Quantcast

Watching big machines at work is fun

  • Come enter the Ridemonkey Secret Santa!

    We're kicking off the 2024 Secret Santa! Exchange gifts with other monkeys - from beer and snacks, to bike gear, to custom machined holiday decorations and tools by our more talented members, there's something for everyone.

    Click here for details and to learn how to participate.

I Are Baboon

I Are Baboon

Vagina man
Aug 6, 2001
32,745
10,695
MTB New England
So they are in the process of replacing our parking garage at work. Of course, first they have to remove the old garage. Every time I have to use the mens room, I walk by the main lobby where I can see the construction machines at work. I just have to stop and watch for a few minutes.

They've got bulldozers and tractors and dump trucks, but I think the excavator is my favorite (or maybe it's called a wrecker?). And every time it smashes something, the whole building shakes. BOOM!

:dancing:

It's funny to see us men standing at the windows watching, and the women just roll their eyes at us. Why can't they just understand? :D
 
J

JRB

Guest
Julie used to call and tell me about the machinery at the hospital while they were doing dirt work. I love a good D8R at work. Watching them tear stuff up is about 40 million times less entertaining than doing it yourself. I even enjoy watching a plow turn dirt over. It's nice to see immediate progress, or whatever you choose to call it. :D
 
TreeSaw

TreeSaw

Mama Monkey
Oct 30, 2003
17,813
2,132
Dancin' over rocks n' roots!
We used to be entertained by big machines and wrecking balls when I worked at GE. Great fun :D Personally, Sq-Earl and I would love to get a small excavator to build dirt jumps and stuff in the back yard. Oh the fun we'd have!!!
 
J

JRB

Guest
TreeSaw said:
We used to be entertained by big machines and wrecking balls when I worked at GE. Great fun :D Personally, Sq-Earl and I would love to get a small excavator to build dirt jumps and stuff in the back yard. Oh the fun we'd have!!!
Click to expand...
Excavators are good for digging holes. Bobcats kick ass for piling stuff. They are fast too. :thumb:
 
Westy

Westy

the teste
Nov 22, 2002
56,005
22,043
Sleazattle
Just up the road from my house they are building a water tower and doing the old slash and burn to 300 acres. Nothing like sitting out side on a nice spring day to hear loud rumbling and rattling while getting chased back inside by thick clouds of smoke.
 
Rockland

Rockland

Turbo Monkey
Apr 24, 2003
1,880
286
Left hand path
I Are Baboon said:
Correction: Demolition machine. I mean, how could you NOT watch this thing in action?

Click to expand...
I saw a show on t.v. about the people who operate those. They were mentioned as having one of the highest job satifaction rates. Easy to see why.
 
Da Peach

Da Peach

Outwitted by a rodent
Jul 2, 2002
13,781
5,220
North Van
I had a workterm in northern Ontario driving a CAT 777C, an 80 ton haul/dump truck. That was sweet. Having the shovel operator "nudge" you to let you know you'd parked to close to load was always an experience...

Then of course there was the time when the loader operator spilled a boulder about the size of a VW onto the canopy covering the operator cab of the truck I was in. I hit the ceiling pretty hard and the windshield exploded! Cool!

And then there was the time where the shovel got stuck in 3 feet of mud and we used our trucks to tow it out. We snapped 3 1" steel rope slings drying to drag the mofo out. Twang!

And of course....the handbrake turns in the mud during night-shift.

My desk is nowhere near as cool.http://cmms.cat.com/cmms/servlet/cat.dcs.cmms.servlet.ImageServlet?imageid=C046094&imageType=1

She was a sweet ride... This one is a 777D but about the same...
 
SilentJ

SilentJ

trail builder
Jun 17, 2002
1,312
0
Calgary AB
loco said:
I love a good D8R at work.
Click to expand...

I almost "looped out" a D8 once.....well, actually it was more like almost endo-ed backwards off a cliff, but basically the same idea.

One time we were on a vacation in the Black Hills in SD and we were checking out this big-ass open pit coal mine. My dad just drove on - totally illegally. We were intercepted by security pretty quickly, but the guy was cool and let us check out some of the parked equipment. They had some tracked bulldozers that made the D11's look like toys. I have a picture of us standing beside the and my dad's head (5'9") is a good foot below the bottom of the drive pulley. I still don't know who made those dozers...who makes or made dozers bigger than D11's? There were also some scrapers there that were ridiculous...dont know who made those either.
 
H8R

H8R

Cranky Pants
Nov 10, 2004
13,959
35
I Are Baboon said:
Correction: Demolition machine. I mean, how could you NOT watch this thing in action?

Click to expand...

I watched a guy running one of those who was a stone cold pro - I got to watch it from about 50 feet away. He would bust down a concrete wall, then break it up by picking up a giant wrecking ball with the scoop. Then he would pull all of the rebar out, and crumple it up into huge pile - like enormous steel wool.

Awesome.
 
J

JRB

Guest
SilentJ said:
I almost "looped out" a D8 once.....well, actually it was more like almost endo-ed backwards off a cliff, but basically the same idea.

One time we were on a vacation in the Black Hills in SD and we were checking out this big-ass open pit coal mine. My dad just drove on - totally illegally. We were intercepted by security pretty quickly, but the guy was cool and let us check out some of the parked equipment. They had some tracked bulldozers that made the D11's look like toys. I have a picture of us standing beside the and my dad's head (5'9") is a good foot below the bottom of the drive pulley. I still don't know who made those dozers...who makes or made dozers bigger than D11's? There were also some scrapers there that were ridiculous...dont know who made those either.
Click to expand...

Yeah - 11s are huge, so I can't imagine. Yikes.

No offense, but it takes a real dummy to turn an 8 over, and a bigger dummy to get anything with a shovel stuck. I've seen plenty stuck though.
 
SilentJ

SilentJ

trail builder
Jun 17, 2002
1,312
0
Calgary AB
loco said:
Yeah - 11s are huge, so I can't imagine. Yikes.

No offense, but it takes a real dummy to turn an 8 over, and a bigger dummy to get anything with a shovel stuck. I've seen plenty stuck though.
Click to expand...
None taken - I was taking it up a fairly new road that was cut out of the side of a hill when "road" turned into "air" underneath the entire right side of the machine. No damage was done to anything other than the road and my boxers.
 
J

JRB

Guest
SilentJ said:
None taken - I was taking it up a fairly new road that was cut out of the side of a hill when "road" turned into "air" underneath the entire right side of the machine. No damage was done to anything other than the road and my boxers.
Click to expand...
I always said that those guys that cut roads in the mountains have to have huge balls. :eek:
 
Toshi

Toshi

butthole powerwashing evangelist
Oct 23, 2001
39,758
8,757
good timing on this thread. :D i went to pick up my car this morning from a shop in the port district here in seattle, and was marveling at the machinery there. there were two locomotives moving around boxcars (with a loaded weight of 300 tons!) and they accelerate quite quickly even with 3 or 4 of those cars hitched up... :)
 
bjanga

bjanga

Turbo Monkey
Dec 25, 2004
1,356
0
San Diego
When I was little my dad used to take me to construction sites. Now, I ride through them en route to local trails. Bikes and machines in one afternoon!
 
bikenweed

bikenweed

Turbo Monkey
Oct 21, 2004
2,432
0
Los Osos
In high school, we used to get really stoned and just watch the workers demolish the old gym, swimming pool, and locker rooms. It wasn't much, but the operators didn't really know what they were doing, so it took forever. It might have been two acres worth of shtuff to demolish and it took about four months. I'd spend about half an hour daily just staring at the destruction instead of delivering the attendance sheets during Office Assistent. Usually the retarded kids do that job, but I had a hole in my schedule. Or they haven't told me something yet...



Even as a MTBing college student, driving one of those machines seems like the most awesome job possible. There's great benefits, too!
 
Wumpus

Wumpus

makes avatars better
Dec 25, 2003
8,161
153
Six Shooter Junction
loco said:
Yeah - 11s are huge, so I can't imagine. Yikes.

No offense, but it takes a real dummy to turn an 8 over, and a bigger dummy to get anything with a shovel stuck. I've seen plenty stuck though.
Click to expand...
Komatsu D575A

 
SilentJ

SilentJ

trail builder
Jun 17, 2002
1,312
0
Calgary AB
loco said:
I'm not sure that that thing's blade is as big as an 11's.
Click to expand...
Apparently it's a fair bit bigger...2' wider, 30 yards more capacity, couple hundred more ponies....you'd be able to build a pretty sweet 24x track with either one.
 
J

JRB

Guest
SilentJ said:
Apparently it's a fair bit bigger...2' wider, 30 yards more capacity, couple hundred more ponies....you'd be able to build a pretty sweet 24x track with either one.
Click to expand...
Yeah - I was amazed when I read the specs.
 
Potroast88

Potroast88

YouTube Boy
Jan 18, 2004
2,834
4
Bomb City
Toshi said:
good timing on this thread. :D i went to pick up my car this morning from a shop in the port district here in seattle, and was marveling at the machinery there. there were two locomotives moving around boxcars (with a loaded weight of 300 tons!) and they accelerate quite quickly even with 3 or 4 of those cars hitched up... :)
Click to expand...
Those were just switch engines, too. They are smaller than the big motors that actually pull full trains. On loaded coal trains there is usually 4-5 motors pulling and 1-2 on the rear of the train pushing. I've even seen trains with engines in the middle.
 
H8R

H8R

Cranky Pants
Nov 10, 2004
13,959
35
Potroast88 said:
Those were just switch engines, too. They are smaller than the big motors that actually pull full trains. On loaded coal trains there is usually 4-5 motors pulling and 1-2 on the rear of the train pushing. I've even seen trains with engines in the middle.
Click to expand...
The big engines use electric drive motors for the most part, right? Most of the thing is just a giant diesel generator.
 
J

JRB

Guest
I Are Baboon said:
So today they have this huge cement pumper out there with five cement mixing trucks at work too.

Click to expand...

In '95 I got hit with the hose on one of those and knocked down. It hurt bad.

I thought of this today. They are building road in Temple and have moved so much dirt. I wished that I had taken before pics. I may sneak some to add to the thread this weekend.
 
I Are Baboon

I Are Baboon

Vagina man
Aug 6, 2001
32,745
10,695
MTB New England
loco said:
In '95 I got hit with the hose on one of those and knocked down. It hurt bad.

I thought of this today. They are building road in Temple and have moved so much dirt. I wished that I had taken before pics. I may sneak some to add to the thread this weekend.
Click to expand...
Can you snap some pics of a cement pumper knocking you on your ass and post those? :D
 
MMike

MMike

A fowl peckerwood.
Sep 5, 2001
18,207
105
just sittin' here drinkin' scotch
I've got a helicopter hovering 5 feet off the ground right outside the window here. A 407....it's pretty cool watching they flight test these things. Crazy fast take-offs..... but the hover tests, are cool....just floating around the tarmac....slowly rotating one way, then the other.... helicopters are cool......
 
maxyedor

maxyedor

<b>TOOL PRO</b>
Oct 20, 2005
5,496
3,141
In the bathroom, fighting a battle
MMike said:
I've got a helicopter hovering 5 feet off the ground right outside the window here. A 407....it's pretty cool watching they flight test these things. Crazy fast take-offs..... but the hover tests, are cool....just floating around the tarmac....slowly rotating one way, then the other.... helicopters are cool......
Click to expand...
Meh, I live down the street from a hospital, and one with a great trauma center at that, so helicopter buzzing my roof is a bi-hourly occourance.

I do love me some big machines though, a couple days ago I got a tour of freight ship, it was pretty fcuking amazing to see how those things work.
 
J

JRB

Guest
I Are Baboon said:
Can you snap some pics of a cement pumper knocking you on your ass and post those? :D
Click to expand...
Yeah - I'll just warp my ass back and do that. :think:

I move pretty slow, and could be considered as backing up, but I can't move that slow.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top Bottom