August 13, 2007

One Badass Unit.

Filed under: Uncategorized — Jim @ 7:44 pm

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A couple weeks ago, one of the main streets in my town was undergoing a bit of a face peel, which is to say that the top layers of asphalt were being removed in order to pave over the freshly scraped street with new black, smelly stuff. The operation took several days; it caused lots of traffic jams and pissed off more than a few merchants whose businesses suffered from zero traffic during business hours.

During one of my weekend walks while this was violent road work was going on I came upon this massive gizwiz, and was quite taken by it, so much so that I used Mr. Cell Phone camera to take some pictures. Unfortunately, the sun (damn you, Algore!) screwed up all of them except the two shown above.

This baby has as many gauges as a 747 and, like a 747, it has seats for two drivers, a pilot and a co-pilot for the street muncher! Very impressive.

I only wish I could have seen in actually gobbling up layers of street.

16 Comments »

  1. Aren’t those Big-Assed Mechanical Street Exfoliators supposed to operate during off-peak hours so as not to affect businesses? Total lame-a-tollah.

    Our guys do stuff like that on commercial or non-residential strips in the middle of the night.

    Comment by Erica — August 13, 2007 @ 9:11 pm

  2. So that’s what a Jersey turf layer looks like.

    Comment by Randy Heinz, SFO — August 13, 2007 @ 11:16 pm

  3. So boys will be boys… *grin* My husband would’ve been happily taking pictures too.

    Comment by Teresa — August 13, 2007 @ 11:22 pm

  4. Jimbo,
    You need to come out to the farm. We’ll let you drive the backhoe. Maybe even let you dig a hole with it.

    Comment by Jerry — August 13, 2007 @ 11:52 pm

  5. “We’ll let you drive the backhoe. Maybe even let you dig a hole with it.”

    THAT statement opens a “pictorial of the mind” that I won’t even ATTEMPT to describe! HA!

    Comment by Jerry K — August 14, 2007 @ 8:48 am

  6. Two seats/two sets of controls so the operator can sit where he gets the best view of the work to be done.

    Comment by hoosierboy — August 14, 2007 @ 9:28 am

  7. Jim,
    That’s not the muncher (actually called milling machines), that’s the paver. A dump truck backs up to the big bucket on the front and fills it with asphalt. the machine lays it out in a smooth, even layer.
    The muncher would have a good sized conveyer belt sticking out and up. The asphalt machined up off the road surface rides up the belt and into a dump truck to be hauled off.

    Comment by mark reardon — August 14, 2007 @ 11:21 am

  8. I have a badass unit too…but the Missus will kill me iffen I post pictures of it.

    Comment by Elisson — August 14, 2007 @ 12:53 pm

  9. …. they had one of those puppies out on my little street a few weeks ago…. they’re huge…

    Comment by Eric — August 14, 2007 @ 1:37 pm

  10. I think you should take Jerry up on his offer to visit the farm… THAT would provide some good blog pics! heh.

    Comment by Jean — August 14, 2007 @ 7:42 pm

  11. I use one of those rigs to shave with.

    Comment by Dick — August 14, 2007 @ 7:59 pm

  12. All that equipment and you guys still haven’t found Jimmy Hoffa!

    Comment by Cappy — August 14, 2007 @ 9:00 pm

  13. Several of these comments have once again proven that there are a whole lot of things I don’t know a whole lot about.

    Jimbo

    Comment by Jim — August 14, 2007 @ 11:54 pm

  14. Does anyone know if these can be fitted with Hedman Hedders, or Fuelie heads? It looks like it could throw a rod and still have the wheat fields ready for harvest in plenty of time.

    OK yeah so I’m just repeating some shit I’ve heard from car and farm dudes over the years. At least it’s a comment.

    Comment by dogette — August 15, 2007 @ 4:06 pm

  15. Jimbo…….. That is a paver. I backed my triaxle up to one those with 26 tons of asphalt at least 2000 times in the last 25 years.

    Comment by chef of da future — August 15, 2007 @ 7:51 pm

  16. […] a place stand out from another location. In the industrial North, like New Jersey, they use the latest in technological advances in simple tasks like road paving. One could make an argument that being industrialized is what helped the North win the War of […]

    Pingback by The Dax Files » — August 29, 2007 @ 1:47 pm

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