Excavator

[jsasker007]

Only pic I got so far. Looks pretty clean. We are going to go look at it soon, I’ll give it a good look over. Of all things, the thumb on the bucket excites me the most.

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With the 2 counterweights on the back maybe it's no longer zero tail swing? Might stick out past the tracks now? Just curious. If my 50g stuck out in the back I'm sure I would have slammed into lots of things in the woods.

 

[Howboutthemdawgs]

Appears close, regardless he’s in Kansas. What trees they have are 200 yards apart!

 

[jsasker007]

That's the biggest reason why I didn't get a little bigger machine. Tail swing. I'm in close quarters out in the woods with mine quite a bit. I haven't ran into anything I couldn't get done with mine, it just takes longer than if I had a bigger machine.

 

[SD51555]

That's the biggest reason why I didn't get a little bigger machine. Tail swing. I'm in close quarters out in the woods with mine quite a bit. I haven't ran into anything I couldn't get done with mine, it just takes longer than if I had a bigger machine.

I couldn't agree more. A large mini is about perfect for finess habitat work. I love more power as much as the next person, but there are just places you don't want to make a path wide enough to walk a Cat 336 through your property.

 

[T-Max]

Appears close, regardless he’s in Kansas. What trees they have are 200 yards apart!

I sat in my tree stand and my range finder said the next tree was only 167 yards, thank you!

 

[Turkish]

A dozer really isn’t meant for taking out trees because it has no leverage. All you can really hope to do is muscle it over.

It’s not a fair debate and I think it’s highly dependent on terrain, but I am always impressed with what a decent sized dozer and a 6-way blade can do. I got a guy running a 25,000lb 100-hp “small dozer” class Komatsu that is pushing 10-inch trees over as he pushes up a steep bluff, 2 at a time. The right dozer has a blade with decent lift height and can push at 4-ft or so. This is plenty to get good leverage. Grading abilities for water management are lightning fast too. He pushed out a low water crossing across this ravine with 20’ banks in 3 hours. To move that much dirt with a skid steer or mini would’ve taken at least 3x that. With that said, I’ll be renting a mini next summer to form a better opinion! My strategy is to rent air conditioned equipment in the summer as a way to get a little done in 100F temps, when I don’t want to do anything else.

 

[T-Max]

This is the way…

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[Gravel Road]

Congrats! Looks really clean.

 

[T-Max]

Congrats! Looks really clean.

It was originally a rental I guess. The folks we bought it from ran it for a few years and had zero issues. The old man is finally retiring so we got a great deal. It seems they took dang good care of it. I worked around the new shed for about an hour to get the hang of it. Dad watched and pulled out a pen and pad and started writing down projects. It’s gonna be fun I think.


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[Gravel Road]

I'm thinking about renting one for a week or a month next year to get an idea of how much i'd use it long term. Pretty sure I know the answer though!

 

[SD51555]

I'm thinking about renting one for a week or a month next year to get an idea of how much i'd use it long term. Pretty sure I know the answer though!

Keep in mind, for what you can rent one for a week or two every year, you could do that for 20 years and be money ahead. If you've got a ton of work, rent a Cat 313. That's big enough to get stuff done, small enough that you won't need 14' wide trails to get around. Here's a 313 rental for a month at $7100. Probably figure $10,000 after delivery and tax and whatever else gets thrown on there. That's a $175,000 machine. You get one month per year for $10,000 and you don't have to insure it or maintain it.