A few projects I have done recently

[CM1995]

I know one guy who put 3D Trimble and a fully automatic coupler on a 35 ton machine specifically to hammer and dig rock to grade. Last time I talked to him, he hadn't had any abnormal issues compared to his 25 ton machine with the same GPS.

Good info. Thanks for sharing!

I didn't think it would affect anything since it's just a couple of days of running the hammer.

Side note - had a local outfit look at adding aux. hydros and a QC to our 321 to run the hammer. QC no issue however the 321's pump doesn't put out enough GPM to run this hammer.

 

[AzIron]

Your 321 won't like a 5000lbs hammer anyway you feel it gets a light ass and your 325 has a fair bit more weight wich will engage the rock a lot more piston rebound is a big part of hammer technique

Its been well studied what hammers will do to a machine and its not nearly as stressful as using a ripper bucket in rock i would imagine tech components hold up to abuse in the same fashion the rest of the machine does

I have machines with thousands of hours of hammer time there is not much to note we ran a test machine in rock with a ripper bucket and after like 500 hrs that thing was showing the abuse even in the electrical

 

[willie59]

In my experience, the thing one has to be careful about with hydraulic breakers on an excavator is the hydraulic couplers. Standard flat face couplers don't like the hydraulic pulse impact. It will do 2 things, 1) brinell the steel balls of the coupler eventually making it near impossible to make or break the coupler connection if it 2) doesn't do worse, which I've seen, that hydraulic pulse makes the innards of the flat face coupler come unglued inside sending metal fragments into the system. Not a good thing. My best remedy was using Stucchi VEPHD couplers, they're connect under pressure connectors and breakers don't harm them a bit. The downside, the VEPHD couplers have threads that screw them together, unlike flat face that snaps together and secured by the balls. Using the Stucchi VEPHD, the vibration of the breaker would make the "screw loose". That's when I starting using a single wrap of Gorilla duct tape around the coupler and a radiator hose clamp to bite down on it and prevent the coupler from screwing loose. Yeah, I know, more to do. But one thing I know about hydraulic breakers is that they break $--t including themselves and the machine.

 

[hvy 1ton]

Stucchi started making VEPHDL couplers with a locking pin to mitigate the vibration issue. I only know about them because I saw a set in person at the hydraulic shop last year.

 

[willie59]

Stucchi started making VEPHDL couplers with a locking pin to mitigate the vibration issue. I only know about them because I saw a set in person at the hydraulic shop last year.

Sweet!!!

 

[AzIron]

In my experience, the thing one has to be careful about with hydraulic breakers on an excavator is the hydraulic couplers. Standard flat face couplers don't like the hydraulic pulse impact. It will do 2 things, 1) brinell the steel balls of the coupler eventually making it near impossible to make or break the coupler connection if it 2) doesn't do worse, which I've seen, that hydraulic pulse makes the innards of the flat face coupler come unglued inside sending metal fragments into the system. Not a good thing. My best remedy was using Stucchi VEPHD couplers, they're connect under pressure connectors and breakers don't harm them a bit. The downside, the VEPHD couplers have threads that screw them together, unlike flat face that snaps together and secured by the balls. Using the Stucchi VEPHD, the vibration of the breaker would make the "screw loose". That's when I starting using a single wrap of Gorilla duct tape around the coupler and a radiator hose clamp to bite down on it and prevent the coupler from screwing loose. Yeah, I know, more to do. But one thing I know about hydraulic breakers is that they break $--t including themselves and the machine.

Yea i was always to cheap to put quick couplers on the bigger hammers

The 1100lbs ones on the backhoe have them but that's to make it easy and for small work where you might swap once or twice

With the bigger machines we always just used jic fittings and and had 2 machines there or planned out to swap once a day

Stucchi is expensive and I am a cheap ass

 

[CM1995]

Your 321 won't like a 5000lbs hammer anyway you feel it gets a light ass and your 325 has a fair bit more weight wich will engage the rock a lot more piston rebound is a big part of hammer technique

The 321 is about 8K lbs lighter than the 325. I think it would handle it but it doesn't matter at this point since it doesn't have aux. hydros and not going to get them.

In my experience, the thing one has to be careful about with hydraulic breakers on an excavator is the hydraulic couplers. Standard flat face couplers don't like the hydraulic pulse impact.

What Willie said.. Yes flat face couplers will come apart on a hoe and hammer this size.

Yea i was always to cheap to put quick couplers on the bigger hammers

The 1100lbs ones on the backhoe have them but that's to make it easy and for small work where you might swap once or twice

With the bigger machines we always just used jic fittings and and had 2 machines there or planned out to swap once a day

Stucchi is expensive and I am a cheap ass

We have QC's on the 305's to run a hammer and plate tamp. No issues with those so far but it's a little hammer.

Yeah those Stucchi's are expensive. The 325 has threaded couplers we take on and off. Sucks when the hammers been running due to being hot but is tried and true and won't come apart like QC's will.

 

[willie59]

On the bigger excavators, 200 class and up, it's really better to direct connect, JIC or whatever, as opposed to quick couplers. But when I was still in the bizz we had rental customers that requested quick couplers as they would be frequently swapping bucket and breaker. Whatever skippy, here ya go, that's why I used the Stucchi couplers. As for the 5K breaker on your 210, never did that, always fitted them to a 250 or bigger. I say go for it, I'm curious how that works out.

 

[CM1995]

Main pond with OCS roughed in. Part of this main pond is in cut and part in the fill slope the crew built last month.

The OCS has an 8" opening for regular function of water detention however the specs required a Faircloth skimmer until the site is stabilized.

Guys took a piece of plywood then ran the 2" PVC outflow through it with Ferncos on either side of the plywood then Tapcon'd them to the structure. Normally we'd grouted that pipe in the 8" hole and have to bust all that out later. Now 4 screws and it's removed.



We were able to get our erosion control sub to hydroseed the slope and pond right before a 1" rain. It's been a ridiculously wet summer.

The ponds will need to be touched up grade wise due to the small erosion rills however the goal is to get some grass established and re-grass the areas as needed upon completion.



Started storm line B coming out of the main pond. The starting invert of this line is basically the bottom of the pond. The crew had to push a dam up in order to keep the water out of the ditch line.

Rock, rock and more rock.

 

[CM1995]

Solid rock on storm line B -



After 3 days of rock hammering the crew got the first grate inlet in -



Another 65' to go to the end line hooded curb grate inlet.

Un-covered the rock so we can measure the cubic yardage. Rock is a unit price CO so it's imperative to quantify it then get it approved by the GC so we can get paid.



This is not the normal rock formations we run into. The layers run on a slant where some of the rock is easily fractured and some just makes dust under the 130 GC hammer. Then you run into a hard clay between them all.

 

[CM1995]

On a side note finally broke down and bought a new trench roller - A Bomag 8500.



Our 2 Wackers have been great but getting a little long in the tooth and not reliable. Would've bought another Wacker however the lack of a local dealership nixed that idea.

I've been looking for new one for a while. Even at Conexpo last March I asked the Wacker guys who is my local dealer? The only reply I got was "I don't know but "Joe" should know but he's not here".

Local Bomag dealer has been wanting our business so we went local with support.

 

[CM1995]

Wife and I went to Biloxi, MS for her B'day.

Got a nice room at the Beau Rivage with a corner view of the Gulf of America.



Interesting project where the feeder road from I-10 goes into the Gulf. Some sort of beach restoration where they are dredging and pumping sand up to restore the beach.

They had 3 D6N LGP's, a 330 and a 924/930 wheel loader spreading the sand out.

This pic was taken on Thursday afternoon.



They worked all weekend and I was mesmerized as this was such a foreign way of moving dirt.

This was their result the following Monday morning when we left. They worked straight through the weekend.

 

[willie59]

Nice Bomag, looks like it has split drums that you can remove the outer drums and use it in a more narrow trench. As for the soil. Here in East TN, mostly dirt including clay, limestone, some sandstone depending on where you are, and a few other geo mixed bag. But you guys, where you are, it could be sand, it could be pea gravel, it could be gray clay or red clay, it could be chert, or limestone, or quartz, even marble, and you guys even have iron rock! I know, I've had to drill holes in it with a drill rig. Grrrrrrrr

 

[CM1995]

Nice Bomag, looks like it has split drums that you can remove the outer drums and use it in a more narrow trench. As for the soil. Here in East TN, mostly dirt including clay, limestone, some sandstone depending on where you are, and a few other geo mixed bag. But you guys, where you are, it could be sand, it could be pea gravel, it could be gray clay or red clay, it could be chert, or limestone, or quartz, even marble, and you guys even have iron rock! I know, I've had to drill holes in it with a drill rig. Grrrrrrrr

We are right smack dab in the middle where the Appalachian Mountains meet the Gulf plains. Many moons ago there would have been sea and mountains - now we get to dig through it.

Several large dirt moving outfits come in from neighboring states and underbid the local guys on a large project only to leave with their tails dragging.

 

[Oxbow]

On a side note finally broke down and bought a new trench roller - A Bomag 8500.

View attachment 363586

Our 2 Wackers have been great but getting a little long in the tooth and not reliable. Would've bought another Wacker however the lack of a local dealership nixed that idea.

I've been looking for new one for a while. Even at Conexpo last March I asked the Wacker guys who is my local dealer? The only reply I got was "I don't know but "Joe" should know but he's not here".

Local dealer has been wanting our business so we went local with support.

We just finished renting this Husqvarna.

It worked well but it was frustrating that while you could run over someone, but it would stop if the operator got within 10 feet or so.

 

[willie59]

We are right smack dab in the middle where the Appalachian Mountains meet the Gulf plains. Many moons ago there would have been sea and mountains - now we get to dig through it.

Several large dirt moving outfits come in from neighboring states and underbid the local guys on a large project only to leave with their tails dragging.

And that's a fact Jack. If you don't know central Alabamastan geology, then don't try to play the role of the big dog, just stay on the porch.

 

[CM1995]

We just finished renting this Husqvarna.

It worked well but it was frustrating that while you could run over someone, but it would stop if the operator got within 10 feet or so. View attachment 363594

One of the problems one our newest Wacker has is it will not stop when you want it to. Some internal gremlin we don't have the time to chase out. It has hit structures and walls before - thankfully with no damage to either but still not good. This one is going on the auction block.

The oldest Wacker is the most reliable and I'll keep it as a spare. It has some weird electrical gremlin that sometimes makes you have to cycle through the starting process many times before it cranks.

What I like about the Bomag is everything is controlled on the remote. Start, stop, idle - everything. It has auto idle down when it stops for so many seconds.

One can run the Bomag sitting in the excavator cab if the conditions allow it. Use the hoe to backfill the ditch then crank the roller up and pack it.

IIRC Wacker makes the roller for Husky?

All the trench rollers I have owned/ran till stop within 10' of the one holding the remote however it will run over something in it's way.

 

[CM1995]

And that's a fact Jack. If you don't know central Alabamastan geology, then don't try to play the role of the big dog, just stay on the porch.

10 years ago Brad Cole Construction from ATL won the bid for a new distribution center for Hibbetts sporting goods at our local airport. Nice sized job around 1M sf of building.

Rumor has it they ran into white chert on one end and bottomless swamp on the other. They have since been bought out however once that job was done I didn't see a Brad Cole truck back in central Alabama.

Same with Eutaw Construction out of MS won the site package for a large high school underbidding all the large local outfits by 100K's. They show up with tractors and pan scrapers - for white chert...

After ripping a bottom or two out of the tractor scrapers they sent those back home and went with hoes and artics which is the only way to move white chert. Even then this stuff is so abrasive it will eat teeth, cutting edges and tracks.

Once they completed the HS project I haven't seen a Eutaw truck in central AL either..

We did a project with white chert in it back in the mid 2000's. Bought a brand new D6N and wore the pads out in 500 hours - no joke. We'd go through a set of teeth on a 325 in 2-3 days. Had to rotate them daily for even wear.

 

[hvy 1ton]

some of the rock is easily fractured and some just makes dust under the 130 GC hammer.

I ran into some weird geologic conditions last year:
2-3" "topsoil" that was half dirt half limestone chips
2-3' orange clay with no rock at all
1-1.5' shelf of captured limestone
more orange clay, didn't dig deep enough to find the next layer

The weirdest part was how variable the limestone was. With a 6 ton I could in 10' go from pulling slabs of rock out with the bucket, to hammering for 10 minutes for 2 linear feet of trench, to peeling layers of rock out with the bucket, and back to hammering. The almost as weird part was the rock was only in the lower contours. The 300' on top of the hill was easy digging. I called multiple rental places trying to find a rock wheel trencher, but no dice. I know somebody has one, because I see it laying fiber ducts occasionally.

Got 1500' of 2" IPS water line put in, but it wasn't fun.

 

[CM1995]

It was the first time we've dug in this type of material even though we've worked all around the area for over 20 years.

To the north it's red and white chert, then sandy red dirt with grey and blue rock. To the south is more orange chert then sandy flat ground along the river. Going back west gets into the limestone quarries.

As Willie said - we have mixed bag buried underground.