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What is this machine for or what has it being doing?


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Hi Bill, it's called a ditchwitch.  Here in Edinburgh the gas board were using them for gas main installation.  Basically water is blasted dwon the middle of the pipe to the head that is screwed on the end which blasts the water out in all directions.  Once the thing is far enough in the ground a clamp holds onto it and the bit the water comes out of unscrews.  It pulls back and another section of pipe is inserted between those two.  This is then screwed together and the blasting carries on.  The one they used outside our house had some sort of tracking device in the head and every time they stopped to add another section a man went with his tracking device to see where the end was, check they were on track, and spray on the road how deep down it was.

 

The point of the machine is to be able to install pipes without having to dig a huge ditch therefore being cheaper and quicker.  The downside of this method is that you cannot see the other utilities under the road so you may crack the sewer or knacker someone's phone line without even realising

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its a drilling rig for pilling and is set up at the moment for doing test samples to see wot the ground is like may be at 30 mts to 100mts down you can put diffret size augers and collers on to make bigger holes so to put in concrete piles to the aquired depth hope this helps 

 

o hes not near a railway line by any chance as i know the company i work for has a big job between glasgow and edinbrough 

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The point of the machine is to be able to install pipes without having to dig a huge ditch therefore being cheaper and quicker.  The downside of this method is that you cannot see the other utilities under the road so you may crack the sewer or knacker someone's phone line without even realising

yes they do have accidents, i will post some pics from work next week of when it goes wrong, resulting in 100m of fibre optic cable ,along with some others wrapped arround the head ,resulting in just shy of 1million quids worth of damage and bills to the company who did it

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its a drilling rig for pilling and is set up at the moment for doing test samples to see wot the ground is like may be at 30 mts to 100mts down you can put diffret size augers and collers on to make bigger holes so to put in concrete piles to the aquired depth hope this helps 

 

o hes not near a railway line by any chance as i know the company i work for has a big job between glasgow and edinbrough 

 

 

He isn't near a railway Steve,,,only a mile as the crow files from Aberdeen airport. We were told they were doing  test bores for the bypass which is more than 25 years overdue ;D  ;D

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yes they do have accidents, i will post some pics from work next week of when it goes wrong, resulting in 100m of fibre optic cable ,along with some others wrapped arround the head ,resulting in just shy of 1million quids worth of damage and bills to the company who did it

 

I'm sure they do Sean...a bit like keyhole surgery really.... ;D  ;D ....look forward to seeing your pictures.

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Yes John it's a good earner...Derek was at school with me a year below and he said a few years ago he was thinking of down scaling...he loves farming as does his dad Arthur but he was thinking about only doing the farming and the drilling and doing away with the civil engineer side of the business...I hope not since he employs circa 60 local folk and well I know many of them....they have great respect for Dek despite the fact he likes them to work hard and long hours...but then again he is the boss and he does the same ;D  ;D

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and this is what happens when the guys using a ditch with dont know what is there, or check before starting, just short of 1 million in bills and compensationafter they cut a village off completly and severed several high grade circuits, the black tube with yellow markings is a 276 fiber optic cable , the biggest we use, and roughly a 100 m section was wrapped round the head

post-44-0-22526300-1361816537_thumb.jpg

post-44-0-24408600-1361816710_thumb.jpg

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and this is what happens when the guys using a ditch with dont know what is there, or check before starting, just short of 1 million in bills and compensationafter they cut a village off completly and severed several high grade circuits, the black tube with yellow markings is a 276 fiber optic cable , the biggest we use, and roughly a 100 m section was wrapped round the head

bet there was some back sides kicked hard for this . i work for a local authority n there is trouble if a service is damaged but the amount of times we have drains to repair after contractors have ploughed through blindly n left damaged

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Have to admit I've dug though a couple of water pipes in my time, good thing is the digger gets a good wash,bad thing is I can't fill the kettle up for a cuppa, remember digging through one with the mini digger and the pressure of the water actually managed to shunt the digger back,

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i would suspect them guys were sacked, pretty much on the spot to, last big incident we had this way the digger guy was escorted off the machine then the site, someone had to bring his car out for him infact, when you do that much damage things get serious from say our side with the repairs ,but also the items they take out, its amazing what some of these high grade fiber links we provide get paid in compensation per hour for loss of service, plus stuff like 999service go out,

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and this is what happens when the guys using a ditch with dont know what is there, or check before starting, just short of 1 million in bills and compensationafter they cut a village off completly and severed several high grade circuits, the black tube with yellow markings is a 276 fiber optic cable , the biggest we use, and roughly a 100 m section was wrapped round the head

Ouch!!!!! one of the guys i worked with did the same thing, only a 144 fibre but did werecked 1.5km of fibre, and a whole exchange room... He was told by the services locater all clear, told by his site manger all clear, nailed it on the back reamer like in your pics, super easy to do , your drilling is only as good as the service,s locater.

 

Me and the boss ploughed out 400m of 100pair copper t/com , yet again a miss locate and when you have a HT185 ditch witch plough in sand you cant really feel it..

 

Bill

 

The blue machine is a core drill, As explaned before it does core samples to look at the soil deep down for what they need to do to stabalise it.

 

The ditch with directional drill would normaly be installing duct for t/com,s or power or a new water supply

 

Ill have a look for what pics i have from drilling and ploughing t/com,s 

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bet there was some back sides kicked hard for this . i work for a local authority n there is trouble if a service is damaged but the amount of times we have drains to repair after contractors have ploughed through blindly n left damaged

 

We've had the drain guys down 3 or 4 times to my street since they did the gas mains renewal

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