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“A lot of scoopy scoops”, i surely hope you bid that job by the hour!!! I’m glad you found bottom without sinking to China!! It just shows the skills of a good operator, keep digging (not too deep) my friend!
Chris that is going to be a lot of mud to move but I know you can handle it so anyway my friend another great video so you and John stay safe and keep the videos coming and the tailgate looks good on the back of the haul truck.
You guys should invest in a GPS system like Trimble. We have one and once you get the model built it would make a job like this much easier and faster. I didn’t think it would pay for itself anywhere near as fast as it has for us. A base and rover would get you started don’t even need machine control to start. Eliminate grade stakes, laser, plans all of that. Very simple to understand once you get started.
For these jobs you need a mud sled. Think a large toboggan with sides on it. Dump the dirt onto that and tow it over to the load out site. If you had a winch on a big dozer you could drag it the way they used the old cable plows.
That does sound like a good idea, we used something like that for mulching on the golf course, dragging the mulch than stopping at every tree to add fresh mulch in the spring and end of summer. How would you make it work on a job like this? Clear a path for the dozer or on the sides? This job site seems incredibly tricky due to the water, even if you get it down to bare ground that becomes deep mud again with the water table setup
@@chosen1one930 The first couple pulls would be the hardest, after that the muddy grass would act like grease. Pulling would depend on what the bottom was. A crawler dump would be handy as well, but when you only need it for say 3 jobs a year it might not pay for itself very quick.
I was thinking a conveyor might at least cut down on how many times he has to move the mud. A smaller scale one like Parker uses on the show Goldrush would be pretty cool. He used an excavator chassis with an enormous boom.
Looking like you got a Good start on it Chris. Just hope that hill holds out , once you start hauling the mud out ?? We will see when you guys get going good on it..... Other than the hill holding out, looks like it's going to go pretty smooth.... Mud, mud, and more mud !! lololol.... Have a Great Evening Chris !! And, On too the Next !!
I have no idea why watching a guy dig up some mud is fun to watch. But for some these are the best ones! (There's a guy in Latvia who mostly digs ditches for swampy roads, and that's fun too.)
You’ve had a good start on the pond clean out,sure everything will fall in place once you start the dredging.keep doing your thing and enjoy the weather 👍👍👍👍😎😎😎😎
It's much easier to build fish habits and have them tied down with blocks etc and as you said no more worries about clogging the overflow. Tires, pipes, trees etc are all great.
Oh that’s a lot of mud to move! How much deeper is it after you reach the level you want? If the ground was solid at the bottom, could you use a dozer to bring the mud closer to the haul truck? You really do have a good variety of jobs! Never a dull moment.
I've seen several of Chris's projects where he has had to move the same material multiple times. He is so patiently philosophical about it. I wish I was a genius and could develop an inexpensive and practicable system of move-it-once. I'd be a rich man!
Takes a special kind of person to keep operating at full steam through monotonous work. Though as the business owner I’d suspect the payday at the end is rather inspiring!
@@danl.909 Those rigs have to have super clean materials or clog’s equipment and pipes quickly our local water co dredging reservoir had floating dredge even silt from bottom has debris had to move processing plant closer to water because of clogging debris in pipe
Awesome. Just believe Chris is all-the-time thinking about how he can do this better and quicker.. then realize what he is doing is the best and the quickest to get the job done.
Chris definitely does a great job on every project. He’s one of the best operators on RU-vid. Dirt Perfect does great work too. Those two are basically the only two heavy equipment operators I watch on a regular basis.
After you spend thousands of hours on a machine you get very good at doing that task and then you can let your mind wander and try to figure ways to make that task easier and/or faster. As a farmer in Florida I spent hundreds of hours each year cleaning drainage ditches. I bought a deep, 5 ft wide cleaning bucket for my JD 510 backhoe. Looks like a bucket that size or larger would make this job go much faster. Time is money.
Excellent work Chris, mud master, pond master, goop master Chris is at it again, making ponds great again, alot of mud, tailgate was a must have, that's a nice incline the truck has to climb, thanks for sharing the best content on YT Chris, look forward to seeing the next video 🇺🇸
That’s a lot of mud. Dredging it out will ad a lot of water to the pond. You always do such a good job on every project you take on. I can’t wait to see the next video.
Love the channel! I look forward everyday to see the new videos. I also have gone back and viewed alot of the older posts. If I had my youth to do over again I would be doing what you do for a living. Thank you for sharing. God Bless you and yours! Keep on keeping on!
Can't wait to see it all finished. I love this project. Bet it is going to look gorgeous when it's all done. It is a massive project with plently of problems with mud and hills But I have FAITH you will make it look stunning. 😎
Screed, A layer or strip of material used to level off a horizontal surface. I have seen lots of cement finishers work, but never used a screed (mat) like this! Love and enjoy your videos!
Good on ya! After a couple hours of this, my A.D.D. would kick in and I would be figuring out anything I could to get out of that cab! You, Sir are a great operator!
Loved this video and your narration! This is a huge project. You do amazing work. Looking forward to following along. Thank you!!! God's blessings and stay safe.
I like the foolproof tailgate design. They should have designed a pin like the bucket for ease of install. I think the mat screed is ingenious and fast.
Always just as interesting to see you work. You are not just a professional at driving the machine, it is just as much about planning how and what to do. Greetings from Gothenburg.
Love your use of the pads as a spatula to pull up large swaths of mud and muck. Wish there was an easier way to transport the muck from middle to the extraction point. Could it be pumped out with something similar to a concrete pump system.? Wishing you and your family a blessed week. Happy spring Chris.
Hi from uk chris👍👋 cant wait to see how clean this pond will look once completed as it wasnt much of pond more a dene with a stream😂 but house will have a lovely view once chris has come through👌 thanks for your time and be safe see you soon👍👋
After watching just a few of your videos, I've watched them all, I'd like to think your viewers would figure out that you know what you're doing. I'm convinced. I've got my ideas, but I'm quite positive in knowing that you know what you're doing. This series of videos is going to be some of your best yet. That beautiful tailgate!! So excellent. A video about that would be incredible to watch.
Put alot if those gates and side boards on 773 775 and 777 hual trucks. Landscaping the woods lol have to love the irony of moving to the country but "cleaning" up the woods. Another awesome project!!!
I think if you shorten the side cables, the tail gate will be ok for hauling trees and brush, it lifts too late to clear them right now. Super long logs of course that are longer than the truck won't fit in the haul truck.
Chris, how do you deal with a client who is looking for a way to not pay full or the bidded price? For example, let's take this pond and the engineer being very specific. Does 'to grade' mean spot on everywhere or in general? And if in general does the engineer have the ability to make you keep working on it until he is satisfied? Perhaps a video on problem customers might be of interest to more folks than just me... best.
you bid the job according to the stamped approved prints, and you cut and grade to the elevations, if you do that and you know your spot on, then anything after that is an add on or as built and cost more, with that pond work just say the cut is gradually getting deeper and your pulling too much your just costing yourself money because your going to exceed your yardage and not be finished with the cut so you’ll be eating it .
A lot depends on how the contract is written, the exact wording. If it says that the grade will be cut to 343.20 foot elevation in a 100 foot by 500 foot area designated by survey flags, it will generally have a Tolerance or Varience factor given, so maybe +- .2 tenths of a foot. Then as long as everything is minimum 343.00 and maximum 343.40, it passes, and anything outside that needs to be corrected. It could also be specified to cut down to 343.20 maximum surface height, in which case you can go deeper and remove more material, but you are only getting paid to go to that level, so places can be deeper, but nothing can be above that. For a pond they generally don't care about going deeper, except if getting rid of the dirt is a problem lol But generally if you don't complete the project according to the specifications, and according to the contract wording, you will need to correct the issues, or you are likely to have problems! In this case if you have actual blueprints, they should have all the specs you have to follow, and the contract will basically be to create the end result as shown on the blueprints. And how picky the engineer or project head is all depends on the job. If the goal is to have the water 5 feet deep under the dock, and one spot of gushy mud is 6 inches high, it may not matter, especially if they are going to working out there further to build the dock, or the engineer may be very picky and write them up if he can find a single mud bomb that measures above the spec, even if all it needs is to be stepped on... Lol
@@njonebale7889 in the video Chris read the elevation on one of the grade stakes and I couldn't remember the exact elevation but I tried to get close lol I used to be the grade setter on pond projects that would give Chris vertigo from the tall pond dams and I still remember a little of it!
Chris, I don't see how you could go wrong, with all of the experts giving advice. I do like that 12 foot finishing blade and it's fun to see a tailgate on the off road truck.
I thought this was going to be a much deeper pond for once. It looks like it could be deeper if they wanted it to be. Maybe it's a matter of how much they can waste on other areas of their property. I'm really looking forward to the next part Chris!
Oh, it's going to be fairly deep. This is the head section after all. The closer to the dam you get the deeper. Down by the dock, the cut is over 4'. That's a gigantic amount of material to pull out. You don't want more than 12 or 15 feet of depth anyway. Deeper ponds will turn over. If that happens, it'll kill all the fish.
Maybe weld on some heavy duty pegs _behind_ the pivot point of the dump gate so when it is closed it's just touching them. That way if/when you DO have to take the gate off, it will be a lot easier to get back on.
Right several places along the arms, just set the gate on those and bolt it back up. Could even space it for shims you keep on the truck. Or if there's clearance, flip the gate all the way forward after disconnecting the cables and strap it down.
Chris, I am looking at that tailgate and thinking that if you had four lengths of 2" round bar that were drilled to take decent sized bolts, you could place them in the top corners of the web that holds the pivot. I don't know if the bed is double skinned there. If not, drill through and have a nut on the inside. If yes, then you might have enough meat to tap a thread in the bed, or weld a 1/2" thick reinforcing plate to make the threaded hole strong enough. Then take them off and and keep them hand for the next time you need to refit the tailgate. If I was doing it I would drill the 2" bar a little off centre, and drill holes into the circumference so you could turn the bar like a cam to fine tune the bushing location. It might sound like a bit of work, but it would take me one to two hours depending (mostly on if the bed is double skinned there, and how thick it is at that location. Another method would be to drill holes in the web big enough to put a tapered pry bar through, and smaller holes in the bed that aligned with the holes in the webs. Then use one or two pry bars to lever the bushing into position - sort of like the trick of fitting truck wheels with a pair of three foot pry bars that lift and rotate the wheel to align the lug nut holes. That would be easier and faster, if you had the means of drilling the webs - you'd need something like a 3/4" hole to give the pry bar room to be angled so they could pick up the holes in the bed.
Sure looks like this pond project is much easier on you and equipment (pins, bushings, roller, etc...) than the animal hospital with all the bed rock, last year. The old/new haul truck looks like a great add to the fleet.
This haul truck is John's truck. Chris recently bought his haul truck for his company. Chris works with and for his uncle John 3 days a week, running John's company's equipment and the other 3 or 4 days a week Chris works for himself and uses his own equipment.
Tail gate working good. Mats working good. Mud doing what it does best - getting wetter every scoop. Excavator dredging going good. Weather beautiful. Letsdig18 in his element. Love it.
While you have the tail gate on the truck, bolt on a frame mount that holds the tail gate in the proper place, then hopefully it will just be a matter of bolting on the frame, drop the tailgate into place, bolt it up, remove the frame and away you go.
Some tabs welded to the bed side plate of the pivot plate, and a few across the bottom of the tailgate, then simply unbolt the pivot plate and then left/set the gate back on the tabs.
Incredible job you're doing cleaning out that mess Chris. Absolutely no doubt that the owners will be bragging to their family and friends about your ability to take a seriously nasty eyesore and turn their pond and property into a thing of beauty. You definitely earn every penny they pay you on jobs like this one.
You don’t want the Volvo stuck like that excavator you rescued on that one job back when! That sucker was buried brother but you got it out, that was a good video Chris! Thanks for sharing my friend and we’ll see you tomorrow hopefully if the rain holds off! Stay safe and healthy brother! 👏🏻👏🏻👌🏻👌🏻🤙🏻🤙🏻🤙🏻🇺🇸
Morning Chris, looks like you may have to make an attachment the same size as a mud Matt to go on your machine. It makes a nice job of scraping the sludge off the base. I take it that your fitter chap fixed the "No high speed" issue with the air line blocked up. Machine looks good. Nice video as normal. Regards Richard 🇬🇧
Great looking job. Wish I could do that, oh well, I have problems running my sisters little Nights backhoe. Although, figure if we would let me borrow it more I might get fair. Stay safe!
I've seen you use one of those mats several times to scrape with. It moves an incredible amount of material fast and gives a nice finish! You should build one out of steel and name it "The Bisquit" like for cleaning the gravy off your plate!
Chris, how deep is the mud once you cut that 4 feet out? Is it down to solid ground where maybe the haul truck could drive on it? I’m sure you guys have thought about it, but I’m curious
I was thinking about those little track dump trucks on a roll out stabilization road. I know they only haul like 6 yards but three of them hauling all the way out to the fill site. Just wondered
maybe fab a couple brackets that bolt and unbolt simple and easy, which acts as an alignment type thing. Sturdy enough to support the weight of the tailgate arms, and only installed on the bed when installing the tailgate. When installed the tailgate gets lowered, to rest on the brackets, then the mounting bolts for the tailgate arm pivots are fastened, then the brackets get removed. No more painstaking alignments every time you want to install the tailgate. Compliments on your many videos.
