Post by muleskinner on Jan 3, 2011 16:52:16 GMT -5
Once when I was working as a Cat Skinner up in the Willamette forest, of Oregon, we were in the crumby going by the Kingsford Charcoal plant in Springfield, Oregon where there was a cat spreading and stacking chips on their chip pile. One of the guys in the Crumby made the remark to me that I needed a job like that, spreading Cat Litter all day on a Cat. We all got a laugh out of it and for the we Two Cat skinners in the group it became a standard joke among us. The Cat I refer to, was an old D7 which was nearing the end of her time on the chip piles and was due to be replaced by a newer updated D8 unit. Her next job would be to be sold and equipped for Cat logging, or to used as spare parts to keep other units running. These cats had to be kept clean of oil and grease residue which was a hazard to the chip piles which build up their own heat internally and could get hot enough to ignite any flammable substance such as grease, oil and diesel which spilled on the chips. These fires once started in chip piles could burn for months even years depending on the size of the piles.
Some, Cats such as these had completely enclosed bottoms under the engine and small holed side plates on the engine compartment to catch any residue petroleum products and to keep the chips from piling up in the engine compartment.They also had to be occasionally spot painted as the chips acted like sand paper which would scrape the paint off down to the bare metal.
The model depicts this Cat as I remember her in Springfield at the end of her usage in the chips and about to be replaced. It is equipped with a three fingered ripper on the back of her for aerating the chips and screened extensions added to the blade for more scrapping area when grading chips into a pile. She is also missing a lot of paint from use and has numerous leaks which eventually is going to be her down fall in her job. She also has the open air Skinner cage which would on later models be replaced with a fully enclosed cab around the operator. This unit is also is one of the few Cats in the lumber industry which are equipped with lights for three shift operation around the mill.
For this model I used a AMT Cat D8H and rebuilt it to the D7 standards of the Kingsford Cat adding the extra rippers left over from other kits and adding the extension screens to the front blade. The side panels of the engine compartment and the cover plate on the bottom were constructed of Evergreen Plastic. The whole unit was painted Dark Japanese yellow which is the close match for Cat yellow and then weathered. After the weathering was complete, I then went over it with Steel colored paint to simulate the paint scrapped of in areas by the wood Chips. The original had a set of Peterbilt head lights which I added from the scrap box and painted the casings black.
Some, Cats such as these had completely enclosed bottoms under the engine and small holed side plates on the engine compartment to catch any residue petroleum products and to keep the chips from piling up in the engine compartment.They also had to be occasionally spot painted as the chips acted like sand paper which would scrape the paint off down to the bare metal.
The model depicts this Cat as I remember her in Springfield at the end of her usage in the chips and about to be replaced. It is equipped with a three fingered ripper on the back of her for aerating the chips and screened extensions added to the blade for more scrapping area when grading chips into a pile. She is also missing a lot of paint from use and has numerous leaks which eventually is going to be her down fall in her job. She also has the open air Skinner cage which would on later models be replaced with a fully enclosed cab around the operator. This unit is also is one of the few Cats in the lumber industry which are equipped with lights for three shift operation around the mill.
For this model I used a AMT Cat D8H and rebuilt it to the D7 standards of the Kingsford Cat adding the extra rippers left over from other kits and adding the extension screens to the front blade. The side panels of the engine compartment and the cover plate on the bottom were constructed of Evergreen Plastic. The whole unit was painted Dark Japanese yellow which is the close match for Cat yellow and then weathered. After the weathering was complete, I then went over it with Steel colored paint to simulate the paint scrapped of in areas by the wood Chips. The original had a set of Peterbilt head lights which I added from the scrap box and painted the casings black.