Dozer Work

guyute65045

Hey all,
I have a question for all of you dozer hands out there. I just submitted a bid for a some utility and clearing work for a rural subdivision, stuff I am more than comfortable doing in an excavator. In talking with the owner/developer he threw an interesting offer out to me in regards to another project that is in the pipeline, which I have not a ton of experience doing. He has and existing 2000ft 1 lane road, about 15ft wide on a great gravel base, he wants to regrade it and expand it to 24' wide. I don't have a ton of experience on a dozer, but have the ability to use a D6n that my dad possesses. I have less than 40 hours running it, mostly pushing over smaller trees and clearing logging roads for him. I am almost faster and more accurate with either of my excavators. I am thinking though that this might be a good scenario to get more seat time as the situation is a little looser. I learn equipment pretty fast and am familiar with grading using many other pieces of iron. I was thinking about clearing 2 weeks on my calender to try to work this if only for the seat time, and charge a far hourly rate to cover my costs plus materials. Am I out of my mind on that time frame? I have been thinking that it is time for me to learn to drive that dozer well. But a part of me says just bid the utility work and keep making money with the excavators. Thanks for the input.
John

tgeb

Given your some what vague scope of the work, ( making a 15' wide road 24' wide), I would probably be more inclined to use a track loader or trackhoe to cut to subgrade and load out the spoils.
A dozer would be fine to then grade the stone as it is brought in. Unless you have a site that you can simply angle left/right and blow the cut out the side I don't see how you could do this with just a dozer.



But I am not a dozer man!

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www.gebcon.com

rino1494

A D6N is a beautiful machine and great size for doing that type of work. As far as a time frame, that depends on how rough the road is. Are there trees to take down, drainage ditches to be cut, etc... Just a simple regrade of a road and making it wider with extra material should take no longer than 3-5 days. You are working by the hour, so 2 weeks is good...lol

Actually, the best machine for this task is a grader, but you use what you have.

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rino1494

Tom, you need to make your way up to NEPA and spend some time in the seat of a dozer and it will change your mind.

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MIT

All I can say is dozer dozer dozer. Once you have mastered the dozer you will wonder how you ever did without it. As far as spoils if you cant lose them load them with a hoe later.

guyute65045

Thanks for the replies folks, I am sorry about the vagueness of my post. I blame the sudafed, or the cold that forced me to eat it.
I would also use my excavator and my loader on site, Hell I could do it all with the excavator if I had to, but I want to get some time on the dozer and this seems like a good project to use it on. I forgot to mention that I would use the Hoe to cut a ditch on the uphill side and all the spoils can be wasted on site. The clearing gets taken care of while the power goes in. The end goal of the road some day is to be town specs so they might consider taking over the maintenance. The immediate future though is to make the one lane road two lanes.
Thanks again for all of the replies, that is why I love this site.
I forgot to mention that if I like the dozer I get to use it a bit next year, I guess thats what parents are for.