The Squamidian Report – Jan. 24 / 09
Issue #348
Including:
The Ontarion
Hi All,
The company I work for has been doing the site prep on the vacant lot at the end of the street I live on. I guess the guy who owns it has finally decided to build a house. The rest of the homes on this street are about 20 years old. I’m not the machine operator doing the work but I did get sent in to help finish the excavating. This lot, like many on this street drops off very fast and very steeply. The overburden had to be removed down to the solid rock, said rock being part of the Mashiter Ridge with is part of the Garibaldi formation. The material that was removed was a mix of organics on the surface and a type of hardpan underneath. In some places it was only a few feet deep and in others it was several meters deep. All this stuff had to be swung up to the street and then loaded onto trucks.
The steepness of the rock face under the soil created some interesting problems for the machine doing the digging. He had to throw the soil up hill as far as he could while sitting on an uncomfortable angle, then climb up over the pile to where he could then pick the stuff up again and load it out. This worked for a while but as the work area got tighter, the digging machine could no longer climb the ever-steepening pile. So we brought in a second excavator. The main job of the second machine was to clear the buckets of material from in front of the first excavator as he swung it up, and then load it out.
In order to reach down far enough, the first machine needed to dig itself down as much as possible and that meant exposing bedrock. Now, if you’ve ever run a steel tracked machine on a rock surface, you know just how slippery that can be. It feels like sitting on ice. So, there were several times that the digging machine would start to slip, and several time that it could not pull itself up the slope. This is where the second machine tends to come in rather handy. We would simply lock buckets and pull the excavator upward. This would also keep it from flipping over backward down the slope. Works pretty good but I will say, we both kept our seatbelts on tightly.
*
I’ve made some changes to my web sites. In order to streamline my system and simplify my file layout, I’ve moved all the Squamidian folders and files onto the same site that all my motorcycle pictures are stored on. I had moved most of the ‘Family’ web site over quite a while ago and simply adjusted the links to make it all work.
The link at the top of the Squamidian Report now points to the current issue’s new location. Its all pretty seamless and invisible to anyone poking around on my site so it shouldn’t be any problem, except for the fact that the Squamidian home page is at thedougsite.net now instead of at thedougsite.ca where it used to be. The new, all encompassing home page now covers the biking adventures AND the Squamidian Reports as well as having the links to the Family sites etc. So, if you have a bookmark in your browser pointing to the old Squamidian site under the .ca domain, go there and follow the link over to the .net domain and set a new bookmark. Or, if you already have the .net domain bookmarked, you don’t need to do anything.
doug
****
****
The Ontarion is away on vacation.
****
Have a good one..
the doug
The Fine Print!
The articles in these issues are the sole property of the persons writing them and should be respected as such.