"Long Stick" Excavator

[Kranky 1]

The other day I went to a local sand & gravel pit to get a load of 1 1/2 washed stone for a septic system.

They were using a Link Belt long stick excavator to "dredge" their settling pond.

http://i80.photobucket.com/albums/j188/HKJr23/Work7-09002.jpg

http://i80.photobucket.com/albums/j188/HKJr23/Work7-09003.jpg

http://i80.photobucket.com/albums/j188/HKJr23/Work7-09001.jpg

The settling pond is where all the water used for "washing" the sand & stone is discharged from the wash plant, along with the silt removed from the materials during the washing process.

While in the settling pond, the silt settles to the bottom, and the clear water is allowed to drain off the top.

Periodically, these type of ponds must be cleaned out, to remove the accumulated silt.

These guys were using 2 old Mack triaxles to haul the slop to the other end of the pit, where it will be allowed to dry out and then hauled out as fill material once it's dry.

Those trucks are only used in the pit, hence the missing head lights, smashed fender etc.

In the past, before long stick hydraulic excavators became popular, these type of jobs were done with a dragline such as this one, which was owned by a company I worked for back in CT:

http://inlinethumb38.webshots.com/44709/2002413290065739904S600x600Q85.jpg (http://rides.webshots.com/photo/2002413290065739904MVPQsy)

http://inlinethumb02.webshots.com/18689/2800830600065739904S600x600Q85.jpg (http://rides.webshots.com/photo/2800830600065739904VOMiCx)

Loading a truck with a dragline is a fine art. There were some operators that were so good, they could do it without any spillage whatsoever, not an easy thing to do when the loaded bucket is hanging from a cable!

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[The_Governor]

Especially that close to a structure................mis-calculate the swing and you might as well be swinging a wrecking ball

[snoope]

Hey NOW,

Drive into a few florida mines and you will still see those "Drags" at work....It is truly an "artist" at work when watching those "Iron maidens"..


Kranky1, those "long arm" machines have found enough of a "Niche' up here that 2 dealers "rent" them;Terex and Komatsu...for wet lands work or when a small dozer just can not get "there"...

S

[Big_Dave]

They use long stick hoes around here to clean out county drainage ditches. They're pretty cool to watch due to the long stick and wide, flat bucket with no teeth.

[Acorn Trucking]

I need to borry one of those for a weekend to dig out our pond, a few too many spring floods lately.

As far as draglines go there is a small one working the coal line along I-90 just east of Rock Springs, WY and another baby one working along I-45 between Dallas and Houston, TX.

[RSTrans]

Those pictures bring back not so nice memories. I have loaded under both of those types of equipment.

The bad memory is that I had just polished out my rig over the weekend and was dispatched to the Hanson Plant on Chanel Rd to stock pile 3/8" pea-gravel. I got there and there was another 10-wheeler that was beat to hell and here I am in a nice pretty show worthy transfer truck and my trailer. I dropped the trailer and the excavator operator saw me and said well since you showed up with the pretty clean truck you get to report to the lime mud pit for duty to haul out the stuff dredged from the pond. I was like WTF? I am supposed to haul the pea-gravel. He said not any more you made the mistake of bringing a pretty truck to work. I was so pissed at the end of the day that words would not describe it. By the time the third bucket hit the truck my rig was no longer, brown, persimmon, gold, and orange but was lime mud colored and was all the aluminum was tarnished and black. Going home I sat as low and far back as I could. I met the guy I had bought the truck from and he said over the radio what in the hell did you do to that thing, my response I don't want to talk about it. 9 hours later I had all the mud scrapped out of the box and the truck washed but completely trashed aluminum that I had to spend another full weekend polishing to get it back.

[Acorn Trucking]

Sorry to hear about your luck in the lime pit, but if it was your truck you had the right to tell them to stuff it and leave.

[The_Governor]

I need to borry one of those for a weekend to dig out our pond, a few too many spring floods lately.

As far as draglines go there is a small one working the coal line along I-90 just east of Rock Springs, WY and another baby one working along I-45 between Dallas and Houston, TX.


The one in Texas is just outside of Buffalo...............at night you can see the lights on it from McGees place in Corsicana................well not quite......................but that machine is huge

[RSTrans]

I know I had the right to leave. But think about it from my perspective. I had not worked in over a week and the last week that I had worked I only had 14 hours. So if work came to you and was going to be a garunteed 10 hour day at $85/hr for the ten wheeler wouldn't you suck it uip and work too? I've had to do it in the past. I worked on a rail project cleaning out the mud from the stream that ran next to the tracks. Got three weeks out of it at 10 hrs a day at $85/hr for ten wheeler. Yeah the truck was a mess but in the long run it was ok because it was money in the bank. Which was more than I could say about some old friends who sat for that two weeks because they were affaid to get mud on the truck.

[Kranky 1]

Dirt don't hurt.

If the working conditions involve physical or mechanical abuse of the truck, then that's a whole different issue.

My boss has pulled trucks off of jobs where the customer was abusing them, he doesn't go for that kind of stuff.

That and our meticulous maintenance program are the reasons why the 10 year old trucks in our fleet are in just as good of shape as the brand new ones, both mechanically and cosmetically.

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[snoope]

Long sticks do "Create " that specialized work and if your not afraid of it,$$$ can be made....
Every truck I have driven including my own ONLY left a job for abusive behavior..BUT when it came to "Mucking ponds" at an hourly rate ( no fuel consumed) pipe and site work, I'm all over it...Ledge pays more BUT will only be loaded by an excavator ,no 980 is dropping 2'- in me:flyswat[1]:.....and not to pick on my "tar baby" friends but when it rains,I'm not going home..."IT" will all wash off,even the "stinky stuff" ( nobody questions your rate when an old leach field needs to be moved:broke: ).....Dam it,Dump Buckets are Specialized carriers,can I ask for another raise???

S

[RSTrans]

I agree Snoope. The dump bucket is a specialized carrier and if it can fit in it then it will go in it. I have left jobs for abuse more then once and I actually kicked a guy off a loader and took it over to load my self and the other trucks because he was a DS and didnt know his arse from a hole in the ground when it came to loading trucks. I will only haul demo or anything bigger than 3" in my material beds with a 1/8" floor if it gets padded with a little dirt or sand first. If that is not an option then my material truck has no logical reason to be on that job. Boxes cost too much any more to repair or replace to abuse the equipment.

I did drive for a guy that had a 10 wheeler and pup that was a dedicated boulder hauler. I used to haul rocks bigger than VW's in that thing. Was fun until the idiot mexican in the loader tried to drop one on me because he wouldn't listen when I told him to back up and ease the bucket down. What's he do he gets to close and threw it over the truck, I ran up the bank and just barely escaped.

[Big_Dave]

When hauling anything larger than 2", you need to have a trailer with at least a '1/4" demo box' or dump gates (for those of us that pull belly dumps).

Aluminum dump bodies or 'thin wall' steel just doesn't cut it!

The Freightliner tractor and Ranco Anvil Tri-axle I used to run was 'heavy duty'. Tractor had a 425 mechanical Cat motor, 15 speed 'deep reduction' trans and 5:56 rears. Trailer had a 1/4" thick, high-side 'demo tub' riding on a tri-axle set-up. Tare weight was right around 40K, but the dang thing never 'fell over' or failed to work properly!

[RSTrans]

Our truck and transfers were material boxes with 1/8" and I even had one with a 1/16" floor and would haul 3" minus and not have any issues. It just depends on the material and how it gets loaded.

When we did demo we had the 1/4" AR 40 boxes or tubs. That way we could haul the big stuff.

[Kranky 1]

When hauling anything larger than 2", you need to have a trailer with at least a '1/4" demo box' or dump gates (for those of us that pull belly dumps).

Aluminum dump bodies or 'thin wall' steel just doesn't cut it!

The Freightliner tractor and Ranco Anvil Tri-axle I used to run was 'heavy duty'. Tractor had a 425 mechanical Cat motor, 15 speed 'deep reduction' trans and 5:56 rears. Trailer had a 1/4" thick, high-side 'demo tub' riding on a tri-axle set-up. Tare weight was right around 40K, but the dang thing never 'fell over' or failed to work properly!

Here are some photos of that "shop built" rock trailer that we've got, the tub was made from an 8' diameter industrial tank of some sort, cut in half. This trailer originally had an aluminum box on it and when the aluminum box was shot, they fabricated the rock tub and put it on that frame.

Here, I had it backed under the waste conveyor to catch the "rejects" while screening a special mixture:

http://i80.photobucket.com/albums/j188/HKJr23/Work6-23-07001.jpg

Here is a rear end view

http://i80.photobucket.com/albums/j188/HKJr23/10-26-07005.jpg

Close up where you can see the wall thickness, it's 3/4":

http://i80.photobucket.com/albums/j188/HKJr23/10-26-07004.jpg

Empty combination weight of this trailer and one of our tandem axle tractors is right around 42,000 lbs., but it is indestructible!

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[Pipeman]

They use long stick hoes around here to clean out county drainage ditches. They're pretty cool to watch due to the long stick and wide, flat bucket with no teeth.Known as "Clean-up Bucket".

[RSTrans]

Kranky, that thing is just a plain monstrosity. There is nothing that I would be affraid to put in that trailer. Only problem is that it's not practical. One bucket from a 980 of 982 and your going to be over gross here in Calif. Hell one rock like I used to haul and your screwed. Those are some good pictures. I will get my camera charged and take some pictures of the way we do things out here. I'll show you the 16 tire in service, the scraper jeep and basket in service and what ever else I can get some pictures of. If you guys saw how we did some of the things you would wonder why its so much different here compared to the rest of the country.

[Kranky 1]

Kranky, that thing is just a plain monstrosity. There is nothing that I would be affraid to put in that trailer. Only problem is that it's not practical. One bucket from a 980 of 982 and your going to be over gross here in Calif. Hell one rock like I used to haul and your screwed. Those are some good pictures. I will get my camera charged and take some pictures of the way we do things out here. I'll show you the 16 tire in service, the scraper jeep and basket in service and what ever else I can get some pictures of. If you guys saw how we did some of the things you would wonder why its so much different here compared to the rest of the country.

Take some pics & post 'em up!

I'm always interested in that kind of stuff!

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