Winter gig

[245dlc]

Yeah we call them tiger teeth as well I'm not sure of the manufacturer of these ones in particular but sometimes we call them frost teeth as well. I never wear gloves when I operate just when I'm doing maintenance stuff I wear insulated leather ones.

[ianoz]

So , Is the frozen ground hard on teeth ?. In the wrong sort of material ,i can wear a set out in a day here . But normally get a couple of weeks out of them .

[245dlc]

It can be Ian especially if you don't have a ripper to loosen it up ahead of time. The work I'm doing now is kinda slow going compared to stuff I did in the past as Manitoba Hydro is government owned company. lol But if I was in heavy frozen silt that had been really wet before it froze or sand or gravel then it's just like digging in shale or sandstone. These teeth were put on over Christmas break and so far have held out really well and work great in this material that I'm digging. Another big advantage of working for these guys is it's up to me to judge if I need the ripper or not and for me I much prefer to pre-rip as it can make my trenching or digging production that much higher instead of scratching and trying to muscle through the frost with the bucket and putting all that strain on the machine. Ripping certainly isn't easy on the machine and sometimes even with a ripper on it takes forever to get a hole through the frost, in years past I've had to rip seven feet before I got soft earth again. Usually you only get conditions like that if you have to dig through a parking lot or a road where foot and vehicle traffic 'pounds' the frost down deeper, however if you get an area covered in lots of snow or even bush you'll have nice soft easy to dig ground.

[JD450A]

How do you find working in the "slow lane" then bert, It hacks me off constantly...... Been surveying this week new sites to do (got a couple that should be, er intresting) Hopefully will have a new contract end of the month and keep going. if not I shall be jumping on the minidigger.

[245dlc]

How do you mean Rory? If you mean by working for a government organization sometimes it can be frustrating or just boring, but glad to be working through the winter if I have slack time I can always kill it by doing some greasing or cleaning up of the cab. If you mean the slow job of ripping well that's frustrating too, but you just gotta keep going at it.

[JD450A]

I mean the bordem of the GHFL Gangs (Get Home For Lunch!) or the WSAES (Work Slowly and Enjoy Summer) crews.... these abbriviations went out the window today.... 7:50 - "Can you go out and finish" (I was called out yesterday at 8:15 but was out of reception so the lorry/machine driver took it, today he was needed elsewhere) so went and reinstated a field then went and put some poles up... happy days.

I think I would really need a good radio to go ripping... I've been looking at ways I could hire my own machinery and have kinda decided that should I ever be asked to dig out a larger site in rock I will take the JD450 with the ripper on the backactor and run another machine loading.

[245dlc]

I'm kinda used to it Rory, I'm generally the busiest on those job sites and this one in particular I'm doing almost all the digging except for the street light trenches, and one that ran along a fence. Our 580 Case has a 18" bucket that goes through the frost quite well and is better suited to digging the smaller stuff. But for the most part that 580 just sits around with a cable reel hanging from the bucket or pulls a reel trailer around with a pintle hitch attached to the bucket. And once in a while moves a bucket or two of sand and gravel. So for him the whole project is much more boring than it is for me.

[245dlc]

A little update we're putting some primary and gas line in to service several condo units, only problem is they've already started building them and I've gotta dig right beside a couple of high voltage feeder cables and it's frozen past the bottom. I haven't taken any pictures but I made a video of me trying to dig a trench in between existing structures I had my tracks right against the steps trying to not make the machine slide any further forward. I had to go back and forth a bit to get my counterweight to clear the walls.

[JD450A]

Should be childs play for you bud.

Glad I'm not the onlyone argueing with ground. In the steep on tuesday poling. Tracking down, fine, Digging, Fine, Tracking up, Ok, Erecting pole on the hill... OH .......

Gotta Improve quick or I won't be around long..... I do have a Plan B though.

[245dlc]

You will it's all practice, we got up to the first service yesterday, hard as a 'effing rock'. A big fight the whole way, now one more service to scratch my way up to and a splice. Our 'soft dig' guys got called away for an emergency downtown sounds like somebody hit a gas line or something, they'll be back on Monday to continue exposing those feeder cables and where the big splice is going to be. And after this annoying job we'll be going back to the wide open a very widely spaced out housing subdivision in yellow silt land, sometimes the most miserable shit to dig in. lol

[B4D2USA]

Looks cold Bert. The frost has all but left the ground by me. We had a big thaw, then a few days of below freezing overnight but above the next day, so our frost is non-existent. I had to repair a fence at the rental house on Thursday and hand dug 3 posts into the ground to 3' deep. Not one hint of frozen earth. I'm still waiting to hear back from the utilities for the house in the country. I may be renting a small machine to dig the trench for the electric and natural gas. The ground is all sand, so EZ digging even when frozen.

[245dlc]

Hate to tell you Bruce but when sand is frozen it's more like sandstone you'll wish you had a rock drill and some TNT trust me. But your quite a bit more south you'll probably get spring soon I've gotta wait till the end of March around my birthday before spring starts to make some lasting impressions. Are you thinking about getting a mini-excavator or maybe a chain trencher?

[Wee Jim]

i would like a small treching machine but i dont know anything about them have any of you guys got any experience with them?

[245dlc]

I don't think there is much point any more in buying a dedicated machine like a Ditchwitch or Vermeer. I know Bobcat makes or sells chain trenchers to fit they're walk-behind skid-steers, regular skid-steers, and even they're mid-size mini excavators. Most of the dedicated machines that use to be all over the country here are now in the bone yards. What would you be using it for Jim? And how much trenching do you figure you'll be doing?

[B4D2USA]

The chain trenchers are idiot proof, but you can cut through things without even knowing it (don't ask). Used chain machines are pretty inexpensive, and if you are lucky, you can get one that has all three implements on it, excavator, chain and backfill blade. The trouble is the same as any machine that tries to do many things. An excavator will dig a trench faster than a Vermeer with a hoe, but at least with the Vermeer, you have multiple options available: Hoe close to a structure, chain for out in the field. Some of them can be had with cable plows and that can be handy for sprinklers and cable work.

What I'm going to rent depends on price and how much digging I need to do (availability is a concern too). I need to trench through a grove of trees. The utilities want a 10 foot wide corridor for their machine. I know I can get a machine in there that won't require that much clearance. I don't want to cut down a lot of trees. We will see what United Rentals has available.