Monday, November 27, 2006
Day in the Dirt
October 10-11, 2006
The brainchild of Bob Peterson, owner of Classic Construction Models in Beaverton, Oregon, this is the second year of a wonderful program hosted by Caterpiller, Inc.. Bob’s company builds expensive and exclusive models of construction equipment. Cat is the primary in his line. He has a great working relationship with them as a licensee. Details are on their website http://www.ccmodels.com/ but here’s the real story.
Many of his collector customers wished they could drive a big bulldozer. In 2005
Bob contacted Cat and made just that arrangement. Forty people went to Tucson, Arizona to the Caterpiller test facility and spent "a day in the dirt". It was such a hit they did it again this year, this time at Cat’s big training center in Peoria, Illinois. I ran across this great opportunity, believe it or not, while getting the HHS plaques engraved for the high school reunion. I got on the waiting list and a lucky cancellation had me on the team this year. Here’s what happened.
Wednesday 10/10
An uneventful flight from Portland ended with a very chilly reception and snow flurries in Peoria. It’s only OCTOBER! But the evening get acquainted session in the lounge was a warm greeting with a bunch of grizzly guys who love construction equipment. Some of these guys are software engineers, an interior decorator and some equipment operators that can’t get enough of it. Fifty percent of this years ‘class’ are returned from last year, as far away as coast-to-coast, Ireland, Switzerland and Japan. What a following. Such great people. And what a common bond to have.
Thursday 10/11
The first day, cold as the proverbial well diggers butt, but sunny, at least promised a comfortable afternoon. A very hearty breakfast at this magnificent old hotel, Pere Marquette and fifty anxious little boys and girls climbed aboard the bus for the Mapleton facility, start of a day of touring. This is a foundry. Guess what… sixty tons of molten steel is still poured from a ladle, just like a century ago. Some technology just doesn’t yield to technology. (Unfortunately photos were not allowed on the tours, so words will have to do) The assembly line builds casting for engines. Do you know how big the engine is in a D11 tractor? HUGE. These engine blocks are cast the old fashioned way, with sand castings. All the hollow parts of the engine, like piston wells, have a structure called a core. This thing, actually a series of things, like one for each piston, will eventually sit inside the main mold and form the hollow interiors of the engine. It’s made of sand, a special formula that is hammered under tremendous pressure into a mold the shape of the ‘piston’. It’s cured to rock hardness and goes on down the line, later to meet its mold. The mold is made the same way, two big halves (call the cope (top) and drag (bottom) if you care). Also made of a special sand, hardened and sent to the end of the line. All the blocks of sand make up the engine.
They travel slowly through the factory on a moving floor. Realize that these molds are half the size of your automobile. When they reach the furnace room, the fires of the underworld take command. Remember Dante’s Inferno? Here it’s a way of life. Electric furnaces, gobbling up power as much as a small city, heat recycled iron into molten steel. Sparks, fire and slag everywhere. Hell hath a fury. When it reaches molten state, it’s literally dumped into a holding furnace until it’s ready to be poured. Then another dump into a cruicible. Pouring the fiery fluid, river of steel, 40 tons of it in one load. The crucible is then carried with very thick glovesJ to the molds that are slowly drifting by. Splash, bang, bam and the mold fills in about ten seconds. Flame belches from all openings. Gases ignite, an engine block has just been born. And the pouring continues, until six new children sit smoldering. They drift out of the nursery, flames licking out the openings in the top, cooling, crying out for life. Still ensconced in their sandy wombs, they are literally shoved off a wall about twenty feet high, into a huge room of slag and debris. The crash to the bottom shatters the sand surrounding the engine. The slap on the back that brings life. In this incredible noisy, dirty, dangerous area, an enormous robotic arm picks up the block and somewhat tenderly for a behemoth, taps the remaining sand out of it and puts it on a conveyor. On the remainder of its journey it will be cleaned, polished, filed, machined and turned into a gleaming, educated adolescent block, within days of becoming the heartbeat of a giant earthmover. Incredible
And the journey continues, to the assembly plant affectionally known as SS. Here sub-assemblies, engines, control panels, tracks, blades, hydraulics, blocks of iron weighing tons, arrive sequentially from all over the country, arriving just in time at the proper location along the assembly line. A D11 bulldozer is about to be created. A base frame, perhaps 5 tons of steel starts the process, formed and shaped elsewhere. The drive train is attached. Gears each weigh over five hundred pounds. Then insert the engine, half the size of your car. Tighten those bolts. And it goes on. And four hours later a D11 sits at the end of the line. Earlier filled with hundreds of gallons of oil, transmission fluid, water, diesel, a lucky operator climbs aboard, two stories up in the air, and drives it off the line. Lumbering with the classic grace of a bulldozer, it is a breathing adult, nearly ready to take on its first job and start earning a living.
This monster, one of the biggest bulldozers, weighs in at 124,000 pounds, sixty two tons. It retails for just over 1.5 million dollars. And they can’t build them fast enough. Ordres from all over the world. This is truly an experience. And this is one facility in a world of Caterpiller products that are even bigger. Cat builds to order over fifty major pieces of machinery for grading, building roads, fighting forest fires, logging, excavating, leveling trash dumps. Special bars on the trash haulers protect the treads on the back, so the errant refrigerator doesn’t climb the tread and jam under a fender. The list goes on. Cat yellow is all over the world in every place imaginable doing tasks of superhuman proportions.
Tomorrow we drive.
Friday, Oct 12
Another cold day with the sun pouring through the windows. Another breakfast; I want to get going. Will it be too cold to play with the toys? The drive to Edwards Training and Demonstration facility is short, but too long. The excitement is strong in the air. My first time. Do they give training? (I’m told no). Will I make a fool of myself?
The day starts with an orientation of the Caterpillar company. Fascinating statistics, a very large company, and you don’t realize how much you take Cat for granted. Drive down the road paying attention to any construction sites. You’ll see Cat yellow hard at work building highways, bridges, roads, homes, factories, hospitals. Millions of people at work all over the world pushing dirt around. Incredible.
Then we break for lunch. My God, the anticipation is killing me. And finally drifting to the arena. A glass enclosed pavillion and it’s totally black behind the glass. Glimmers of shadows indicate there is a big arena out there, but nothing is visibile. Then a pep talk and introduction by the facility manager, and slowly behind him a spotlight fades into life, spotlighting a sweet little loader. It’s dips it’s bucket, a curtsey, and the show begins. A ballet of goliaths, performed by artists in steel, virtuosos with heavy machinery. A demonstration of each type of equipment Caterpillar makes takes place over the next hour. One machine digs a giant hole and crawls through it, another fills it in. Two 1200 horsepower earth movers do a push-pull demonstration. The first starts a scooping run and the second pushes. Then without missing a beat the first surges ahead as the second latches onto the two bar, starts his run, pulled by the first. 2400 horsepower loading each monster mover. They just loaded 100 tons of dirt in less than 30 seconds. Time is money, big money, in the construction business. The machines must be working all the time.
The D11, largest bulldozer i
n the world, we saw them being built yesterday, thunders (quietly) onto center stage and without slowing, creates a giant dirt pile from a hole, and then climbs up and teeters on top. We’re looking at over three stories of equipment and dirt.
The operators are all trainers at this facility, demoing equipment to potential buyers, training their operators. They all must have at least ten years experience in the field. They travel all over the world solving customer problems and teaching. They are the most skilled heavy equipment operators I have ever seen. The equipment moves without stop, one machine follows another. They totally obliterate this covered football field of dirt, and when it’s over, it’s as smooth as your table top, as if nothing had ever happened.
NOW WE DRIVE. A spreadsheet passed around h
as assigned times and locations. There are two sets of four machines. Team A heads left, Team B heads right. I was so lucky to be number one on the Excavator. Oh Lord, here it comes. I climb in and seat belt down. The good news, a Cat operator climbs up beside me. The extensive training program in the cab takes perhaps thirty seconds. This lever lifts, this one curls, this turns left, etc, etc. Got it? Ummmmmmmm,. Great, have fun, and he climbs down and walks away. The yellow creation now belongs to me, alone. Or I belong to it. Push, pull, twist, grin, yank, test, slow down, smile some more. Dig a hole, make it bigger. Push the dirt sideways. Incredible. In a few minutes you start to get the hang of it, well to a degree. I can excavate, without hitting the house (a line in the sand for this exercise). The big machines are all designed with video game teens in mind. Today’s operators grew up on computers, playing games with joysticks loaded with push buttons. That’s what drives the heavy equipment today. Two joysticks, one for each hand, a bunch of buttons. Sound proofed, muffled engines make the operator work environment very pleasant. More comfort for the operator, more work done, more productivity. Time is money.
And the afternoon sails by all too fast. Taking turns
driving a backhoe, an excavator, a skid steer (big brother to the bobcat – ah, I’m at home here having rented one), and a bulldozer. I drew the straw for the D5, a pretty darn big machine. I’ve always wanted to drive one….. here I am. And it was a blast. Oh how I want one for the back yard.
The day ends, people are happy. Everyone had a perfect time. Smiles all around. Off to the merchandise center, and yes, the dirty trick of playing with the stuff makes it a buying experience for sure. I have a great model of my D11 next to the computer. A perfect, memorable, incredible journey.
Many thanks to Bob and Grant Peterson for pulling off a great adventure. Many, many thanks to Caterpillar and all the folks thaplayed a role in making this such a memorable experience. Long live the big yellow Cat.
And if you’re not sufficiently bored at this point, go to http://www.ccmodels.com/ and follow the path to the 2006 trip. You’ll see many photos including a number from yours truly.
The brainchild of Bob Peterson, owner of Classic Construction Models in Beaverton, Oregon, this is the second year of a wonderful program hosted by Caterpiller, Inc.. Bob’s company builds expensive and exclusive models of construction equipment. Cat is the primary in his line. He has a great working relationship with them as a licensee. Details are on their website http://www.ccmodels.com/ but here’s the real story.
Many of his collector customers wished they could drive a big bulldozer. In 2005
Bob contacted Cat and made just that arrangement. Forty people went to Tucson, Arizona to the Caterpiller test facility and spent "a day in the dirt". It was such a hit they did it again this year, this time at Cat’s big training center in Peoria, Illinois. I ran across this great opportunity, believe it or not, while getting the HHS plaques engraved for the high school reunion. I got on the waiting list and a lucky cancellation had me on the team this year. Here’s what happened.Wednesday 10/10
An uneventful flight from Portland ended with a very chilly reception and snow flurries in Peoria. It’s only OCTOBER! But the evening get acquainted session in the lounge was a warm greeting with a bunch of grizzly guys who love construction equipment. Some of these guys are software engineers, an interior decorator and some equipment operators that can’t get enough of it. Fifty percent of this years ‘class’ are returned from last year, as far away as coast-to-coast, Ireland, Switzerland and Japan. What a following. Such great people. And what a common bond to have.
Thursday 10/11
The first day, cold as the proverbial well diggers butt, but sunny, at least promised a comfortable afternoon. A very hearty breakfast at this magnificent old hotel, Pere Marquette and fifty anxious little boys and girls climbed aboard the bus for the Mapleton facility, start of a day of touring. This is a foundry. Guess what… sixty tons of molten steel is still poured from a ladle, just like a century ago. Some technology just doesn’t yield to technology. (Unfortunately photos were not allowed on the tours, so words will have to do) The assembly line builds casting for engines. Do you know how big the engine is in a D11 tractor? HUGE. These engine blocks are cast the old fashioned way, with sand castings. All the hollow parts of the engine, like piston wells, have a structure called a core. This thing, actually a series of things, like one for each piston, will eventually sit inside the main mold and form the hollow interiors of the engine. It’s made of sand, a special formula that is hammered under tremendous pressure into a mold the shape of the ‘piston’. It’s cured to rock hardness and goes on down the line, later to meet its mold. The mold is made the same way, two big halves (call the cope (top) and drag (bottom) if you care). Also made of a special sand, hardened and sent to the end of the line. All the blocks of sand make up the engine.
They travel slowly through the factory on a moving floor. Realize that these molds are half the size of your automobile. When they reach the furnace room, the fires of the underworld take command. Remember Dante’s Inferno? Here it’s a way of life. Electric furnaces, gobbling up power as much as a small city, heat recycled iron into molten steel. Sparks, fire and slag everywhere. Hell hath a fury. When it reaches molten state, it’s literally dumped into a holding furnace until it’s ready to be poured. Then another dump into a cruicible. Pouring the fiery fluid, river of steel, 40 tons of it in one load. The crucible is then carried with very thick glovesJ to the molds that are slowly drifting by. Splash, bang, bam and the mold fills in about ten seconds. Flame belches from all openings. Gases ignite, an engine block has just been born. And the pouring continues, until six new children sit smoldering. They drift out of the nursery, flames licking out the openings in the top, cooling, crying out for life. Still ensconced in their sandy wombs, they are literally shoved off a wall about twenty feet high, into a huge room of slag and debris. The crash to the bottom shatters the sand surrounding the engine. The slap on the back that brings life. In this incredible noisy, dirty, dangerous area, an enormous robotic arm picks up the block and somewhat tenderly for a behemoth, taps the remaining sand out of it and puts it on a conveyor. On the remainder of its journey it will be cleaned, polished, filed, machined and turned into a gleaming, educated adolescent block, within days of becoming the heartbeat of a giant earthmover. Incredible
And the journey continues, to the assembly plant affectionally known as SS. Here sub-assemblies, engines, control panels, tracks, blades, hydraulics, blocks of iron weighing tons, arrive sequentially from all over the country, arriving just in time at the proper location along the assembly line. A D11 bulldozer is about to be created. A base frame, perhaps 5 tons of steel starts the process, formed and shaped elsewhere. The drive train is attached. Gears each weigh over five hundred pounds. Then insert the engine, half the size of your car. Tighten those bolts. And it goes on. And four hours later a D11 sits at the end of the line. Earlier filled with hundreds of gallons of oil, transmission fluid, water, diesel, a lucky operator climbs aboard, two stories up in the air, and drives it off the line. Lumbering with the classic grace of a bulldozer, it is a breathing adult, nearly ready to take on its first job and start earning a living.
This monster, one of the biggest bulldozers, weighs in at 124,000 pounds, sixty two tons. It retails for just over 1.5 million dollars. And they can’t build them fast enough. Ordres from all over the world. This is truly an experience. And this is one facility in a world of Caterpiller products that are even bigger. Cat builds to order over fifty major pieces of machinery for grading, building roads, fighting forest fires, logging, excavating, leveling trash dumps. Special bars on the trash haulers protect the treads on the back, so the errant refrigerator doesn’t climb the tread and jam under a fender. The list goes on. Cat yellow is all over the world in every place imaginable doing tasks of superhuman proportions.
Tomorrow we drive.
Friday, Oct 12
Another cold day with the sun pouring through the windows. Another breakfast; I want to get going. Will it be too cold to play with the toys? The drive to Edwards Training and Demonstration facility is short, but too long. The excitement is strong in the air. My first time. Do they give training? (I’m told no). Will I make a fool of myself?
The day starts with an orientation of the Caterpillar company. Fascinating statistics, a very large company, and you don’t realize how much you take Cat for granted. Drive down the road paying attention to any construction sites. You’ll see Cat yellow hard at work building highways, bridges, roads, homes, factories, hospitals. Millions of people at work all over the world pushing dirt around. Incredible.
Then we break for lunch. My God, the anticipation is killing me. And finally drifting to the arena. A glass enclosed pavillion and it’s totally black behind the glass. Glimmers of shadows indicate there is a big arena out there, but nothing is visibile. Then a pep talk and introduction by the facility manager, and slowly behind him a spotlight fades into life, spotlighting a sweet little loader. It’s dips it’s bucket, a curtsey, and the show begins. A ballet of goliaths, performed by artists in steel, virtuosos with heavy machinery. A demonstration of each type of equipment Caterpillar makes takes place over the next hour. One machine digs a giant hole and crawls through it, another fills it in. Two 1200 horsepower earth movers do a push-pull demonstration. The first starts a scooping run and the second pushes. Then without missing a beat the first surges ahead as the second latches onto the two bar, starts his run, pulled by the first. 2400 horsepower loading each monster mover. They just loaded 100 tons of dirt in less than 30 seconds. Time is money, big money, in the construction business. The machines must be working all the time.
The D11, largest bulldozer i
n the world, we saw them being built yesterday, thunders (quietly) onto center stage and without slowing, creates a giant dirt pile from a hole, and then climbs up and teeters on top. We’re looking at over three stories of equipment and dirt.The operators are all trainers at this facility, demoing equipment to potential buyers, training their operators. They all must have at least ten years experience in the field. They travel all over the world solving customer problems and teaching. They are the most skilled heavy equipment operators I have ever seen. The equipment moves without stop, one machine follows another. They totally obliterate this covered football field of dirt, and when it’s over, it’s as smooth as your table top, as if nothing had ever happened.
NOW WE DRIVE. A spreadsheet passed around h
as assigned times and locations. There are two sets of four machines. Team A heads left, Team B heads right. I was so lucky to be number one on the Excavator. Oh Lord, here it comes. I climb in and seat belt down. The good news, a Cat operator climbs up beside me. The extensive training program in the cab takes perhaps thirty seconds. This lever lifts, this one curls, this turns left, etc, etc. Got it? Ummmmmmmm,. Great, have fun, and he climbs down and walks away. The yellow creation now belongs to me, alone. Or I belong to it. Push, pull, twist, grin, yank, test, slow down, smile some more. Dig a hole, make it bigger. Push the dirt sideways. Incredible. In a few minutes you start to get the hang of it, well to a degree. I can excavate, without hitting the house (a line in the sand for this exercise). The big machines are all designed with video game teens in mind. Today’s operators grew up on computers, playing games with joysticks loaded with push buttons. That’s what drives the heavy equipment today. Two joysticks, one for each hand, a bunch of buttons. Sound proofed, muffled engines make the operator work environment very pleasant. More comfort for the operator, more work done, more productivity. Time is money.And the afternoon sails by all too fast. Taking turns
driving a backhoe, an excavator, a skid steer (big brother to the bobcat – ah, I’m at home here having rented one), and a bulldozer. I drew the straw for the D5, a pretty darn big machine. I’ve always wanted to drive one….. here I am. And it was a blast. Oh how I want one for the back yard.The day ends, people are happy. Everyone had a perfect time. Smiles all around. Off to the merchandise center, and yes, the dirty trick of playing with the stuff makes it a buying experience for sure. I have a great model of my D11 next to the computer. A perfect, memorable, incredible journey.
Many thanks to Bob and Grant Peterson for pulling off a great adventure. Many, many thanks to Caterpillar and all the folks thaplayed a role in making this such a memorable experience. Long live the big yellow Cat.
And if you’re not sufficiently bored at this point, go to http://www.ccmodels.com/ and follow the path to the 2006 trip. You’ll see many photos including a number from yours truly.
