There are a lot places where you wouldn’t expect to find a bulldozer. Bulldozers come a variety of shapes and sizes and range from giants that work in the mining industry to babies that work in factories.

These little bulldozers are also put to work in the holds of ships and are often used to scrape up the remnants of whatever material has been carried in the holds. This can range from coal, stone or gravel through to wheat and other grains. This is one job where you wouldn’t want to be claustrophobic.

It’s not just shipping. There are many factories that use bulldozers to push the raw material around. Sugar refineries use a bulldozer to push raw sugar into small hills. They are also used around wood chip and sand and gravel enterprises.

Bulldozers are a part of many commercial enterprises today. Whilst the big boys may live and work on construction sites, mines or road building; their little cousins are equally hard at work. They may move less material compared to their larger relative, but they work twice as fast to make up for it.

Despite the size, the training required to handle a small bulldozer is not that different to what is required to operate a full size bulldozer. ATS Heavy Equipment Training Schools deliver training that will have you well equipped to handle any size bulldozer.

Where bulldozers rely on brute strength to push dirt around, motor graders rely in finesse to finely ‘grade’ as surface. Motor graders truly are the fine artists in the heavy equipment family.

Bulldozers are short stout muscle men. Motor graders are long and narrow. Bulldozers are often sitting on tracks which make them slow and cumbersome. Motor graders are on wheels which make them fast and nimble. The bulldozer has a blade at the front, the motor grader a blade hanging from the middle of the vehicle. I could go on with these comparisons, after all, they are both heavy equipment that has been designed to push dirt around.

The biggest difference is that bulldozers push huge quantities of dirt over short distances. Motor graders make long passes gently taking the top surface and trimming and smoothing it until it has the right angle or the right slope.

Road making is a prime example of a graders work. All roads have a slight angle to them, carefully designed to influence the run off of water. On corners, these angles (or camber as it is known) is designed to keep the car on the right line going around the corner, particularly when going through mountainous or hilly areas.

Believe it or not, the bulldozer can do some of the work that a motor graders does. However it takes far longer and is not precise like a true grader. A grader would have difficulty doing the work of a bulldozer.

If you’re somewhat of an artist and would like to work in the heavy equipment field, then check out ATS Heavy Equipment Training Schools to see if we have the right training program for you.

Tough guys don’t sleep and they don’t doze either, especially on a construction site. The dozer, or more correctly, the bulldozer, is one of the tough guys on site. They are renown for their strength and their ability to shift large quantities of material in a short period of time.

Bulldozers are used in earth moving, road construction, mining, land clearing and for military purposes. The consist of a heavy body with a powerful motor generally sitting on ‘caterpillar’ treads. At the front is a thick strong steel blade that is used to push dirt. Combine the power of that engine, the overall weight of the machine, the treads and the blade and you have one tough muscle machine.

For highway construction, bulldozers are one of the first machines called in. The carve out the raw landscape into a rough road shape in preparation for motor-graders and other heavy equipment to come in and perform the finishing touches. Without the bulldozer, the motor grader would have nothing to work on.

In land clearing, the bulldozer is capable of ripping up the top couple of feet, pulling up shrubs and small vegetation, pushing over trees and even dragging tree stumps out of the ground. They are able to level a plot of land in fairly quick time.

On construction sites, the bulldozer prepares the ground by scraping away the top surface and providing a level building platform. The bulldozer is one of heavy equipments most versatile machines and operators are in heavy demand nationwide.

For a career as a bulldozer driver check out ATS Heavy Equipment Training Schools for nationally accredited training.

One of Heavy Equipment’s largest machines is the dragline excavator. This equipment is used in both civil engineering and surface mining. Smaller types are often used in road and port construction, particularly if an old piece of road needs tearing up.

The larger types are used in strip-mining operations generally to extract coal. These are amongst the largest heavy equipment in use and weigh in the vicinity of 2000 metric tonnes. There have been machines weighing up to 13,000 metric tonnes.

A dragline bucket system consists of a large bucket which is suspended from a boom. The bucket is maneuvered by means of a number of ropes and chains. Powered by large diesel or electric motors, the hoist rope supports the bucket and hoist-coupler assembly from the boom. By skillfully controlling the hoist and the dragrope the bucket is, as the name suggests, dragged through the material to be excavated.

For civil engineering, there other machines that have been specifically built to replace the dragline. Training to operate a drag line is often done on the job. However most employers preview to employ those that have heavy equipment experience on machines like a bulldozer.

You can get your bulldozer credentials through ATS Heavy Equipment Training Schools. Drop in and check out what courses may suit you.

Most people view bulldozers as dirt pushers, and they are right. Essentially, that is all they are. They have a lot muscle and heavy blade and their role in life is to ‘push dirt’ and lots of it. What most people don’t realize is that a bulldozer has a variety of blades to do a variety of jobs. It is not a one blade fits all all situation.

Standard blades are high and wide with a slight curve forward at the top of the blade. The blades often have a slight inward camber on either side as well. Together, as the bulldozer works across the ground, the material being moved is takes on a rolling action. The inward curve at the top forces the material forward all the time. The side cambers keep the material inside the blades and not washing out to the sides.

Another popular blade is the slightly U shaped blade. This too rolls the material being moved in a forward action. These blades are often used in forestry since the U shape matches the shape of logs. The logs are basically rolled along by the bulldozer.

A third blade is much flatter and has a tough cutting blade. This is used to slice through the surface and is used for removing a lot of earth very quickly. It is also useful for clearing land as it cuts through everything it encounters.

Bulldozers are simple but very effective machines for moving large amounts of material. It does so pushing rather than carrying. The life of a bulldozer operator is interesting given the variety of job they can be asked to do.

ATS Heavy Equipment Training Schools has courses that cover the operation of bulldozers. If a career as a bulldozer operator appeals to you, drop in and have a look, request a dvd or perhaps a free brochure on heavy equipment operations.

Bobcats, you see them everywhere these days. The bobcat is generally considered to be a landscape gardeners tool of choice when it comes to digging, moving soil and moving heavy plants. Although they are small in size, could they still be considered heavy equipment?

It would depend on your definition of heavy equipment. In my mind, heavy equipment is any mechanized device that takes the manual labor out of an earth moving job. You can also add to that some of the basic skills required to operate a bobcat are also those required to operate some of the larger construction machines.

The reverse is certainly true. If you can operate a bulldozer, you should be able to make the transition to a bobcat very quickly. Safety requirements are very similar as are operating techniques in the cab. They both require hand, feet and eye coordination.

Heavy equipment comes in all shapes and sizes. Apart from cranes, they all have one thing in common – they are used to move dirt, gravel and sand around. They all require similar training as well although a bobcat can be picked up on the job fairly quickly. However, if you have the basic skills acquired whilst learning to operate the large brothers of the bobcat, handling a bobcat will be easy.

ATS Heavy Equipment Training Schools can provide all the training required to operate the large earth moving equipment. The bobcat, learn to operate a dozer or a frontend loader and you will be right at home in a bobcat.

Heavy equipment comes in all shapes and sizes. The bigger pieces of equipment can really pack some punch. A bulldozer is capable of pushing large amounts of material around. The grader can also push huge amounts of dirt around. So, in the world of heavy equipment, who is the brute?

Most people would opt for the bulldozer and why not, they can certainly push a lot of dirt around. Graders, however can also push the same amount of dirt.

When it comes to brute strength, they both have what it takes. Bulldozers are a little like a meat cleaver. They get stuck in and use their brute strength to carve up the earth and push it to one side.

Graders, on the other hand, use the same brute strength to push dirt around, but they are more like a fine slicing knife, using force to sculpt the land pushing the dirt out to the side while the blades dig in and peel the earth away.

They both use brute force, one in a brutal way, the other in gentler carving motion. The end result, the bulldozer has cleaned the rubbish and top dirt away. The grader can now come in and start to the shape the earth for the final steps of construction.

You cannot compare them. They both use brute strength for different jobs and different outcomes. To learn how to operate either one or both of these, check out ATS Heavy Equipment Training Schools for more information.

The height of summer and fortunately there haven’t been too many serious fires as yet. One of the most exciting and most dangerous jobs that a bulldozer operator can experience is as a wildfire fighter.

Bulldozer are an important part of all firefighting crews that deal with forest and bush land fires. As operators you job has many different aspects. Cutting fire trails so firefighter can get in or simply firebreaks to try to stop or slow a wild fire is dangerous enough.

Other jobs include trying to bury smoldering woodland using dirt, sand or gravel. Bulldozer operators have often worked so close to fires their paint work has blistered from heat.

Once the danger of the fire has passed, their is the cleanup work, leveling areas that have been devastated ensuring there are no smoldering logs ready to star the blaze all over again. Clearing land where perhaps a house or barn once stood and helping to rebuild roads that have suffered from the heat.

A dangerous and exciting job fighting fires, but someone has to do it. If you want to learn the skills required to operate a bulldozer you should perhaps consider training through ATS Heavy Equipment Training Schools.

What sort of person are you? Do you like being the person to put the finishing touches on a job? Perhaps your the kind of person who is technical and works to measurements, angles and depths? Or are you the brute who rolls up their sleeves and uses brute force to get a job done? Whatever your style there is a bulldozer to suit.

Heavy equipment is not just about operating a big powerful brute. When it comes to bulldozers there are many different styles, classes and even attachments that can be used.

If your the finishing kind of person, there are smaller lighter quite nimble machines that are designed for putting those finishing touches to an area. They are the types of machines that can smooth over rough patches, help to spread sand and other materials ready for construction or road building.

Next in line are your general purpose machines. Designed to push a lot of earth around, shape the ground in both depth and to certain angles or slopes. These are the machines you see on most construction jobs.

Finally their is the brute. These are the large machines often used in mines or in waste dumps. They push huge amounts of dirt, garbage or raw materials in quick time. Despite their size they are quite nimble.

What is your preference – light on your feet or the big brute? ATS Heavy Equipment Training Schools can you started on your career in bulldozer operations.

Some bulldozers are quite small and are great for landscaping and other small jobs such as finishing work. There are other bulldozers that are huge – generally used in open cut mines and forestry. These machines are equipped to push tonnes of dirt around with a single thrust.

This bulldozer is only a small to medium size piece of heavy equipment. No matter the size, all operators start out the same, learning the basics along with all safety requirements. From there all operators get out in the field to learn how to handle the ‘dirt’. That is the one lesson that all operators continue to learn throughout their operating careers.

Bigger just means more grunt and more dirt being pushed around. Smaller means less grunt, less dirt, but more finesse as the bulldozer ‘finishes’ the job.

Careers don’t just happen, you need to make them happen. Whether you want to operate one of those massive open cut mine bulldozers, or one of those small landscaping machines, you need to get some basic training, and that all starts by enrolling at ATS Heavy Equipment Training Schools.

Get into the drivers seat of bulldozer and start to carve out the ground. The power you have in your hands is amazing. Look at a paddock full of scrub at the start of a job then look back at a completely bare patch of ground ready to build on – you did that – all it took was a foot in the door created by an accredited training school.