RDrancher's Photo Thread

RDrancher · Oct 2, 2012

Yeah, you're out in God's Country as far as material goes Jim! The 4-6" I used here comes out of Sanger, so pricing is pretty good.

Finished up today.

RDrancher · Oct 3, 2012

Re-graded and topped a 450 ft driveway today. The driveway had veins of limestone here and there and I pulled out quite a few basketball and larger rocks to get it to grade and repair the potholes. Then I mixed and placed 73 tons of road base over the whole thing. Unfortunately the driveway access and street were too narrow to back the truck and pup in, so I had to shuttle it all from the street. While I was grading I recovered a lot of road base in the garage area, so I used it to make the customer an area to turn their car around. Lots of poison ivy on both sides of the driveway to stay away from.

two_bit_score · Oct 4, 2012

This is a really good thread. I take it that these are all one man jobs, done by you alone. Good work. Keep posting.

RDrancher · Oct 4, 2012

Thanks two bit.

I work alone most of the year, but this past summer I had my step-son work with me. I actually fired him the summer prior! Now that he's 16 and drives, he's a little more willing to get out of bed and make some money. I let him run the tractor while I operated a CTL on a job in July. At that age they think that they know everything, so it was pretty entertaining watching his frustration in getting the hang of the fel and box blade.

In my former life in socal as a licensed concrete and general contractor, I had anywhere from 5-30 employees at any given time. Now my job is a lot less stressful and I enjoy it a lot more!

kf4uda · Oct 4, 2012

You are defiantly an artist with box blade. I am enjoying your thread as well. It is obvious from the pictures that you do exceptional work.

RDrancher · Oct 5, 2012

Thanks kf4uda. I've actually only used the BB to scarify the last two jobs. I used the loader only to lay the road base.

Working in the office today, but thought I'd share some grading photos and random stuff.

The homeowner got this "dirt" (and I use the term loosely) from a pool dig down the street. It wasn't real fun to try to grade it out. Unfortunately, he paid the driver for this junk when he was actually saving the guy money.

Cricket hanging tough at 60mph!

Pulling t-posts with a Ratchet Rake.

RDrancher · Oct 11, 2012

Well I'd like to post some photos, but I got that red circled exclamation mark again.

RDrancher · Oct 11, 2012

Its like a miracle...I can post pics now!

Here's a 2 acre build site before I brushogged it a couple of months ago. I'm back there now hauling rock out and I'll be back the first of the year to grade it. The builder used the lot for a dump site for all of the other lots. The buyer was a bit surprised when I give him my price. He thought that there were maybe a couple of dump truck loads...not quite.

My dump site is less than a mile from the job and isn't 10-wheeler accessible. I could have used a bobtail, but my rental place just got a 14k / 14 ft dump trailer in. It's not new anymore!

Fifteen very heavy loads so far and a few to go. I'm leaving as much soil as possible and separating out the rock. Some of the rocks showing were just the tip of the iceberg.

RDrancher · Oct 12, 2012

Finished up the rock clearing project today. Separated and hauled off roughly 160 tons of rock, two loads of concrete and a few loads of rock/soil mix.

I blew a hose on the 4in1. Nice mess.

RDrancher · Oct 13, 2012

I got about half of the limestone slabs and boulders separated this morning, then headed out to look at a couple jobs. Hoping for rain to come in!

foreman Etexas · Oct 13, 2012

Great photos!! You my friend do an awesome job,everytime....

two_bit_score · Oct 14, 2012

Do you have a market for those?

RDrancher · Oct 14, 2012

foreman Etexas said:
Great photos!! You my friend do an awesome job,everytime....

Thank you foreman!

Do you have a market for those?

This limestone is pretty common around here, so usually there's not much of a market for it. Since the slabs were pretty decent, a local stone yard purchased them and they'll be coming out to pick them up tomorrow. Right now all of the rock is sitting at a future jobsite where I'll be excavating to double the size of a pond and stacking the stone semi-vertically on one of the banks so they can see it from their back porch.

RDrancher · Oct 15, 2012

Started a project at a storage facility today. I had a friend call early this morning letting me know that he was out of work, so I had a helper! :thumbsup:

I found out two things today that I don't like about the Kubota CTL. The most annoying is that when the bucket is flat, it will not go lower than the bottom of the tracks. This is a real pita when spreading gravel since you can't use the heel of the bucket. This forces the use of the bucket edge which rolls up the larger rockl and separates it from the fines. The second is the slow dump mode that the bucket has. It makes it almost impossible to "flick" material.

genusCastor · Oct 16, 2012

Kewl thread, thanks for posting it all. As was already stated, you do really nice looking work. :thumbsup:

I have a question. Do you have an "off-the-cuff" estimate for the difference in cost of putting in a gravel driveway as opposed to concreting it? We have ~600 ft driveway, only a couple years old, and I've been thinking that concrete might be more an initial expense, but I wouldn't have to monkey around with maintaining a gravel one anymore. I just wondered, it's prolly a question you often get(?)

RDrancher said:
I had a friend call early this morning letting me know that he was out of work...

I think this is a sign of the economy you're looking for to improve.

- djb

RDrancher · Oct 16, 2012

Thanks DJB!

Installing a concrete driveway costs roughly 8-10 times what a new gravel driveway costs. Taking your 600' driveway for instance (for a new driveway). Even if I had to come out and grade for a day, I could place all of the gravel the next day. That's only two days with the cost of material and one guy on one machine. If you wanted geotextile placed before the spreading gravel, I might need a laborer. The installation of concrete requires the same amount of grading and the concrete itself is roughly three times more expensive. Now add in forming, reinforcement, finishing and all of the handwork involved. And don't forget the workman's comp insurance the contractor has to pay for all of those employees...It gets expensive! I know, I did it for many years before moving here.

Since you already have a tractor, buying a pretty new land plane grading scraper and spending some quality seat time starts to look pretty good. Heck, even throw in a new top-n-tilt setup and make it even easier.

And yes, as far as work goes, I hope we're in for a change if you get what I mean.

genusCastor · Oct 16, 2012

Thanks. I've never got any estimates, but was thinking maybe an order of magnitude difference would be ballpark close... We had the driveway base done by a friend, and I've been adding crushed limestone to it since, maintaining the initial base plus adding an extension along the side of the building, and a small turnaround area. It seems that the middle of the drive starts to elevate (or the tire areas depress) soon after I use the box blade to level it out. I would think this is a common issue with gravel drives - since the middle is never traveled on it doesn't get pressed like the two sides do. I'm not packing anything down, either, like you do with a roller. I bet that (a roller) would make a difference.

One thing I've learned tinkering around with a box blade and FEL, excavating/leveling is an art. And from your pics I've learned you're an artist. :laughing:

Trufully.

- djb

RDrancher · Oct 17, 2012

DJB- Yes, using a vibratory roller will make it last a lot longer.

The storage folks decided that they didn't want the material they chose for the topping in front of their new building (the last one burned to the ground). So I loaded it up and sent it back. The 3/4" road base they decided on couldn't be delivered until today, so I took the SVL75 back and I'll finish with my tractor which is supposed to be ready by noon today.

While I was at the Kubota dealership I took a couple eye candy photos. I really like the stout v-brace in the bottom of their 4in1 bucket and the plates protecting the cylinders.

RDrancher · Oct 17, 2012

I picked up my tractor today. She's a good as 2300 hrs new can be!

Here's a link to the break and repair. http://www.tractorbynet.com/forums/new-holland-owning-operating/259888-tc35d-4wd-noise.html

I can finally go finish my job tomorrow. :thumbsup:

RDrancher · Oct 18, 2012

Back at the storage facility today. This job is very frustrating for me since I like all of my work to look...well...perfect. At least as perfect as I can make it. There is no straight edge to work with on the asphalt. It's been patched and broken off so many times its a mess. Some areas have poured concrete and asphalt underneath the road base. Thin here, thick there. I swear the guy that painted the red line was drunk. To paraphrase one of the members on another forum...If it looks like crap when I get there, its gonna look like smooth crap when I leave!

I spread some 3/4" road base about 15 ft wide in front of a new storage building. The last one burned down so I removed about 2" of whatever was there. It looked like flex base, broken asphalt, recycled concrete, 5/8" stone and pea gravel. It was full of burned junk the fire department pulled out, demo material, and screws and debris from the guys working on the new building. Then I spread the new material and blended it into the existing. I experimented with the blade depth on my landplane a bit. Works pretty good!

I'll go back in the morning and roll everything. Seems like this job is taking forever. This storage place is really busy during the daytime. While I'm trying to work people keep parking in my work area and even in front of my material piles.