rent/bulldozer

[Loose Goose]

anybody know how much it cost to rent a bulldozer and can I rent one local.sumter/columbia area,medium size?

[Chuck the Duck Slayer]

the cat rental store, united rental, or hertz rental. They will bring it to you and pick it up. However it better have a full tank of fuel and be clean. They charge 5.50 a gallon for diesel if they have to fill it up and a cleaning fee if it is dirty.

[TKRuffdog]

Really depends on what you want to do with it; clearing, grading, whatever. We've rented a D-5 every year for the past 3 years contiously trying to tame a large swampy clear-cut and that thing did a great job. My brother-in-law and I ran it and we really got the hang of it pretty quick the first year. Anyhow, we used Blanchard Cat in Columbia and I think the total bill with shipping, tax, the extra insurance fee(?), all said I think between $800-$1000? Also, I should mention that you must have an account there to rent, or you could go through a friend or relative if they have an account they would let you use. Hope this helps.

[Loose Goose]

hey tkruffdog what kind of time,was that for a week,day or?

[TKRuffdog]

I believe it was for 12 hours. That may or may not sound like a lot, but you can do a shitload of work in 12 hours. Their machines are also pretty new; 1-3 years. Running those new Cat dozers are almost like a video game. There's a joy stick to control the tracks(front, back, turn, etc.)and one to work the blade (we had a 5-in-1 blade).

[TKRuffdog]

They dropped it off on a friday and picked it up on monday.

[Loose Goose]

hey guys,thanks for the info.that helped alot.

[Chuck the Duck Slayer]

if you need someone to operate it let me know, since i operate heavy equipment in a rock quarry everyday

[JABIII]

Loose Goose, if you are not pretty decent operating a dozer then you will usually come out ahead by hiring someone with his own dozer who knows what he is doing. They will save you money when all is said and done...

[Candor]

Originally posted by JABIII:
Loose Goose, if you are not pretty decent operating a dozer then you will usually come out ahead by hiring someone with his own dozer who knows what he is doing. They will save you money when all is said and done...

no lie. I was amazed at how long it took me to do the exact same thing a buddy of mine accomplished in 30 minutes. I was goofing around for over 2 hours trying to get the blade right to keep the desired grade.

[Loose Goose]

for what I'm trying to do it would be better for me to hire someone than rent.A friend pulled my tractor out of the bog this past week and he has a small bulldozer and said he would be glad to do the job and save me some money.I was trying to get an idea.THANKS for all the info and help

[JABIII]

I am no kind of hand on a dozer either, Candor. I can do anything on an track hoe but for some reason, my grading work ends up looking like the whoopdeedo part of a dirt bike track. After all this time I must say that it pisses me off too...

[Fish]

[img]graemlins/laugh.gif[/img] You two are killing me!

I have been fascinated by heavy equipment for as long as I can remember. And though I never intended it, I ended up working as an operator for some time after high school and later as an estimator for several grading contractors.

About dozers; some machines are built to push and some are built to grade and believe it or not, there is a huge difference between these two activities. A man can to spend a LOT of time in the seat and still not cut a moderately smooth and certainly not level grade with a machine designed to push mass dirt.

There are two types of blade control mechanism - four way and six way. The four way blades, generally found on pusher types, will move vertically and they will tilt. Six way blades, which are typically found on grading dozers, will move vertically, they will tilt and they will angle so that you can roll dirt or graded aggregate base course off to the side in a small windrow.

Also, track length and design have a profound impact on how a machines lends itself to grading. Generally speaking, the longer the track, the smoother the cut and inversely, the shorter the track, the bigger the bounce, which in your case JAB is probably the cause of the whoopdedoos.

One last thing...the older the machine is, the more play will exist in the linkage and the blade will tend to move or float even when cutting. This makes it exeptionally difficult to cut smoothly.

You guys probably already knew this stuff though...right?

I was once assigned to operated a short track D7 that NOBODY could cut a smooth grade with. Probably the reason I was told to get comfortable on it...no one else wanted it. This machine was entirely useless for grading but is was spectacular for pushing stockpile or when attached to a root rake for clearing activities.

Therefore, I ended up spending the better part of a summer working burn piles and racking up strippings. Talk about some mentally engaging work. Now that I think about it, I'm wondering why I left that job. [img]graemlins/rofl.gif[/img]

[duckduckdog]

My grading work always looks better when I pull the blade (dozer in reverse) rather than trying to push it.