Tools of the trade

[Jim Thompson]

In the Doak bunker thread, one of our new members asked the difference between excavator and back hoe bunkers.  He further stated that he didn't have much knowledge on the equipment side of construction and the like.  I think this would be a good time for the dirt guys to share tools of choice of tools of choice per type of feature etc...  Please assume that all of the new guys are going to read the thread so do a nice description they can Google if the want to i.e. D6R XL 6way blade vs D4 LGP or 320BL etc...

Hope this helps some of you guys out.

Thanks!

JT

[Mike_Young]

Takeuchi TB125

[Jim_Kennedy]

Mike,
Has anyone built a memorial to honor the guy who first thought to put the blade in front of the tracks? 

[Ben Sims]

Mr. Kennedy,

Thanks for for the follow-up.  I know what a "buried elephant" and a blowout vs. pot bunker is.  I just don't know how to make them, or with what to make them.

[Ben Sims]

Mr. Kennedy,

Right thread, wrong guy.  I meant Mr. Thompson.  Thanks for the follow-up.

[Jim Thompson]

Ben,

I'm hoping this thread will help.  The mini-excavator Mike Young suggests is great for doing detail work on bunkers.  I've even made a few pot bunkers with one of those little guys.  I'm hoping that you'll get some feedback like for subgrade we use... for finish and top soiling we prefer, for greens mix spreading, and the like.  I think you'll also be surprised to see how different soil types influence the tool of choice.  When Don and Joe chime in, pay attention, it'll be good stuff.  To bad Jim Zabel isn't on GCA!  Maybe soemone can get him to participate...

Cheers!

JT

[Philippe Binette]

a rake
a shovel
a six pack of beer at the end of the day

you can google that if you want






No seriously
at Sagebrush, we used:

A John Deere 200 for mass excavation of the bunker
A John Deere 120 for first artistic excavation
A Caterpillar 308 for bunker finish
+ 2 or 3 guys on the rakes and shovels (namely Keith Cutten and Lights Out Charters plus temporary visitors)

All the edge were carved by hand (it was a rocky clayish soil, not sand) and the floors rake by hand too... a long and hard process that after a while we became expert at...

[Joe Hancock]

I like Phiippe's first method.....except for the shovel and rake part....

I wish I had as much experience as a lot of other participants here, but I don't. Tom D.'s response in the other thread is good info, as usual.

When I'm doing bunkers w/ Mike DeVries, we excavate bunkers w/ our dozer(s), which commonly is a John Deere 450 or 550, or sometimes it's a Caterpillar D4 or D5. The material that comes out of the bunker cavity is used to integrate the bunker into the surround landscape. Of course, this scenario assumes the material can actuall be moved with a bulldozer. If it's ledge, or large rock formation, then something else is needed. Excavators, large and small, can me used to remove any kind of material.

Excavators w/ knuckle buckets(allowing the bucket to be rotated on the end of the boom) can provide opportunities to create more nooks and crannies. They also have some ability to create bunkers into slopes that might otherwise be difficult. For instance, pushing low moisture material with a bulldozer doesn't work for shaping. If an excavator is used, material can be moved and packed in with the knuckle bucket.

Architects have to keep a tighter rein on shapers using excavators. The temptation to go wild artistically is unavoidable. In other words, over-shaping, or too busy, happens much easier with excavators, IMO. It just requires restraint.

Finally, shovels and rakes.....and hand tamping(soil compaction) and bunker floor cleanup and drainage installation, and bunker liner(if required/ specified).

There's a lot of ways. I only have experience with a few. I love trying new things, but there's a functionality about bunkers that needn't be overly complicated, and to make the process unnecessarily complicated only adds time and cost to a project.

I hope some of the guys who have worked a lot more years and under more varieties of circumstances will chime in. It's a fun topic....and a fun process when you get to the part where you drink Philippe's beer......

Joe

[Kalen Braley]

Yeah Joe,

We all know what kind of "work crew" you like to employ to cut on costs.   

[Ben Sims]

Philippe and Joe,

Thanks so much!  Keep it coming.  This is all very, very good information.  I can't tell you how often I've stood on a tee and said "I love this hole, but damn if I don't know how in the heck they built it."  I'm off to the country's largest demo and expo day at Haggin Oaks In Sacramento.  If I come home with anything new my fiance' might call it off.

[Tom_Doak]

I've seen a lot of different pieces of equipment used for building a golf course -- you can use nearly anything if you're clever enough and patient enough, although we've gotten more discerning as the years go by.  Twenty-five years ago I remember David Postlethwait using a ROAD GRADER to contour fairways on the TPC at Plum Creek, but I don't think that won any awards.  (Nor did my floating out greens by surfing on top of a drag being pulled by a sand pro, even though I got pretty good at it.)

I described on the other thread the excavator with a wrist bucket we use to build most of our bunkers today.  It is big enough yet agile enough to do pretty much the whole job, as opposed to the three pieces of equipment Philippe described.  We also use excavators to do re-grading of fairways in the dunes, because it's much easier to get the dune-and-pocket shapes with a digger than with a dozer.  

We still use bulldozers to contour our greens, although Jim Urbina wants to do a whole job with excavators, and he did use the excavators to build a couple of the greens at Old Macdonald.  (You could probably pick out which ones if you tried.)  I shaped my very first green with a box blade on the back of a tractor -- those things were very hard to use, but if you got really good with them, you could probably operate almost anything.

For finish work we tend to use sand pros for every playing surface, and shovels and rakes for the bunkers.  But I've seen other equipment used effectively, too ... at High Pointe the local contractor used a "Do-More" to grade things (it's a tractor with a bucket on the front and a box blade on the back), and at Barnbougle they used a Bobcat on tracks to build the tees and some of the bunkers.  As I said, if you've got an experienced operator, it's amazing what you can do even with the wrong equipment.

One piece of equipment I've tried never to use on my courses is the pan scraper, which a lot of earthmoving companies use to move bulk dirt.  You can move some dirt that way, but it's the opposite of a surgical approach ... you tear up so much ground en route to getting what you want.  I think we've only had them on 3 jobs out of 30 we've done, and I consider that a personal triumph.

[Jeff_Mingay]

I remember last time I was in Europe hearing that very few golf course contractors over there use bulldozers these days. Only excavators. As Tom Doak says above, excavators (with wrist attachment) are definitely the most versatile machines available to golf course builders. You could certainly build a very good golf course using excavators only.

I learned to shape greens using a bulldozer, but built a couple putting surfaces at Sagebrush with an excavator and enjoyed it.

[Emil Weber]

Now these construction methods all seem to require machinery. When I played a tournament at Harding Park, SF last year, they were re-building the bunkers by hand with scoops. Is this method also a possibility? Are there other hand-made bunkers out there? Is it only used for rebuildings? How much time does it take?

[Mark Luckhardt]

I've seen some great bunker restoration or enhancement with skid steer loaders as mentioned here. If just a minor deepening is required in the bunker, it is a home run.

We are completing a restoration at Toronto GC this summer, with a special emphasis on manual labour to recapture the natural original look. I need to get up to speed on some more project details, but the architect is Dr. Hawtree from England.

[Norbert P]

  I shaped my very first green with a box blade on the back of a tractor -- those things were very hard to use,
but if you got really good with them, you could probably operate almost anything.

    Dan Proctor said that it takes a special person to operate them well and get good results.  An inconsiderate boxblader
can flatten out some very well thought out shaping.  In the wrong hands they can break a shaper's heart. 

[Norbert P]

[John Chilver-Stainer]

My preference for shaping interesting stuff such as greens and surrounds as opposed to earth moving are 13t-16t excavators on tracks with a bucket and a blade, any product type will do, most important is the operator is willing to listen to my instructions!!!
They are extremely versatile in the hands of the right operator and avoid damage of the ground.

In Switzerland we are not allowed to use Bulldozers as they tend to over compact the existing soil structures. Soil protection is a big issue here where the top soil, sub soil and the underlying inert earth material have to be excavated and replaced separately.

It sounds over fussy but in the end the green keepers will thank you for not wrecking the natural drainage capacities of the existing soils.

On another job in the Canary Islands the greens shaper used a Cat D4 dozer to do the fine shaping. This suited the soil conditions - a very loose dusty soil with underlying loose stones. The operator had to get it right first time as corrections were more difficult than with an excavator - only for a skilled shaper though

[Derek Dirksen]

  I shaped my very first green with a box blade on the back of a tractor -- those things were very hard to use,
but if you got really good with them, you could probably operate almost anything.

    Dan Proctor said that it takes a special person to operate them well and get good results.  An inconsiderate boxblader
can flatten out some very well thought out shaping.  In the wrong hands they can break a shaper's heart. 

There is nothing worse than some one coming along behind you with a box blade and no experience.   A box blade can cut and really mess up your small features of a green.  When I go to finish off my greens I like to use a shaping blade or a finish blade on a tractor.  It won't cut like a box blade.  It is a lot lighter than a box which makes it easier to control.  

As far as shaping goes I love to rough a green in with a John Deere 750 and then make the final tweaks with a JD 650.  Then we use the finish tractors of a sand pro.  With bunkers I rough in with the 750 and then go to the 650 depending on the size of the bunker.  After the dozer work is done then either a mini-ex or excavator.  Finally the hand work.  

[Philippe Binette]

A pan scraper builts great roads...

If you  want your fairways to look like one... use it

[Anthony_Nysse]

  When I was at Friars Head, Jeff Bradley was using a D4/D5 to give the bunker its rough shape and a Cat 307 to work the edges and floor depths. But of course, that was not the end. We used WOODEN shovels (I was told that on wooden shovels could be used in C&C's bunkers ) to shape the faces and make the final edges before seeding. I remember the first bunker face that I worked on. It was the long, 185 yeard bunker that runs up the left side of #4. I was on my knees, with a wooden shovel all day, working the slope, making it taper into the floor. That was the first of many bunker faces I helped shape. Thanks Jeff, I lost 25lbs that summer!

Tony Nysse
Asst. Supt.
Colonial CC
Ft. Worth, TX

[Ben Sims]

Bumping this thread.  It combines my childhood obsession with earthmovers to my adult obsession with golf courses.

[Adrian_Stiff]

Some people are very skilled using a D6 with a six way blade, but often some of the coolest shapes are formed by just tipping some spoil and just tracking it, or just letting the blade grade a gouge out for a few metres and tracking that.

I think when you get beyond D6s and certainly past the 8s you are using tools just for bulk soil movements. D5s have become a bit redundant now the 6s have been improved, The D4 is quite rare but great for bunkers, I have used a D3 as well but they are a bit too small although would be okay for finishing off non USGA spec greens.

[Ben Sims]

Adrian,

Tipping and tracking spoil?  Is this just pushing an arbitrary amount of loose material into a random shape and then polishing it?

[Adrian_Stiff]

Adrian,

Tipping and tracking spoil?  Is this just pushing an arbitrary amount of loose material into a random shape and then polishing it?

Ben, yes that is pretty much it, I mainly form golf courses from inert landfill, sometimes when we are bulk pushing you kindasee something and say STOP... try tracking that and sometimes it works, if making things look like old sheep tracks is what you want.

[Ben Sims]

Adrian,

I am following. The best internal contour I had in my little play patch back home is when I held the left brake too hard on the Deere and dragged the left tire for about 15 feet.  I stared at it getting more and more pissed that I had ruined my creation. Then I decided to just polish it with a rake and drag and it made one cool little contour.

I wish I could see some of this stuff on a "golf course" scale.  I think this aspect more than any other fascinates me in regards to GCA. 

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