"Heavy" could mean many things, depending on context. I'm thinking primarily of earth moving equipment larger than a wheelbarrow/shovel combo.

Full disclosure requires that I admit to never having earned a living operating ANY machinery of this type, but I've hired and/or observed quite a few different ones.

I judge them based on precision, speed, and efficiency.

My vote goes to the backhoe.

Crane. Hands down.

Crane would be my pick also

Granted, a large crane looks impressive. I even got the chance once to try throwing a dragline bucket in exchange for letting the operator run my swabbing machine........ we both chickened out.

But a GOOD backhoe operator can be moving the hell out of dirt and "feel" a plastic line in time to avoid cutting it. It takes a LOOOOng time to develope that level of expertise.

I met a guy in Benoit, Ms. who had his own backhoe business and filled in for a local Ag Pilot flying a turbine powered Air Tractor.

He said the backhoe took longer to learn.

Yep crane, the F'up factor multiplied.

I've ran most grading, digging and lift equipment professionally. Backhoes are fairly easy.

Kent

Cable log loader......The old timers used to be a hoot to watch..

"I've ran most grading, digging and lift equipment professionally. Backhoes are fairly easy."

Ditto here....

The crane is tough - but I'd have to vote for moving dirt with a small tractor. Larger is better, when you can do it.
Small tractors are a lesson in frustration.

I'd go with Rosie O'Donnell as difficult-to-operate heavy machinery.

Ridin' a hoe is easy.
Especially on back.

What I hate most is a lawn mower.

The mechanics of backhoes can be picked up quickly, especially with the toggles/joysticks of today, the old four sticks were harder to master.

Feeling is more of a sixth sense. I've dug hundreds of foundation footing, retentions, plumbing trenchs on open lots. It's blow and go, if there was a hidden line, or away from blue stake, it gets cut.

I also worked on fireline reto fits, where existing buildings are brought up to code. Digging from the mains out in the street, coming through all the utilities in the easements, and entering the business. That can be tricky and a experienced spotter is needed. Any pebble feels like a gas line.

Kent

I consider a double jack to be "heavy" everything else is just drivin',,,,

Crane is probably hardest.

Mastering a road grader to the point of being a finish grade operator isn't for amateurs either.

The difficult part about yarders is the extreme boredom........

Cranes, meh. Impressive but slow and easy.

Operating anything is easy. We call them guys "lever pullers".

Doing the job efficiently and safely is a total different game.

I would say getting proficient on a dragline is one of the tricky ones. Lots of "feel" involved in them. As mentioned, road graders can be tricky, especially the old knuckle busters.

What's a double jack??

Ive ran equpimemt for over 20 years. Old drag line. ,

Personally, I would not advertise that item on your "bucket list", then again you two have so much in common. Did she make you a sandwich too, although my guess is she probably ate it..

I Remember this one time, me and a fishing buddy, digging up an old farmers septic line.

A Case hoe from the 60s

Doing general maintenance before load up I'm raising and lowering boom and out riggers and he's pumping the grease gun when all of a sudden his phone rings.

I shut the ignition and listen.
It's his wife.

"Whatcha doin honey? "

He looks up at me grins...

"Just greasing up an old hoe. "


LMAO!

Finish roller on Pavement


Or small dozers

YOU got that right
That being said every body so far is right but lots of guys have a NATURAL ability on [ ] and it's a ball to run them. the level of difficulty comes in acessing the lift, material to be moved, condition of soil [ site]steepness ,draining the swamp, keeping the machine above ground , or the crane on its outriggers,, not getting yourself backed into a corner and in lots of cases haveing a machine on site BIGGER THAN YOURS just in case

norm

in the OLD days a 2 handed sledge hammer for drilling holes in rock for blasting ---- one poor trusting bugger held and turned the drillsteel as you hit it with the sledge ,, just remember you trade places a lot during the shift



norm

Somebody ate something.
Prolly some sandy sushi.

You can buy them in the same isle as a Mexican backhoe...

Kent

Worst I had to run was an old D-6 in the winter here. Just a miserable job, start to finish. Those damned ponys could be hell to get started. Get the engine running and pray you see everything capable of making you toss a track.

Road grader cutting finish grade.

Please tell me you did't check the oil on that one???

Cable tool?

I ran "blue tops" as a kid while working on on a Rock Crusher crew. Them guys could sure raise hell if you caused them to pull one up.

Of ALL the equipment used in that operation, the "steam" shovel operator was paid the most, then the dragline guy.

I drove an International Payhauler and an end dump Euclid.

Running blue tops was the only "whiteman job" that ranked under those two.

Well. I'm not gonna start talking about tossing one off.
That's just morbid.

But I will tell you about two dumb assed masturbaters that got the big excavator stuck in the mud.

Supervisor drives all the way out to the jobsite an just shakes his head.

"You stupid bastards couldn't pour piss out of a boot with instructions printed on heel. This machine can lift itself."

He waded down through, climbed aboard, swung around stuck the bucket down in the mud and pushed that 9 ton sonofabitch up on to dry land.

He crawled down off, shook his head, got backin his truck and drove away.

Yep, you guessed it.
Them two fum duckers didn't get a pay raise.

I haven't operated a dragline or shovel but I never could get the hang of running a grader. Backhoe isn't too tough to learn.

Y'all keep saying that, and it's true as far as "running" one goes. Even I could probably learn to dig a neat grave, for instance.

But... to watch a top notch OPERATOR of one get the job done with no wasted motion and no collateral damage still impresses the hell out of me.

I don't know if they even use "blue tops" any more, but we used to have to fine grade to them. They were 1 inch square stakes driven into the crushed gravel (road construction ) and the grade foreman would run in front of the grader. There would be two stakes, and the grade foreman would signal the grader man as to how much to cut and fill at each 50 foot station. As soon as the grader man got the signal, he'd nod his head, and the grade foreman would run to the next station and signal the grader operator when he looked up. It took a good grader operator to cut grade to the nearest 1/4 inch all day long. I plowed snow with a grader, but never cut grade, at least not much. Did run blue tops though.

I've run a lot of different equipment over the years. With the new controls on cranes, they are pretty easy and accurate to control these days.
Just about any heavy equipment has its quirks, but with a little time just about anyone can be taught to run just about any heavy equipment proficiently. Backhoes and excavators are just about the easiest to learn, IMHO.

Sometimes it's the small stuff that is hardest to run. Anyone ever try to run an optolyth? Or try to get a scissorlift into a space30 feet up and only 1" bigger than the lift dimensions without damaging anything in the process?

Bob

Everyone things they can run a hoe But there is big difference in digging s ditch or hole and digging flat , strait and to grade . Very few can dig to grade with a track loader

My BIL has been an equipment operator for many, many years. He once told me that the guys who are really good on a road grader are damn near artists.

Cranes are the worst for me, with a Gradall second.

Road Grader, had a fella that had ran one for 30 years tell me, "I am still learning things."

I'd go with a grader cutting finished grade.

Crane is pretty simple, the trick is not killing anyone with your load.

On another note, ya'll have obviously met some folks that operated equipment, you don't exactly have to be a genius to work one, how hard is it really?

I'd say crane or grader, but Horizontal Directional Drilling machines take some finesse

Friend of mine drove a truck most of his life was in the top 5% of Mensa. His brother is a state supreme court justice.

the non genius` up here are called seat warmers they can load trucks or sort of build spoil piles and sort of grade excavations , but to cut slope and load trucks at the same time,no, to fine grade so you don`t need a cat or skidsteer to finish, no. I have over 40.000 hours on hoe and am still learning things, pulling levers lots of people can do , doing it right is a different story.

also depends on country your in and what your foreman wants or thinks he wants,

norm

Road grader is very difficult. Even a novice can hop in a backhoe and dig a hole, or load a truck. Graders take some serious skill.

A good blade hand is the hardest to find.

No. But the neocon down low is that you're her favorite Latin lover. She said that you can make her tub of Rocky Road melt when you whisper neocon ideology in her ear. Even flies on walls up and died when you guys talked of gun control and foreign intervention, favorites of neocons.

I have a friend who drives truck too, couldn't poor piss out of a boot with directions on the heel.

My point being that a truck driving Mensa member is probably the exception rather than the rule. Also I am not saying they are a bunch of dumbasses, just that they are typically not Mensa members.

To be a good blade man takes the highest technical expertise.
What you need to be a good crane operator is very good judgement. Technically, it's not all that difficult.
Of course, It's all changing now, with the computers, GPS, lasers, and site mapping, a lot of construction equipment can be run by less skilled people, almost on auto pilot.

I agree with this man - but in reverse - gradall take a lot of skill.

I got 38 yrs running most every type of equipment made.

to be good and experienced on either of these is harder than any other equipment - but like anything if you spend enough time in the seat working lots of hrs its get way easy

What are you referring to with "gradall"? I think blue reach fork when I hear gradall.

this guy is good/ brave/ crazy

machine on wheels usually used to clean hwyway ditches long telescoping boomwith rotating bucket,

norm

A Nosler box!

Sometimes it's more the working conditions than the equipment that makes operating difficult. Cutting a ditch to 0.070% grade and trying not to get stuck at the same time.

Its not the operating that is the hard part of the job on any of the equipment out there. Its the knowing the machine and what it can and can't do, the things you've got to remember to do or not to do to keep from damaging the machine or getting you or others killed. And of course all the things you can run into that can screw up the job. Not to mention all the times that you've got to rely on people that you can't even see. Doesn't take much to ruin your day or the company you work for.

Phil

Bear, ya need one these!

^^^^^^Yes^^^^^^

Fellerbuncher!!!! i have run and owned quite a few pieces of heavy construction,and logging equipment, 4 excavators and the john deere 653 E fellerbuncher with Timbco sawhead was the most difficult and frustrating machine i ever owned and ran. Imagine a tracked excavator with 6 more functions on the joystick, cutting off 60-100 foot trees juggling them ,swinging around and placing them where you want them!!!! the guys that run them will know, and those that haven't should give it a try sometime,oh ya i forgot you are hardly ever on flat ground,mostly on steep slopes rocking on stumps and boulders !!!!!!!

Yes things like this most people do not understand, and d under / around fiber, elect. primary, swer mains, communication lines. add in some over head lines to watch out for, yeap any Tom Dick or Harry can run a hoe.

That ain't a big deal , really it ain't

That hoe is "attached" pretty well to keep it from tipping and what you have to look close for is the cable attached to the dozer on the other side helping "pull" after the hoe is in place for fowared motion.

Medium size loader was not problem, except we were always working in tight spots, with pipelines nearby...



While probably not the intent of this thread, running a twin diesel jet landing craft was the most difficult for me. This boat...



...had plenty going on down on the deck, let alone the wheel house...



And of course, being on an ocean with current and wind added to the fun.

Geeze, I was getting worried for a minute that nobody would chime in.
I'm going to have to jump with both feet on Heavy saying you don't need brains to run big iron. I have my office in a logging shop, I trade mechanic and woods monkey time for cheap rent and power-tool privileges.
The partners are long-time buddies of mine. None went to cowledge like me, but they have ridiculous skills that a lot of smart people don't ever try, much less develop. I've had the chance to work the toys I can comprehend, that's the skidder and the Cats, but its going to be a big leap for me to run anything further up the food chain and not kill myself.
Skill set 1: Three dimensions, over time. They have to know where they are, what's around them, where everything will be when the move is over, and whether that move sets them up properly for the NEXT move. It's hard enough on the flat, try it on the side of a hill. Big Stick and Loggah can relate. It is effing hard to input/output 28 tons or so of irritable iron. Just TRY running a clipper on a crunchy mountain. Or just process logs with the computer thingie. Don't smash into the log truck or the skidder or the yarder. See if you can feel that soft spot in the ground through your operator's seat BEFORE you flip over a quarter million dollars.
My dad was a fighter pilot, ran Cats before the Air Force and logged for a time after retiring. His phrase, and he should know, is situational awareness. Flying demands the same kind of awareness, of "otherness" -- or bad stuff happens.
Skill set 2: Mechanics. If you've ever opened the access doors on any hunk of green or yellow iron, you will see a greasy mess of hoses and wires, lube points, et cetera et cetera. The manuals on these things are three inches thick and in Chinese. Now, imagine you had a fire in the valve body and the machine is hundreds of yards up the mountain. In snow up to your waist.
Go ahead, figure out how you're gonna isolate the plumbing so you can crawl the thing down to the road and then to the lowboy so you can get it to town. Go ahead. In a blizzard.
Or let's do something easy -- find the leak in that there hose-bundle, and then swap the $*%$^# out for the right replacement! Or just try to drive the pins that hold everything together without killing somebody.
I'll concede that grading and trenching and good crane flying (I used to rig red iron) is wonderful stuff, I've worked with the best. But to have that finesse in the woods, or on rough, uncertain ground -- that's darn near voodoo. Add to that the ability to run and maintain and FIX your toys, and I'd say pound for pound, modern loggers win.

I've not nearly the professional experience of those here. Most all my work was relegated to a CAT 980F in what could be considered a type of open mine.

Running loads of stone in this environment - which happens to be directly on the river with nothing to keep you from going in - keeps your head on a swivel.



I also used a wore out Pettibone and spent time loading MI logging trucks. For me that was the hardest. Loading level, even and QUICK when it's 5 am and -30 is important.

With gross weights over 160k - it has to be right. Notice how nice and neat this is loaded.

Pulling a M1 engine with an 88, like this. $750,000 engine that has very exact tolerances for going in and out of the tank. Kinda like pounding finish nails with a sledge hammer...

put a rubber tired hoe on a hill , skidders are stable. If you think a good modern equipment operator doesn't need brains , than than you are lacking in such

As said doing final finishing with a road grader is right up there for requiring skill. But sometimes I'm just as impressed with a fairly easy to operate machine where the operator hits way out of his class and can do amazing things.

I've been around construction since 1980 or so not as an operator but from the survey and engineering end. I remember these two guys on a big rail road construction job in the early 80s in northern BC, one a graderman and one a lowly belly scraper operator. We were pulling a huge cut section bringing the ground down a couple hundred feet to grade. It was a fairly soft clay so it was critical to keep the slope even exactly 2:1 all the way down to hit where we were aiming for and also so it would be stable when wet. I was the stake jockey marking grade stakes as we went to make sure everything was kosher.

Today you'd pull that cut and make the slope with huge excavators but back then they were just coming on stream and were slow and expensive. These two guys did it all. An old busted up guy in a belly scraper took the outside lane all day and no one else touched it. By eye he'd move over a couple feet, lower his blade and fill up the box with his steady one foot cut, then bounce down the fill and dump it. Over and over, with a push cat when it got sloppy. So this is being done with a wiggly old buggy with slow jerky hydraulics from 15 feet in the air. After him in comes grader dude. With a wing blade on. He'd flatten out behind the scraper with his belly blade and looking over his shoulder he'd jog on the wing set along the slope. He'd take a pass or two and I'd bring down some more stakes. These guys were right on the money pass after pass. Maybe a recut or two to get going in the morning but once they got their groove it looked like someone polished the slope and it was dead straight. I've seen a lot of amazing stuff over the years but nothing that really tops what those old boys could do in those old machines IMO.

I was in the Operating Engineers Apprenticeship Program for two years. 'Had to eventually drop out due to lack of work prospects at the time in Northeast Ohio. I lived just a few minutes from the training facility, and we were allowed to go play around on anything they had over there as long as one of the instructors was on sight. I got to learn how to operate a lot of equipment. For me the toughest hands down were the road graders. I couldn't for the life of me figure out how to make that darned blade cut flat and smooth-I'd have it tilted to one side, or rolled too far forward or back. Hard as I tried, I just never got the hang of it. The cranes never seemed too bad to me, with the exception of an old Garwood we had set up with a clam bucket. I never really did figure out how to cast the bucket out very far. Easiest for me were the dozers. We had a D-7 hydraulic and two TD-18 cable blades. Loved those old 18's.

+1, Friction drag lines are as tough as it gets IMHO.

I have spent my whole life working around heavy equipment. Ran most of it except the cranes where I worked as a rigger. To me one of the toughest jobs was building road on slopes with a straight blade dozer. You would have to carry planks with you so you could put one under the side of the track to get your bit to bite into the hill to start your cut and then maintain your cut and grade. Back in the mid 70s when I was in college I ran a dozer for the Forest service during fire season. The dozer boss would tell us " we want a fire line up that ridge top" and we would put a line up there no matter what.The thing that separates seat warmers from skilled operators is that feel in the seat of your pants. It takes a lot of seat time in a piece of equipment to be able to feel what your machine is doing.

And Dave Skinner, yes I have been up to my armpits in a piece of machinery trying to chase a blown 6 wire hyd. hose buried in a mess to get loose to replace. People think we are nuts for driving our combines around steep hillsides but it is no different than anything else. If you are brought up around it you don't know any different. Good operators are fun to watch. I know that they have worked hard at their trade and they should be commended.

Its not real heavy, difficult for some, but it sure was fun to operate.

I give you the mighty UH-1.



That is me and my IP in flight school, Lowe Army Heliport.

Hawk, A few guys around here have used those to spray with. But parts are getting so expensive that they have sold them. Had a friend last year that did a major service on his and on his test flight got about 100 ft in the air and something let loose in the control system on the main rotor. The stick became so violent that he could not hang onto it anymore and beat his legs to the point they were severely bruised. He came back down in a pile and stuff flew everywhere. Luckily nobody was hurt and he did not hit anything on the ground. They had to kick the front window out and cut him out of the seat. Spent a couple days in the hospital with some broken ribs and other than being beat up was pretty lucky.

I run one of these for a few months in pike co KY in the mid 80s......I decided there had to be a better way and walked away.

gradall rubber tired grading - telescopes in and out - 360 rotation of cab and boom

just google gradall

its totally different from any other kind of "backhoe"
you also steer and forward reverse

no stabilization - other than setting parking brake

You highly experienced guys know a bunch better than someone like me, but I though it was difficult working a big land plane behind a D8 on AZ desert land at 120+ degrees ambient. The added heat and motion from that rig created its own thermal twister of rising dust. I was very inexperienced but eventually got the hang of it, but it never got to be fun. Gary, worked an early Gradall in the late 50s - I thought it was great for its purpose but very tricky for a young dude. I never became really proficient with any big equipment as my career efforts were elsewhere, but the temp work memories are good. These days, a backhoe, or loader or skidsteer are plenty for me.

No crane operation whether the smallest or one of the largest is just pulling levers.

Anyone who has had to move miles and miles on end of K-rail with a small truck crane will know.

Link

Swinging nearly 8,000 pounds of concrete from off the truck around to the rear or other side place and swing around for another and averaging 1 ever 45 seconds to a minute, truck after truck after truck with no breaks and usually working 10 or more hours for days on end. All kind of ways to screw up and injure or kill, and usually having to fight the traffic authority and job supper the whole time. Not to mention those jobs where lanes have to be closed and the hefty fines if you don't finish on time so that the lanes are reopened on schedule.

Or those bridge jobs where you should have had a crane twice the size, but still have to get the job done anyway!!! Having to back a truck crane up the side of an embankment just to get with in reach of the job, and then have to use your outriggers to jack up the crane to where its level, and there is no one but yourself to hop in and out of the cab to place 60 pound or better 4'x6"x8" cribbing under the pads, so many that by the time your done you can walk under fully erect underneath the engine, and if you don't have enough cribbing your scrounging all over the construction site trying to find anything usable to get the crane level (safely).

And of course there's always the fact that most times you never now the people your going to be working with and who is going to be doing the rigging.... Big IF there.

If your lucky you get a crew and super that understands something about cranes capacity's and their charts, most don't give a hoot, just get it set up and get it done.

Easy, sometimes you might have to go through the whole thing a half dozen times or more a day.

That's the smaller cranes, the large cranes are a whole nother story and just as much work.

Never minded the physical work, its the always having people in harms way.

Cranes are no different than any other piece of heavy equipment, there is a lot of risk all around.


Phil

My wife, broke down one week a month, hard to start, always making bad sounds.

From my perspective (not an operator) it has to be the cranes. The operator has more responsibility and concerns than any other piece of equipment.

Seldom would a mistake on a grader, hoe, or any other piece of equipment have the potential to hazard as many workers on a site as what the cranes do.

I have flagged the long stick rigs, often in the blind, and the operators who are good at it are nothing short of amazing.

With the Playstation generation, computerized joystick equipment of today does not compare to the equipment that had a different lever for each movement of the machine operation..

Big difference.

I've been running forklifts, skid loaders, wheel loaders and boom trucks most of my life. Usually, once you get comfortable with them, they become part of your body and you don't really have to think about which lever to pull or push. It just comes natural. Most types of machinery is basically the same from one unit to another except truck booms. It seems like every crane I own has different controls, so I always try to keep the same driver on each unit whenever possible. They'll be quicker and more efficient that way.

I'm a certified forklift trainer so that when I hire new guys I can train them myself. It seems like every guy has a different learning curve, but most get it eventually. It never fails though, every now and then I come across a guy that's unteachable.

When I was a kid and took out my first load on a boom truck, thought I was hot chitt and forgot to put my outriggers down. It was an old drywall crane where you'd sit up on top. Lifted the 1st pallet off and swung it off to the side and when it started going over, I released the controls and was going to jump. But when I let go, the boom swung all the way out and stopped the truck up on 2 wheels. So I let it down and had to climb down and clean out my britches.

Y'all may see it differently, but it appears to me that cranes get the nod from observers, while the operators vote for the dirt workers.

I've got boom trucks, but real cranes are dangerous. You've got to know the geometry of how much your lifting and how far out. I wouldn't like to do it.

I agree with you, but I can be on the phone this afternoon and have multiple good crane operators here tomorrow at 7:AM. That's whether it's a hydro, conventional or tower. I've not had that luck getting a good blade hand.

Most crane operators don't just operate cranes, last job I was on had to go from crane to semi, to auger, to back-hoe back and forth every day & night through out the job working split shifts 6 on 6 off around-the-clock throughout the week, load, transport and place the rebar cages, drill 6' dia. holes 60' deep, load the dirt and trench, even assist in building forms and pouring the concrete.


Phil

"Talented sumbitch, ain't you?"

I've forgotten the movie that line is from.

I did love rigging and flying iron. It helped that I took the time early on to memorize the hand signals and the geometry placards on the machines. Pretty soon I was the ground guy or high guy on everything. If we had some big reaches, we'd get out the calculators and pencils before the pick started just to be sure.
It was a pretty mental game, which is why I enjoyed it so. Having operators who could respond immediately and exactly, who you could trust with your life, was a grand thing.

One thing not discussed here is the "art" part of the work. My Navy stepdad was all tonnage all oceans rated master. That boat stuff is complicated, and gets exponentially so with the weights and power involved. Ship handling theory is fine, but actual practice is a flipping ART.
Blading is an art. Terrain management is an art. Moving in four dimensions is genius too, just not in words or numbers. Too many people just don't appreciate that.

The trick to it is to make what ever you do look easy, from the guy unloading trucks all day on the loading dock to the one running the pan and not dropping or destroying anyone or anything.Never could get the hang of a backhoe to even bury a cow,but enjoyed running the combines and other equip. on the farm and the over the road trucks. Some of the lift guys at the docks could put the containers on the trailer and never shake the cab ,others would make you pray they didn't wreck the whole dock

When he feels the plastic, it's too late. You poked a hole in it already.

I would go with cranes. Takes knowledge and experience, good depth perception, good touch, etc. Otherwise everyone is runnin' for cover.

Backhoes, loaders and most other such critters are fairly easy to master.

Worked with an old goat in the early 70s that could run hell outta a Cleveland grader. Needed to be a ten armed monkey to operate that thing well and he did it with two arms. I never learned to run it any better than to flatten/spread piles of limestone ballast on street jobs, never wanted to, either.

Most everything thsese days seems to be infested with joy sticks. Watched a kid grade the gravel road past hunting camp a few years ago with a new CAT grader, nice job, good stick wiggler.

Last month hopped up into a new CAT rubber tired backhoe, same deal, joy sticks everywhere. The ol' boy that owns it asked me if I would've liked something like that 30 years ago, when I was running an IH or JD hoe. Hell yes. Worst POS hoe I ever had to fuss with, was an IH 3400A. Great litle digger, PITA to road move. No torque to speak of, break an arm trying to shift the fooker.

Might just be me, but if I haven't run one in awhile, skid loaders give me fits for about the first fifteen minutes.

It's not so much the difficulties of operations of the equipment but the consequences of if you screw up.

Know a cranes limits (geometry) and limitations (load limits) and it's a piece of cake.. Screwing up on a motor grader can easily be fixed.. ain't near the same, danger wise, as screwing up on a crane.

Most any operator you find on any construction site is fully capable of running multiple pieces of equipment and is quite often shuffled back and forth. Most have a preference, but it doesn't take much to screw up, local guy some six or so years ago killed his self with just a short lapse of caution. Started up his back-hoe and left it to warm up at beginning of shift, got off to grease the swing pin and bumped the swing lever crushing his self.


Phil

Cranes are their own thing. Things happen very slowly and in a calculated way. Don't get me wrong you don't put a rookie on one on a big busy construction site it does take skill to be sure.



True that even with tilt blades on today's dozers cutting a slope is something most would be lost at especially today there's less and less cat skinners. Only because excavators have won the day for most everything.

How about the old cat and can? What a freakin gong show they were just a big cat usually a D 8 anyway or a 9 towing a belly scraper frame. The cat's winch was rigged through it to open and close the gate there's your control, that's it. I saw a few work when I was a kid I remember one guy that was cut loose on his own building road along a river out in the boonies, big ranches not much traffic so standards were low. It was rolly country along a river with 20 and 30 foot humps and holes we surveyed right of way only for him. At the end of the week he had maybe a quarter of a mile of sub grade built all on his own. It wasn't pretty as far as nice cuts and such but the alignment wasn't bad for 30 mph the posted speed. The grader smartened it up a bit and then it was ready to be graveled. Slow but pretty impressive.

curdog4570, according to my wife - "that would be the washing machine"! memtb

If used properly, it will move dirt!

just like most things in life - if you repeat it often enough - it gets easier

time spent in the seat of most heavy equipment makes for a more knowledgeable - skilled operator

first timers in cranes are just like first timers on backhoes - graders / dozers etc.- you'll suck at it

to be good takes years of experience and hands on everyday , it doesn't matter what it is

always wanted to run cranes - the "big Boomers" and get away from dirt work - oiled on a few - operators wouldn't let you get a chance running it much - finally figured that one out - they didn't want you taking their job in the future or at a different company

dirt guys where -here you are - get on it - run it - figure it out - just don't f nothing up

a far as finding great grader operaters - anyone can learn to run one - I did -

job site needed some piles rough grade knocked down - here ya go get it done -
I never considered myself a finish hand - finished a lot of stuff but boss always complained I was too slow - once a company has one they never let him go that's why you don't find may around - they don't give guys a chance to make mistakes - if your not fast and get it done the first time - you are replaced.

just like anything times have changed - from old cable rigs to the geared rigs to the hydraulic rigs

now its joy sticks and lasers

hell even cars and trucks now have turn knobs on the dash to shift - no more shift levers

Watching the Korean's rig, lift, transport and set my 6,000 tonne modules via an 8,000 tonne floating crane was a sight to behold. The orchestration of the 3 tugs precisely moving the crane was simply amazing. So I choose this.

just go and google excavator tricks or excavator stunts

then tell me how good an operator you are !?


some are easy and simple - some are quite good

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There's a lot of operators in the world and only a small percentage can jump on a live boom 83 and be good. This is a machine that will bite you and anyone around you in the a$$ when you ain't ready for it. At the end of the day you're just happy you and no one else gets hurt.