BX23 500 hours!!!

[Allen2]

Congrats on the milestone! I'm only up to 40 hours since March, so I feel like a piker now. Good to know that the machine is going to hold up. Your stump pictures are impressive. I haven't tried anything that large yet, but I have a few larger ones coming up. Best wishes for another 500 hours.
Allen

 

[SCB]

Thanks for the kind comments guys. It has been alot of work getting our place to where it is. Alot more to go, too. Thankfully most of the real hard tractor work is done. But any seat time is good seat time! /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

 

[jim_wilson]

The 24" bucket is working out very good. When I originally got it I was contemplating putting teeth on it but after using it for a while I realized that probably was not a good idea. Putting teeth on a bucket that wide on the BX23 would probably lead to breaking something. For serious digging the 12" bucket is better - the 24" bucket is excellent for digging in softer soil or for moving a lot of material. I bought the bucket because I thought it would make it much easier for me to dig a flat bottom trench for the foundation hole I am working on. That has proven to be true. It has also helped quite a bit with moving the dirt out of the hole - my problem is that because I am digging a trench for the footer that I can't get the tractor into in some cases I have to move piles of dirt sideways using the backhoe and repositioning the tractor until I get the piles down where I can access them with the FEL. The 24" bucket can pick up 3-4 times the amount of dirt you can get with the 12" bucket because you can heap it much higher. The wider bucket also works excellent for carefully stripping off topsoil.
Makes me think I should get my welder out and go into business making wider buckets for BX's.

 

[jim_wilson]

With the 24" bucket I was able to put a nice flat bottom on the trench - much easier than the 12" - the edges are starting to get worn off the cutting edge though - I may have to get a new one welded on at some point.

 

[jim_wilson]

An overall view - I have done some more digging since this picture was taken - hope to actually be done and ready for forms by the end of this weekend.

 

[SCB]

That's quite a project Jim, did all the large rocks in your pile come out of the foundation dig? Keep us posted with the pictures. I'll be watching with interest, as My shop is one of the next projects. Got any tips for digging the foundation now that you have done it? Anything you would do different?

 

[Gowfster]

Help me understand what you're building... I'm confused by the dig in two areas- the width of what looks to be the footer area and the elevation of the interior portion that looks to be a couple of feet below the driveway grade? I love digging and building and have done it enough that my family calls my place "The Compound" because I can't stop building new stuff- but you've got me stumped.

 

[jim_wilson]

The pictures may be a bit deceiving - the land slopes down away from the driveway area so the front end of the dig (nearer the driveway is deeper than the back end. I am no expert on foundations but around here I know you have to be at least 42" below the frostline and the foundation footer needs to rest on solid, undisturbed , well draining soil. All of that pretty much ruled out a slab because I would have to do some serious filling to bring the ground level up to the point where that could be done - and that would just be asking for trouble with settling etc. down the road.
I dug out a wide trench for the footer area because the foundation contractor(s) I have talked to asked for it - said they needed enough space to be able to move around and work with the forms. The front portion of the dig is also a little wider than the rear portion because there will be a bumpout in the structure (left hand side looking at it from the driveway) where the entrance door will be.
There is a raised portion in the interior portion of the dig because the whole interior of the foundation is going to have to get backfilled anyway - to bring it up to the level of where the floor will be. So once I got the topsoil stripped off and got down to gravel I decided to leave it there - less digging = getting the job done quicker and less backfilling.

 

[jim_wilson]

The large rocks came out of the foundation dig and also from when I dug the driveway out last summer. After doing all this excavation with the BX23 I think there is something I would have done different - get a bigger tractor /forums/images/graemlins/wink.gif. Although the BX23 does the job I think even a slightly biggert tractor would have made it go much quicker - at this point I think my perfect tractor would be a BX23 like TLB but more along the size and power of a B7610. This is somewhat second guessing my original decision process though - once I am done with the foundation hole all of the work I have will be handled great by the BX23 - and a bigger tractor would be excessive, so I guess there is no perfect solution - other than maybe two tractors, or an excavator and a tractor /forums/images/graemlins/laugh.gif

 

[SCB]

My thoughts exactly Jim. I often wish for a bigger tractor, but in the end the bx will be the right size for my 3 acres.