RDrancher's Photo Thread

[RDrancher]

Yeah, you're out in God's Country as far as material goes Jim! The 4-6" I used here comes out of Sanger, so pricing is pretty good.

Finished up today.

 

[RDrancher]

Re-graded and topped a 450 ft driveway today. The driveway had veins of limestone here and there and I pulled out quite a few basketball and larger rocks to get it to grade and repair the potholes. Then I mixed and placed 73 tons of road base over the whole thing. Unfortunately the driveway access and street were too narrow to back the truck and pup in, so I had to shuttle it all from the street. While I was grading I recovered a lot of road base in the garage area, so I used it to make the customer an area to turn their car around. Lots of poison ivy on both sides of the driveway to stay away from.

 

[two_bit_score]

This is a really good thread. I take it that these are all one man jobs, done by you alone. Good work. Keep posting.

 

[RDrancher]

Thanks two bit.

I work alone most of the year, but this past summer I had my step-son work with me. I actually fired him the summer prior! Now that he's 16 and drives, he's a little more willing to get out of bed and make some money. I let him run the tractor while I operated a CTL on a job in July. At that age they think that they know everything, so it was pretty entertaining watching his frustration in getting the hang of the fel and box blade.

In my former life in socal as a licensed concrete and general contractor, I had anywhere from 5-30 employees at any given time. Now my job is a lot less stressful and I enjoy it a lot more!

 

[kf4uda]

You are defiantly an artist with box blade. I am enjoying your thread as well. It is obvious from the pictures that you do exceptional work.

 

[RDrancher]

Thanks kf4uda. I've actually only used the BB to scarify the last two jobs. I used the loader only to lay the road base.

Working in the office today, but thought I'd share some grading photos and random stuff.

The homeowner got this "dirt" (and I use the term loosely) from a pool dig down the street. It wasn't real fun to try to grade it out. Unfortunately, he paid the driver for this junk when he was actually saving the guy money.


Cricket hanging tough at 60mph!


Pulling t-posts with a Ratchet Rake.

 

[RDrancher]

Well I'd like to post some photos, but I got that red circled exclamation mark again.

 

[RDrancher]

Its like a miracle...I can post pics now!

Here's a 2 acre build site before I brushogged it a couple of months ago. I'm back there now hauling rock out and I'll be back the first of the year to grade it. The builder used the lot for a dump site for all of the other lots. The buyer was a bit surprised when I give him my price. He thought that there were maybe a couple of dump truck loads...not quite.


My dump site is less than a mile from the job and isn't 10-wheeler accessible. I could have used a bobtail, but my rental place just got a 14k / 14 ft dump trailer in. It's not new anymore! Fifteen very heavy loads so far and a few to go. I'm leaving as much soil as possible and separating out the rock. Some of the rocks showing were just the tip of the iceberg.

 

[RDrancher]

Finished up the rock clearing project today. Separated and hauled off roughly 160 tons of rock, two loads of concrete and a few loads of rock/soil mix.


I blew a hose on the 4in1. Nice mess.

 

[RDrancher]

I got about half of the limestone slabs and boulders separated this morning, then headed out to look at a couple jobs. Hoping for rain to come in!