Tractor-Scraper Combo Hastens Homesite Grading Job

Wed January 30, 2002
James C. Van Horn

With the help of a new tractor-scraper combination, Ken Beer & Sons of Perkasie, PA, is making fast work of a mid-size excavating and grading job combination.

In Hilltown, PA, Beer & Sons is moving approximately 100,000 cu. yd. (76,456 cu m) of dirt for a new 45-unit luxury home subdivision, Hilltown Chase, being built by the Elliott Building Group, Newtown, PA. Beer & Sons is excavating to grade, then stockpiling the material for later use in finishing the homesites. Beer & Sons also is trenching and laying pipe for the utilities and excavating a runoff holding pond at one end of the subdivision. Material is mostly clay and sandy clay except where deeper cuts hit shale.

Normally, on a job like this, excavating contractors would use wheel loaders or hydraulic excavators and trucks in a top-loading application, or traditional crawler dozers. Conventional or elevating scrapers, with their high capacities and speeds, require favorable underfoot conditions and more space to maneuver.

However, Rodney Beer, one of the “sons” of Ken Beer & Sons, and Marty Lindmeier, of Giles & Ransome, the regional Caterpillar dealer, came up with an unusual alternative combination to maximize earthmoving efficiency and minimize cost. It’s a combination crawler tractor and pull scraper — but it’s not your grandfather’s machine used in highway construction in the early to mid-20th century. The prime mover is a late model Caterpillar Challenger 85E, 400-hp (298 kW) tracked agricultural tractor with a top speed of nearly 20 mph (32 kmh) . The Model 17C, 17-cu.-yd. (13 cu m) pan is made by Icon Industries Inc., Beloit, KS, and features all-hydraulic operation with precise cutting and spreading control.

In operation, the tractor-scraper teams (Beer has two) make quick, smooth cuts on future residential streets, then hustle up “berm hill” to stockpile the topsoil. Then they zip down for the next cut. Cycle time is a matter of two or three minutes.

According to Rodney Beer, “We can move nearly 3,000 cu. yd. just six hours with these two units.” Beer & Sons also is using Cat crawler dozers and loaders and a Cat Model 330 hydraulic excavator to load over the road dump trucks in the deeper rock excavation in the back of the project. Heading into winter, Ken Beer & Sons was well on track to finish ahead of schedule.

Lindmeier said, “We looked extensively at what we could offer excavation and grading contractors like Rodney to use in these earthmoving applications. We settled on the agricultural tractor because the Challenger units are faster and have better flotation characteristics.” (Crawler dozers in the 300- to 400-hp [223 to 298 kW] range normally have top forward speeds of only 8 mph — they’re actually faster in reverse.) The Cat Mobil-trac undercarriage system absorbs shock loads and follows ground contours; weight is spread across six axles.

Similarly, Lindmeier noted, “Giles & Ransome researched the types of pull scrapers we could offer with this prime mover extensively. We became acquainted with the Icon units and really liked what we saw.” The Icon 17C earthmover (there’s a 19C, 19-cu.-yd. [14.3 cu m] model also) is built to heavy construction standards like conventional scrapers, and two units can be pulled in tandem. The Icon earthmover has bowl, apron and swingwall ejection systems similar to larger scrapers and uses a gauge, visible from the operator’s compartment, to show the depth setting of the bowl and apron for cutting and unloading. So, in operation, Beer’s operator sets it at 2 in. (5 cm) and takes off. When working in more or less uniform material, he doesn’t need to keep making constant depth adjustments.

Another positive feature, according to Rodney Beer, is that the four in-line rear flotation tires are designed so they don’t track the prime mover, preventing unwanted compaction and rutting. “This combination would be ideal for grading and finishing a ball field, where you want the finished job to be flat and loose,” he said.

In contrast, the low end of the current Cat scraper line, the 621 and 627, have capacities of 20 cu. yd. (15 cu m) heaped and top speeds, loaded, more than 30 mph (48 kmh). Since on Beer & Sons’ job the distance from a typical cut to stockpile is only a couple of hundred feet, they would barely get started after making the cut before slowing down to dump. (But these distances almost rule out slower crawler dozers, another choice.)

There’s another reason Rodney Beer likes the combination — he can use the Challenger 85E as a farm tractor. That’s because Ken Beer & Sons, “excavators,” is really the outgrowth of Ken Beer & Sons, “farmers.” According to Beer, “Our family started dairy farming in 1960 and at one time had as much as 900 acres. But we found we couldn’t make money on it, so we branched into excavating in 1988. My brother Roger and I run the excavating business while my Dad still farms.

“If I can free up one of these Challenger tractors for a month in May, my dad can use it for plowing. It looks like I can convert it to a drawbar tractor in a few minutes.

“When you think about it,” said Beer, “a farm tractor is sort of inefficient. You need one, but you only use it twice a year, once in spring to plow, and in fall to harvest and then to disc over the harvested fields.”

But for Rodney, the key words are “free up,” because the excavating part of the business has really taken off, especially as the market area, upper Bucks County and the upper Perkiomen Valley area of PA, gradually becomes more developed. “This is a real family business,” Rodney explained. In addition to his brother Roger, his sons Matt and Andrew; his brother-in-law and his cousin, as well as his father, are all involved. “This does improve communications,” Rodney said.

Ken Beer & Sons does almost all of its jobs within 10 mi. of Perkasie, and has grown almost entirely by word of mouth and repeat business. For example, Hilltown Chase is the third project he has done for Elliott.

“We bid on jobs, but we try not to get jobs just on bid,” he said. “We want to get the job on reputation.” He admitted, “We still make mistakes, but we want to be able to go back and fix them and keep up our reputation,” which becomes harder on a strictly low-bid job. “The last thing we want to hear is that we botched up a job.

“Our greatest satisfaction,” he added, “is when we complete a job to the best of our ability and the way we think it should be done.”

This story also appears on Construction Equipment Guide.