Thursday, August 07, 2008

The fragile equilibrium of a skid-steer

So today at my dad's work, I was driving a skid-steer around. Fun times! We are levelling out a large dirt pile and putting it in this ditch over this ginormous steel pipe. So I had a big bucketful of dirt and rocks and cinder blocks and heaven only knows what, and I was on my way over to the ditch to dump it out.

Now, skid-steers don't have any sort of suspension, so if you go over a bump, they rock back and forth like a bucking bronco. However, they have a fairly low center of gravity, so usually you are all right.

Unless, of course, you have a heavy bucketful of dirt, rocks, cinder blocks and nameless yard waste, and you are carrying said bucketful way higher than normal bucket position. Such a course of behavior raises the center of gravity significantly and puts it rather far out to the front.

I'm sure you can see where this is going.

6 comments:

Dinnertime Blues said...

NO COMMENT!

Creativity Escapes Me said...

I know, this has a happy ending. Right?

Spencer said...

I tipped the thing over and it landed on the bucket. My dad came out and flipped it back over with some clever maneuvering of the bucket. No harm done. :)

I wish I had taken some pictures, though...

Creativity Escapes Me said...

Yeah, happy ending!

Sans pics.

Laverna said...

Wish there were pictures. :D
My dad worked a few summers ago at a stone yard -- he was driving a fork-lift with a bunch of rocks and stuff on a pallet and tipped it over.
Fortunately they were able to get it up again before the boss saw what happened.

momtothree said...

Hope RSI has workers comp!