Saturday fun for boys

wroughtn_harv · Aug 17, 2003

Bud bought a new piece of commercial property for a satellite yard for their business. It needed a fence across the front. He decided he wanted a forty foot double gate. Problem was there was an old circular drive and he wanted the gate in the middle.

He asked me to put in the new culvert. I'm the accomodating type.

I should have started taking pictures at the beginning. I didn't. But as it became more and more fun I just had to share.

This is the new home for the sixty two foot culvert. It was the bar ditch. You can see I've already removed one old culvert and made it into a bar ditch. That packed rock driveway didn't really want to come up. There was a discussion. I won.

wroughtn_harv · Aug 17, 2003

Here's the view from the other end where the old culvert is still in place. I had to keep access open for other workers.

wroughtn_harv · Aug 17, 2003

This is Iris and the new culvert. It's casing, two twenties and a twenty two. I welded them up and then Iris put the completed unit in place.

wroughtn_harv · Aug 17, 2003

New culvert in it's place.

wroughtn_harv · Aug 17, 2003

This is the old culvert in place. It's the old concrete four foot lengths fitted up. Works fine. Just a pain in the butt to remove.

wroughtn_harv · Aug 17, 2003

It's a lot less of a pain in the butt if you have removable forks for your tractor. You remove one and use the other as a pickemupper.

wroughtn_harv · Aug 17, 2003

When I mentioned winning the discussion with the packed rock in the old driveway. Well, that wasn't really a fair discussion. I had an ace in my pocket.

wroughtn_harv · Aug 17, 2003

And it's an ace that's really nice when you're in that situation where only an ace can help.

wroughtn_harv · Aug 17, 2003

Here's a close up of what an ace looks like.

wroughtn_harv · Aug 17, 2003

End of the day, lots of fun.

jinman · Aug 17, 2003

Very nice, Harv. I'm guessing the rains we've had lately helped soften up the ground a little too. That "ace" of yours looks pretty cool. Is that another one of your ingenious inventions? You have lots of fun toys in your sandbox. /forums/images/graemlins/laugh.gif

Bird · Aug 17, 2003

That ace is the funniest looking box blade I ever saw. /forums/images/graemlins/wink.gif /forums/images/graemlins/laugh.gif

wroughtn_harv · Aug 17, 2003

Is that another one of your ingenious inventions?

I searched the attachment suppliers and didn't see anything like it so it might be an original.

A bud who has a Cat 226 has one of my concrete buckets. He liked it so much that he came to me for a set of rippers. He explained to me that he'd made a set for his Mustang but they hadn't worked well. But then his own attempt at a concrete bucket hadn't worked out that well either.

I told him that if he'd buy the stuff for us each a set I'd make him one.

I think what makes it work so well is the tooth bar being so far out front. That gives the tractor a chance to transfer the weight and it allows the operator to see better what's going on.

I don't know what Cat has done with their 226 but that puppy just seems to get more grunt out of an attachment than anyone else. Bud took my "ace" and just destroyed fourteen inches of well packed wash out. I had to take little bites and he just buried the teeth and pulled. I was impressed.

Bud does a lot of work for concrete contractors. He finds the "ace" really helpful in those situations where he needs to just pull off four to six inches and it's lawn. With a tooth'd bucket there's a tendancy to either not get enough or to get too much and then have to bring back in fill. He takes the "ace" and rips his preferred depth and then the smooth bucket to clean it up.

An old boy pointed out something to me that makes sense and I've never heard anyone else mention it. He said ripping an area about to receive fill allows everything to pack in better and you don't have that seam you see when fill is put directly over cover whether it's weeds or just grass.

That job is just off 35W and barely in the city limits of Ft Worth.

I took 121 to Bonham about lunch Bird, thought of you as I passed through Coppell.

Taylortractornut · Aug 17, 2003

WroughtnHarv, your rippers remind me of a loader I used to run for a friends contracting service. It had Vail back up rippers that could be pinned up or in the down position thay flotated during loading/scooping and then you got to hader ground you just backed up and the dug in. One loader had them curved like yours but they had another with a straight shank that allowed it to be in a diiging position and use the smooth cutting edge of the bucket to be tilted down to act as a depth guide. These were WA250 Komatsu's. Ive used the backdrag rippers on a dozer and TLB and they work real good if you want to retain you smooth cutting edge. I saw a ripper similar to yours at an equipment yard it was a bit shorter and only had 2 shanks, and part of a quick hitch. It ran about 900 bucks. They had piles of them but they looked terribly flimsy.

Bird · Aug 17, 2003

( I took 121 to Bonham about lunch Bird )

Harv, I now live just south of 121 (actually just south of Sandy Lake Road) on Coppell Rd. And of course, I drive on 121 regularly and that's quite an earth moving and road building project going on from Denton Tap Rd to I-35E.

And I've certainly had enough of this heat; it was tough doing yard work today. /forums/images/graemlins/frown.gif