Page 282 - Peterson 85 Years and Going Strong

it with their Cat 963 track loader. And it worked great—until it got gummed up too. There just wasn’t enough horsepower and oil flow from the loader to keep the aerator head spinning. It took several variations to find the perfect solution, but Peterson’s crew stuck with it. “It was a four-year project from start to finish, and rather painful. But once we found the right combination, it worked great,” says Ravazza. Since then, Ravazza’s Turd Turner has opened the door to other wastewater treatment plants with similar issues.
THE TELESCOPING SEVEN-WAY DOZER BLADE
In 2016, Peterson’s San Leandro fab shop built a telescoping seven-way dozer blade for a customer’s D6K. The joint venture team of Dragados, Flat- iron, and Sukut needed a variable-width blade to construct three different size chimney drains on their Calaveras Dam project. They bought a Cat D6K2 outfitted with AccuGradeTM from the fac- tory but needed a seventh function to do the job right. “Since each of the chimney drains was a dif- ferent width (eight feet, ten feet, and fifteen feet), they needed a telescoping blade that could adjust widths all day long,” says Ravazza, who helped de- sign the system. “AccuGrade uses GPS to ensure that the blade self-adjusts to give a flat, even sur- face, level to the earth.” The chimneys bookend the quarter-mile-long earthen dam wall to help con- trol horizontal seepage and add stability. The dozer blade worked flawlessly. The concept was already in use in farming, but this was the first time it was employed in dam construction.
REACHING AROUND THE GLOBE: THE 552 FELLER BUNCHER
Caterpillar still comes to Peterson with ideas for the same reason they turned to Buster Peterson in the 1950s and ’60s: quick solutions. As a growing forestry center with a reputation for customization,
Engineer Dale Smith built the telescoping 7-way blade with AutoCAD software before it was built in the San Leandro fab shop.
280 | PETERSON: 85 YEARS AND GOING STRONG