Loader Subsoiler to help FEL digging?

[RadarTech]

Your machine is on the small side for soing that job. You can rent a mini excavator for a day and have every thing done by noon. Save your tractor and use the right tool.

I would second this..
Over here in Henderson County, I have rented a little 4K mini ex and the trailer for $190 a day..
For a bigger 6K maybe $225..
The cost of a ripper is not much less than that, and the mini ex will be a lot more fun..


J

 

[MoreCowbell]

I'm seriously considering doing that. Although digging the pool was my excuse to the wife to get the tractor in the first place. I may have some 'splaining to do

 

[RadarTech]

I'm seriously considering doing that. Although digging the pool was my excuse to the wife to get the tractor in the first place. I may have some 'splaining to do

that mini-ex will still not be able to move the dirt around like the tractor will...
so there is still a need..
digging the hole is only part 1!!!


J

 

[TripleR]

I'm seriously considering doing that. Although digging the pool was my excuse to the wife to get the tractor in the first place. I may have some 'splaining to do

Thankfully most of us don't have to follow through with the promises we made to get our tractors.

 

[LostInTheWoods]

The pool will be 16'x32' with an 8' deep end. Along with all that raw digging, another challenge is the shallow to deep end slope which is 3-to-1 (about 18.5 deg.). On paper that doesn't seem too bad but we'll see what it looks like in real life.

Help me out here, TBN engineers...am I doing the math right??

(16ft) x (23ft) x (lets say an avg. depth of 5ft) = 2560 cubic feet

At around 114lbs/cubic foot, that's 291840lbs of clay?

Man, I thought I was ambitious sometimes! As long as you don't hit rock or large tree roots (or inconveniently placed utilities) I believe you can do it. At any rate, I'm rooting for you! Pics would be nice!

 

[DiezNutz]

16 x 23 x 5 = 1840 cu ft, or as I like to think of it, 68+ yards. Your 114#/cu ft. is pretty close to the 1.5 tons/yard rule of thumb I use.

But you forgot about proper overdig, which is going to be significant here.

 

[LostInTheWoods]

16 x 23 x 5 = 1840 cu ft, or as I like to think of it, 68+ yards. Your 114#/cu ft. is pretty close to the 1.5 tons/yard rule of thumb I use.

But you forgot about proper overdig, which is going to be significant here.

Hmm, fingers must have flubbed-up when I was entering numbers on the calc- I mean, yeah, overdig....of course. I just threw that into the equation, you know, off the top of my head. Yup, exactly like I intended.

 

[DiezNutz]

Oh OK, there ya go. Well, you still need to flub in a bit more to even meet OSHA minimum guidelines.

 

[Baby Grand]

If you use a subsoiler, then you won't have much ballast when you go to use the FEL. This will make the tractor unstable, especially when you try to drive uphill out of the pit. You will also be so light in the rear that you may have trouble getting up the incline due to lack of traction. I think a box blade with all but 2 or 3 of the rippers removed would give you good clay breaking ability, good traction, good balance and the ability to move a lot of volume in each pass out of the pit.

I love my subsoiler, and I use it for all sorts of things besides subsoiling. But for what you're taking on, I'd say get a good, heavy box blade and sell it when you're done if you don't have any other work for it.

-Jim