Moving To / From Show

[212richard]

I looked at the video of the DD9 at a club gathering somewhere, and I got to wondering what it takes to move this stuff, legal-wise. In Ohio, a D8H with the blade off is not legal on six axles. (without permit.) Are these Caterpillar gatherings exempt somehow or does everyone just bite the bullet and buy a permit? It's a wonder the attendance is as good as it is given the cost of fuel and permits. Fritz.

[7upuller]

Hey 212,

At the Tulare show in California two weeks ago, I was impressed with the amount of people. Fair amount of iron too. Things are looking a tad better, but we aint out of the woods yet. People are starting to get back to their hobbies, but as you pointed out fuel is keeping a lid on it still.

As for the permits, yes you still have to play by the book even if you are hailing to a show. I have found that if you label "Not For Hire", they still look at you, but not as hard. I was trying to get permission to get the DD9-H's hauled down to Tulare, but since we didn't get the OK until just a week or so ahead of time, we didn't have time to get her done this year. D4e was going to haul each D9 on 9 axles. I am not sure if it will scale out on a seven axle. I placed a call into the owner of Peterson Tractor in San Leandro, California today. I left a message for Duane to call me, for I want his permission to host a "Buster Peterson Outside The Box Play Area" @ the 2014 WoodLand Show. I need to get Jessie's permission too. Buster Peterson after working for Leatourno, went to work with Howard Peterson, his brother. He always thought outside the box on all kinds of patents. The DD9 was his creation. The "Hoeing Scraper 657 was his idea too, which finaly led to the Push-Pull 657's. I will keep all of you guys posted. An event to move DD9's, 660's, and such, takes a lot of plainning and money. Taking a DD9 apart, shipping, reassembly, playing, taking them apart again, shipping home, and reassembly again, will run aroung $15,000 to $20,000. I am already working on it, and it would be so cool to get this one pulled of. Hey, if I can talk people into shipping Hanks 30 from Maui to Woodland and back to Maui again for free, a DD-9 will be simple. LOL It just takes a little desk work. LOL Ask Tom Madden about the way I do desk work. What a crack up. It's a personnal joke, so ask Tom.-glen

[Deas Plant.]

Hi, Glen.
From what little I have seen of your 'desk work', it mostly involves delegation with the girls and Kevin copping the bulk of it. System seems to work pretty well though

To have an area at Woodland, 2014, dedicated to Buster's gadgets would be a real treat. Buster learned a lot from R. G. and then went on to add a heap of tricks of his own. There is another bloke doing some 'different' things with machines down SoCal way these days. He has turned out toys like the Cat 25M grader, the S18G fill blade and the D57T scraper. I think there are videos of all of these on Youtube under SoCal Earthmovers.

I have heard a rumor that Buster was the brains behind the Collins ripper that was fitted to some DD9's for ripping hard pan. I wonder if there are any of those 'delicate little back-scratchers' left around now. It sure would have been a sight to see, a Collins ripper-equipped DD9G with the hooks sunk seven feet in the ground, another DD9G pulling up front and a third DD9G pushing behind. Over 2,200 horsepower pulling two shanks seven feet deep.

Re Jessie's permission, if he can't remember giving it, tel him to take memory training. I 'distinctly heard' him say it would be a great idea and to get started on it. And I heard that from only 7,800 miles away. LOL. I am hoping to be able to come over for that one a month ahead of the show to help put it together. That will be a LOT of fun.

Gitterdunn.

[7upuller]

Hey Deas,

You witnessed some desk work at my office, I have to be some what civilized at the office. Only Tom knows about my "Desk Work" at other's place of business.

[Deas Plant.]

Hi, Glen.
Sounds int'restin'. I might have to start pumping Tom for 'further information'. LOL.

[jfirebaugh]

I have heard a rumor that Buster was the brains behind the Collins ripper that was fitted to some DD9's for ripping hard pan. I wonder if there are any of those 'delicate little back-scratchers' left around now. It sure would have been a sight to see, a Collins ripper-equipped DD9G with the hooks sunk seven feet in the ground, another DD9G pulling up front and a third DD9G pushing behind. Over 2,200 horsepower pulling two shanks seven feet deep...... That will be a LOT of fun.

Gitterdunn.

Deas,

My Dad must have been ahead of his time in the late 50's when he was putting in 120 acres of Hartley Walnut trees on our ranch in southern Madera County (CA). As a 6-8 year old, I can still clearly recall the two D8's with the cable operated steel-wheeled ripper that had one three foot long subsoil shank. One D8 pulled the (Letourneau?) ripper and another pushed it! What a sight when the hardpan would hang up the shank and the operator would work the clutches to make the cat walk back-n-forth to free the shank! You could feel and see the power being exerted as the engine(s) would be loaded down and the stack(s) would produce more smoke as the old girls had to really earn their keep! The tracks would slip some in the sandy topsoil as they were being worked. but the Cats always had their way with the hardpan and would keep moving forward!

The intersection where the trees were to be planted were ripped in four different directions before it was all done! I recall standing next to the 3' shank at the end of the day and it was warm from the work and about 2 feet down it began to have extra wear on the leading edge where it encountered more hardpan! This was even through the lines of stick welded hard-facing the shank had on it. Wow, was that an exciting time! A couple of times on Saturday morning Slim, the front cat operator let me ride with him. I even remember that Slim was getting dentures and had his teeth removed so he could only eat soup. At about 11:30 am he's stop the Cat and pull out a can of Campbell’s chicken noodle, take off the wrapper and nest it in the exhaust manifold. When we stopped at Noon, Slim opened the soup can and I watched him eat his piping hot lunch! I thought Slim was a pretty cool guy! Wow, I was so fascinated by it all! I sure haven't forgotten any of it either!

Chapter two, of this pre-planting project, was when the 100 foot long landplane with the ten foot wide bucket arrived at the ranch..................

[Deas Plant.]

Hi, John.
Well, c'mon, Man. Give with the next instalment. The suspense is killing me. And WHERE are the photos?

I can remember being allowed to ride on the footplate of the local council grader when they were making a new road in between my parents' farm and the next door neighbor. I reckoned I had the world by the tail. I was seven. Now I'm close to ten times that old and the novelty still hasn't worn off. AND I've been getting PAID to have fun almost all my working life. How good is that?

[jfirebaugh]

Hi, John.
Well, c'mon, Man. Give with the next installment. The suspense is killing me. And WHERE are the photos??

Ok....Ok hang on! Well first, there never were any photos! Sorry! My parents only had a Kodak Brownie 620 camera (I have it now) and I'm pretty darn sure none were taken when the ripping and land leveling was done. You can bet I sure wish I did have some photos and if I did I'd be happy to share them!

Now for the second and last installment of this story. After the sub-soiling was done, my Dad had the 120 acres where the trees were to be planted land-leveled to make the irrigation flow better. Now our ranch was as flat as could be already, but my Dad was a "do it right the first time" kind of guy. Now in the late 1950's this was before the days of drip irrigation so open irrigation ditches and furrows were the order of the irrigating day. Added to this, was the fact that Dad decided he didn't want the "mature" walnut trees to be "crowded" when they grew up so he planted them at 52 feet apart and during the years they got larger he planted 12 rows of row crop in between the trees. Of course in those days the (our) John Deere planters and cultivators were only four row affairs, so 12 rows worked out just right with enough extra space on each side of the trees to run our JD 420 or later our JD 1010 wide front utility tractors with a 5 foot disc down each side of the tree line for weed control. As it turned out, by 10 years old, this became my job with our small tractor, as my Dad would go nuts when the hired tractor drivers would graze the young tree trunks ripping off a chunk of bark! What really made him mad was the employee would not tell him of the damage so he could go put "Tree Seal" on the injury! I can attest to all here that in my tenure of doing the disking I never touched a tree trunk!!! Many times I came soooo close between dodging the lower limbs and making sure the tractor and disc would get close while not taking out some of the adjacent row crop or hit the tree with the disc frame or blade. I will admit that there were times when the clutch and brake pedals were mashed in one big hurry, but "No Trees Were Harmed in the Making of This Movie" LoL! In return I got paid $1.00 an hour and submitted a time sheet just like the "big-time" employees. In fact, one summer day I drove tractor for 10 hours and made $10 bucks - that was a day to remember! That's right, two hours overtime...........overtime,..........what's overtime? LoL!

So, back to the land leveling! In the days before lasers, the longer the landplane the better the finished job. So, in comes the land leveling contractor by towing a 100 foot long land plane with a ten foot wide bucket! It was a sight to see when it came down the rural roads to our ranch. behind it was a D7 on a low boy trailer. I was able to find a small photo on the Internet. It actually is a photo of the landplane that was on static display at the 2008 Best Show on Tracks in Woodland! I wish I could remember the maker's name, but I bet one of our California readers here can tell us who the manufacturer was and perhaps some background history on these HUGE landplanes!



Anyway, the land leveling project was not as dramatic as the sub soiling work since the D7 operator kind of went around and around without much effort. I know there is more to it than that, as my Dad had previously staked out the 120 acres with a transit and cut & fill flags on all of the stakes. As the D7 went back-n-forth he had to adjust the bucket to always contain some soil so it could always fill the low areas and cut off the high spots. I don't recall being invited to ride along with the D7 & landplane operator. I'm thinking that Slim on the D8 was the friendlier of the two guys. That said, let's face it, who would want the customer's eight year old son as a ride-along anyway! Like I said earlier "Slim" was a pretty cool guy! (Even without any teeth!) Slim could even use the D8 exhaust to blow the dust off of himself at the end of the day! How cool was that? Thank you Slim for everything, you're not forgotten!!!!!

So....... now it's everyone else’s turn! I bet most everyone else here (like Deas and I) has a wonderful memory and story to share with the rest of us! So let's keep this going. We'd all love to hear each-and-every-one-of-them!!! Oh, old photos would be great too!