I Need an Earth-Mover-Thingie-Doo-Dad

[MicroPilot]

I know you want to go cheap, but would renting a track loader, maybe like a CAT 935 with an 8 yard bucket work? I think it cost me $1500 for 5 - 8 hour days when I rented this machine to do the finish grading at my house. I had to move LOTS of dirt, and this machine worked great, and was easy to use.

 

[JerryG]

If your really set on doing it yourself, I think that if you can swing the cost, you should go ahead and get a Hoelscher. You could recoup a large percent of your investment by selling it when the job is done.

 

[MossRoad]

<font color="blue"> Oh, yea, I forgot. I DID have an alternate plan. It was to trade dirt for work. That didn't work out too well. Everyone wanted the dirt, but nobody wanted to work.
</font>

Hee hee. /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif

No $20,000 here either! /forums/images/graemlins/tongue.gif

Have you thought about starting a mine? Maybe call some sand and gravel companies and offer them the dirt for free. Might involve lots of red tape, though. Just a thought. Wouldn't work if you want to keep all the dirt. /forums/images/graemlins/frown.gif

Anyhow, good luck with your project. Keep us informed as to your thought process. /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif

 

[timb]

Kind of ironic - I was just going to post a message wondering if anyone else had ever used or even heard of Hoelscher. The pricing is too much to be a no-brainer but low enough to at least consider. Wonder of wonders there is actually a dealer fairly close to me. I wouldn't be surprised if more than one person wanted one of these on a 'long-term rental' basis. There might be a fairly active trade in used units - when I get a chance I plan to check with the dealer regarding used versions or even rental possibilities. I've never noticed anything in this category at the tradtional rental yards.

 

[MMM]

Maybe find a buyer for topsoil, rent equip and hire dump truck. You shouldn't lose too much money. Surely not as much as a rebuild. Your tractor just wasn't made for this. Use it to dress area up afterward.

 

[have_blue]

</font><font color="blue" class="small">( I wouldn't be surprised if more than one person wanted one of these on a 'long-term rental' basis. There might be a fairly active trade in used units - when I get a chance I plan to check with the dealer regarding used versions or even rental possibilities. I've never noticed anything in this category at the tradtional rental yards. )</font>

You know, that may seriously be the smartest way to go. It's still hard on the tractor, but not nearly as hard as pushing a huge FEL for 500 hours.


Unfortunately, the Hoelschler units supposedly require too much power for my tractor. The 1.1 yard unit requires 35 HP minimum. The unit only weighs 3000 pounds gross. Seems like my tractor would pull it easily. <shrug> I mean, there are no roots or rocks, and you don't need to scrape over an inch at a go. My pond is 400' long, so even 1/2" would fill it up in 1 pass. <shrug again> Maybe it puts a lot of the weight on the 3 point hitch. That's why I think 4 wheels is the way to go.

Yep, I could bite the bullet and pay 4K for the 1.1 yd. unit. When I get finished with my project, I could sell or rent it out and recoup over half of my money. I would come out way cheaper than hiring it out or renting an excavator and dump.

I still think I could build something, but it would probably cost $1500 with the price of steel these days. My land is paid off in 6 months and my tractor in 2 years. LOOK OUT! With all that disgressionary cash, I may buy out Brown and Root just to do my little pond! /forums/images/graemlins/cool.gif

 

[SPIKER]

have blue got the e-mail, spoke with boss aobut you;re situation, and he agreed that 35 hp and pulling a pan is a very slow and the pan could at max only get 1.5 cu yards at a time, and maybe only get aobut 4' swipe wide. not very efficient at all. the SMALL pan will easly stall out his 85 hp 4x4 tractor. it is 5' wide I belive and his normal cut is 1~2" deep full width. that is the yellow pan, the BIG BLUE is gone, but was about 7 yards, and was 7' wide cut and would SLOW his 150 HP 4x4 not to stalling but to slippage state, untill you got 5+ yards of extra weight back there, reason the 2 wheeled unnits work better the more dirt in is more weight on rear end for traction. but even then too much CUT they will porporse up/down a bit. and wheel path is usually outside the CUT on the tractor. narrow tractor or not, usually can't cut WIDE enough to clear wheels... so have to CUT move over a bit then NEW cut NEXT TO but not over lapping the 1st cut. the 3rd cut links the first 2 cuts to form a BIGGER 3 wide cut.

anyhow keep up good work.

Made myself a Pallet Mover/ rock mover/ Spray Rig holder today, and will powder coat it later this week, (friday) more than likely. WHITE as it is in the gun... I'll post a pic or two.

Mark M /forums/images/graemlins/cool.gif

 

[fishman]

I have a hard time imagining any piece of equipment you could hook to your TC35 and move that much dirt in a reasonable amount of time. I put about 40 hours on my B2910 moving a little over 100 cubic yard of dirt to continue building my lawn. I used the FEL and the process was fairly efficient. That is a tiny drop in the bucket compared to what you plan to do.

Speaking of, what exactly are you doing? Are you digging a pond? I'm sure you've thought about the situation a lot, but I'll second Egon's suggestion of looking at alternatives. Perhaps someone here would have some good ideas if we knew more about the project you are working on.

Otherwise, the only thing that I can think of is a dump truck or a dump trailer. Fill it up on site, and then drive to where you want to dump it. That sounds more efficient to me than carrying a small load several hundred feet with your tractor.

 

[VT_Kioti]

I like the little Hoelscher scraper that was shown. I would really like to see it in operation. However, from my experience I would have to agree with Dixiedrifter. It will take a lot of luck and some "just right soil conditions" to do much real work with the little guy. The problem is with the soil, not the scraper. If the soil is soft and free enough for the scraper to pick up a full load, it won't be firm enough for the traction needed to get the load. On the other hand if you have the traction, the soil will be too hard for the scraper to pick up much before the tractor just can't pull it anymore.
I used to operate an Allis-Chalmers 18 yd self-propelled scraper "back when I was but a pup. This I learned: Even those big Buddha's could only pull/push the scraper so far into the borrow before it would start to spin. Then the pusher (usually a Cat D-8) would come in behind you and take you the rest of the way to a full load. Boy, we used to hope for a good D-8 driver. /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif If you got a really good one you never knew when the Cat touched the scraper. A bad driver or one who just didn't care could snap your neck every time. /forums/images/graemlins/mad.gif /forums/images/graemlins/mad.gif Without the pusher the best you could hope for was about a half a scraper full. Then Cat came up with a system where they hooked a number of scrapers together and they would help each other. I never ran that system but it looked promising. The point here is that none of these scrapers could do it alone so I don't hold out much hope for a CUT pulling one.

But……. The little guy looks cool. However I'll bet with out something back there to push, you could do as well with the bucket on the tractor or a good Box Blade. And for a heck of a lot less money. /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

Al

 

[Tractors4u]

If this one could do it, surely a CUT can do it. See the attached picture.