Synopses & Reviews
Crushing and dredging, pulverizing and transporting, heavy equipment has lifted, rolled, and hauled its way through history. From the building of Pyramids and early Roman roads, to the Panama Canal and the Channel Tunnel, colossal structures have been poured, framed, and erected over thousands of years. The equipment used to create these immense wonders is itself dazzling in its size, power, and strength.
This eye-popping pictorial albulm inspects and digs into the most magnificant pieces of heavy equipment ever built. The book explores six different industries (construction, mining, tunnels/drilling, farming and forestry, recycling, and aeronautics).
Each spread contains stories abut the machines' creation or evolution; the facts about size power; and the economics of manufacturing and running this equipment, with enormity comparisons that abound throughout the book that illustrate the massiveness, height, weight, and strength of these mechanisms.
Through these dynamic pages enter the big Brutus Mining Shovel that now stands as a museum in the United States of America; learn how the NASA Crawler/Transporter pulls the Space Shuttle to its launch pad, turning all gravel and rock in its path to sand; see the drill bit used to dig the Channel Tunnel; witness the overwhelming size of the 300-ton Komatsu 930E dump truck, and much, much more. There is also an adden-dum chapter on the fictional heavy equipment used in Star Trek, Star Wars, Aliens, and the Flintsones.
Experience the evolution of dump trucks, tracters, drills, and trenchers from their simplest design to their most complex detail. Caterpillar, John Deere, and Komatsu are a few of the heavy equipment manufacturers featured that lead the industry in design, technology, and production.
Mankind's ongoing quest to control and master the elements - water, rock, trees, and dirt - is examined on these pages. The methods of our development and progress as a society are laid out and demonstrated on these huge, colorful pages. Pull up to these big rigs, settle in, and get your hands dirty while enjoying the extraordinary mechanics of stacking, digging, threshing, excavating, grading, and transporting big things.
Synopsis
A super-colossal book for grown-ups, this awe-inspiring album is packed with full-color close-ups of massive dump trucks, huge bulldozers, immense tree shredders, and dozens of other super-large machines used in mining, construction, tunnels, drilling, farming, forestry, and recycling. Descriptions of how they work and what they do bring readers right to the construction site.
Synopsis
Every little boy (and many a little girl) has a favorite toy dump truck, bulldozer, or bucket shovel. Now, here's the book for grown-up boys and girls!
This super-colossal work is for all those who like big things. Description, facts, specs, and stories on massive dump trucks, hugh bulldozers, immense tree shredders, and other types of super-giant machines.
Here's some of what is included:
- Equipment through the Ages
- The Three Gorges Dam
Construction Equipment
- Komatsu D575A-2 Super Dozer
- Caterpillar
- Tires, Tracks, and Other Modes of Moving Machines
- A Touch, An Eye, and Respect:
What It takes to Be a Heavy Equipment Operator
Cranes
- Primer on Cranes
- Mobile Wheeled Cranes
- Crawler Cranes
- Tower Cranes
Mining Equipment
- Big, Brutus/Otis Steam Excavator
- The Captain/Big Muskie
- Komatsu 930E Giant Dump Truck
- German Mining Reclamation
- Amphibious Bulldozer
Farming and Forestry
- Tractors
- Tractor Attachments
- Combine Harvesters
- John Deere
- Forestry Equipment
- Tree Spades
Specialized Equipment
- Shredders
- NASA Space Shuttle Crawler Transporter
- Global Positioning Systems
About the Author
Erik Bruun has been a reporter, editor, and freelance writer for more than twenty years. His books include Our Nation's Archive and American Values and Virtues. In his home community, he has taken a leadership role in several organizations that advocate for social change. He has three children.Buzzy Keith works at Trax, Inc., an equipment distributor, in Atlanta, Georgia. He lives in Marietta, Georgia with his wife and their two children.
Table of Contents
Introduction
Heavy Equipment Through the Ages
Giant Ancient Wonders
Panama Canal
The Three Gorges Dam
Construction Equipment
Road Construction and Highway Equipment
Bulldozers
- Komatsu D5775A-2
Scrapers
Front-end Loaders
Graders
Robert G. LeTourneau...And His Machines
Paving Machines
Excavators
Trenchers
Caterpillar
Tires, Tracks, and Other Models of Moving Machines
A Touch, An Eye, And Respect: What It Takes to Be a Heavy Equipment Operator
Cranes
Primer on Cranes
Mobile Wheeled Cranes
Crawler Cranes
Tower Cranes
Mining Equipment
Big Brutus/Otis Steam Excavator
The Captain/Big Muskie
Draglines
Stripping Shovels
Giant Hydraulic Excavators
Rotary Blast Drills
Giant Dump Trucks
- Komatsu 930E Giant Dump Truck
Bucket Wheel Excavators
German Mining Equipment
Underground Mining Equipment
Mining Mastodons
Economics of Heavy Equipment
Tunneling Machines
Full-face Tunnel Boring Machines
The Channel Tunnel
Oil Rigs
Amphibious Bulldozer
Farming and Forestry
Tractors
Giant Tractors
Tractor Attachments
Combine Harvests
John Deere
Forestry Equipment
- Tree
- Tree Chippers
- Tree Spades
Specialized Equipment
Newell Shredder
Recycling Equipment
Military Equipment
NASA Space Shuttle Crawler-Transporter
Canadarm
Fictional Equipment
The Future (or Look, No Hands!)
Acknowledgements
Bibliography
Photography Credits