAT 953 loader only runs when he needs two machines at the same time,,
The Kobelco SK170 does basically EVERYTHING,,,

:thumbsup:

Hey i believe you im not arguing, on my other piece of land i have a guy with an excavator clear part of it and he did a great job. Most of the excavators around here that can pull the trees are about $35-40 on the cheap end which i cant swing right now in cash, how ever i could swing about $20k if i had too but was wanting to keep it cheaper. I think it would be nice to buy a $12k dozer to clear the trees and be able to sell it for $10k-ish when im done with it and only be out $2k and time (could be wishful thinking).

And to the previous person who suggested renting my dads dozer, believe me i have thought about it but him being my father he would ride my ***. If it were to finely break in my possession i would never hear the end of it even if i paid $10k to fix it because i must have been "abusing it". I stopped borrowing equipment and tools from my dad a long time ago, because he wants an exact return time, on time i was supposed to return his air compressor because mine had burned out on a Monday and returned it on a Tuesdays and got to hear about how I was unaccountable even though I was oncall and responding to an emergency at the hospital.

1010 · Aug 7, 2019

What are you wanting to do with the debris? windrow? just run it over? run over it and leave it laying? For the money a prescribed fire would clean up things faster than anything.
or some chemical work then a nice controlled fire.
I wouldn't get a track hoe,, haha,, for just clearing basically mesquite.. A hoe would be slower than a dozer (depending on size) but it would allow for better piles and actually get the entire plant/tree out of the ground where a dozer might have to dig the stump up.
A big dozer with a KG blade can cover a lot of ground quick, but there again there would be sheared off stumps and debris left.
A hoe would be better able to deal with over hanging limbs that would get all over the machine till the dozer blade made contact with the trunk and pushed it over.
A hoe also has way more moving parts than a dozer that could give you problems.
The JD 350s and 400Gs are pretty much bullet proof that's why so many are still around. But for clearing land they would be very time consuming.

A drum type hammer shredder on a track bobcat, track hoe, skidder, is another option. But you'd have stumps left flush with the ground. But the debris would be flat on the ground and not a issue depending on what you want to do with the land or how you want it to look. This would also make a fire easier to manage. A bobcat in sand could be a problem since a shredder head is heavy..

What have you seen others doing in this area?

3Ts · Aug 7, 2019

The trees are anywhere from 1in to 24in in diameter, I am looking for a dozer to clear most of the 1-12in trees.

Don't forget that trees can be turned into lumber and wood for smoking. You may be able to sell the wood from the trees to at least offset the cost of hiring it done or the cost of your equipment.

When it comes to mesquite, i think it has a long tap root that can go down almost 100'. If you cut it off at ground level it will grow back with multiple trunks. I'd use an excavator to get below the eyes so it doesn't regrow and you have to do the clearing again in a few years.

EddieWalker · Aug 7, 2019

STERLING351 said:
Hey guys I recently acquired another 42 acres here in Texas. The land is about 38 acres of mesquite trees. The trees are anywhere from 1in to 24in in diameter, I am looking for a dozer to clear most of the 1-12in trees. Locally people want anywhere from $900 to $1200 a day for dozer work plus cost of transport. I have found a few dozers in my area for $8000-12000 range which I am interested in buying to clear the land and eventually resell. The two "dozers" that have caught my eye in the price range that arent beat to **** will loose tracks and covered in rust are a John Deere 350B with a 6-way blade and the other is a Komatsu 31s (Its a track loader with a dozer blade). The Komatsu has 25hp more than the JD and weighs about 4000 pounds more. Do you think either of these would be a good choice? Once again i know running a dozer can cost some big $$$ which is why im looking to only own it for a few months.

I own a Case 1550 dozer. It's 170 hp and weighs about 40,000 pounds. Before that, I rented a Deere 450G dozer. I learned that the 450 was too small to clear the land. It could take out sapplings easy enough, but it did break quite a few too, which lead to more work to get them out. The bigger problem was in moving the piles. It could only move a small pile forward, it didn't have enough power to turn while pushing, which lead to more work and time. The owner used it for building house pads, and for that, it's ideal. I shaped the dirt around my small pond with it, leveled off a lot of dirt piles, filling in ditches and spreading gravel for my driveway.

When I bought my 1550 I learned that you can do a lot more with more power, but you also create a massive mess. Now I was able to get trees out of the ground that where much bigger, but that presented a whole new list of issues. Pushing big piles of trees to the burn pile also pushed a lot of dirt. I got a rake and that helped, but the trees themselves push most of the dirt and it was time consuming putting the rake on and off. As my red clay dried out, the size of the trees that it would push out became smaller. I also broke off a lot more of them, which creates a lot of work to dig out. Over a few years of this, I realized/learned that the dozer was the wrong tool for land clearing. Especially when I added a grapple to my backhoe.

I can dig out a big tree faster with the backhoe then I can with the dozer. I can get saplings out cleaner with the backhoe then I can with the dozer. But the biggest difference is that I can pick up almost anything that I take out with the grapple, carry it to the burn pile, and place it on top of the other trees. When I'm done burning, I just have to deal with the ash, not 20 to 40 yards of dirt that was added to the pile when pushing trees to it with the dozer. That alone is a massive difference in time and energy to deal with final clean up.

I never use my dozer for taking out trees. My backhoe is much better at it. If I had the extra money, I think an excavator would be even better for getting them out, but then you still need something else to carry them to the burn pile. With the backhoe, I can do it all from one machine. You just have to have a grapple.