Good advice. A dozer is about the most fun you can have when you get it, but after a few hours on it, the fun sort of fades away and it turns into work. Then when it breaks, and it will break down on you, it becomes your worse nightmare.
Cat classifies dozers in three catagories. Small, medium and large. The small dozers are finish dozers. They are under 100 hp or just over, and are primarily used for smoothing out dirt piles, small grading jobs and easy transportation. They are not for digging or moving dirt, though with enough time and effort, a small dozer will get the job done, it's just not a very good tool for that type of job.
To answer your question, I would think the Mitsubishi B2D dozers are about the smallest affordble dozers out there. I've seen them from $7,000 to $11,000. It really seems to be more of where they are as to what they sell for. The small Komatsu's are also in that price range as are some older Case and Deere 350 models. I think the Cat D3 is a step up and close to a Deere 450 in size, but with older machines, it's not so much comparing size as it is getting the best deal for your money. The biggest thing you will have to realize with smaller and older dozers is finding parts. Some are gray market machines, which mean they were sold new overseas and after so many years of use, they were shipped here and sold used. Machines made overseas do not always have the same parts in them as those made here or for the US market. It might be very difficult finding the right parts, but from what I understand, not impossible. That also means parts will cost more then comparable parts for similar US machines.
All equipment breaks down on you. If you are prepared to fix it yourself, then buying a dozer or other piece of equipment makes sense. Small things like hoses or hydraulic cylinders are common. Things like pumps, tracks, engines and drive line components also stop working on you and you will have to fix them yourself. Even if you have allot of money, and I have a friend who does, getting a mechanic out there to fix it for you is a game of patience and frustration. My friend owns several companies, has millions of dollars and is pretty generous in spending it. He has a Case 1150 dozer that threw a track. He spent a year having it fixed because all the mechanics that he contacted are too busy taking care of their big clients with dozens of machines. They can charge him double, and he'd gladly pay it too, but they can't risk losing their long term clients for the quick cash of fixing my friends machine. He's not going to do it himself, it's just not his thing, so he waits, calls other mechanics and waits some more to get it fixed.
When buying a machine for digging a pond, remember that when you are done with it, you can sell it. If you take care of it, and buy it for a good price, you can usually sell it for what you paid for it. That is of course if you buy a machine that others will want and there is a demand for it. If you spend more on a better piece of equipment, then you should be able to get your money back faster and easier when you sell it. I paid $25,000 for my dozer and have another $15,000 into it in repairs. I dug my pond and put several hundred hours on it pushing dirt and clearing trees. 500 hours is pretty close on that project. I've cleard land and made roads with it with another 500 hours on it. Right now, I'm leveling out a pasture and grading my drainage to feed my lake so it's gradual and natural looking. That's a 100 hour project and counting. There are hundreds of hours on it that I'm not remembering right now, but since I've had my dozer, I've put 2,000 hours on it. It's a Case 1550 that weighs 40,000 pounds and is 170hp, or what Cat calls a medium sized dozer. To hire this sized machine would be in the $100 an hour range. My neighbor has spent that on smaller dozers, so that number is pretty realistic. 2,000 hours at $100 an hour would have cost me $200,000 !!!!!! I still have at least another 1,000 hours of work to do with it, so the savings are significant if you need a machine for long term and can do the work on it yourself.
That said, I hate it and can't wait to sell it. hahaha
If you just want a one acre pond dug, then the real question is how much do you have to spend? Where will the dirt go? and what is the soil like?
A small dozer sucks and digging hard clay. Even with rippers, which are more money, it's just too light to dig into the clay. Then the blade is so small that you are barely moving any dirt. Dozer work is very repetitive and boring. You just go back and forth over the same ground until you get it right. Then chance positions and do it again.
A scraper will be the fastest machine for digging and moving the dirt, but the most expensive to buy and maintain. Owning one of them will make a dozer seem affordable. If you are hiring it out, a scraper would be ideal.
For just plain digging, an excavator is the best tool for the job. Unfortunately, it's the worse choice for moving dirt, and like has already been stated, digging is easy, it's the moving of the dirt that is difficult. With an excavator, you will also need a dump truck and a dozer or something to spread the dirt after it's dumped. If hiring it out, this is the combination that I would expect to find and be looking for.
For buying a machine and doing it yourself, a commercial loader backhoe is probably the best option. I dug my 3/4 pond this way. It took months of hauling the dirt out of the pond with the front bucket. I was worried about the rainy season coming, so I just dumped the dirt next to the pond to get it dug, then spent anther year, off and on, moving the dirt from there. The front bucket on most of them is one yard. Some machines are bigger and you can go up to about 1 1/2 yards, but you really pay allot more for that extra size and power. The standard, most common sized backhoes are in the 80hp range and weigh around 14,000 pounds. Mine is 2wd, whih is cheaper, but not as good as 4wd. The big advantages to 4wd is being able to work in wet conditions where 2wd just gets you stuck and you can't move. You can also fill up the loader bucker faster and easier with 4wd. When you hit areas that are hard pan, the hoe bucket will dig it up quickly and easily. I bought a small 5 yard, gas dump truck that I load with my hoe bucket on hard pan soil to haul off. It's the fastest way that I have to move allot of dirt around my land. But a dump truck is another expense and vehicle to maintain and repair. I hate it. hahaha With the front bucket, you can move one yard at a time, do it all day long and slowly dig your pond. If you have the time and the patience, it's very doable. Buy a newer machine, pay $30,000 for it and when you are done, sell it for $28,000 or even try to get what you paid for it. You can't rent a machine for that and even if you sold it for $5,000 less then you paid for it, you are money ahead in what you can do with it while you own it. Take out trees, remove stumps and build roads. Estimate hiring a loader backhoe to work on your land for $50 an hour, which is cheap and probably not realistic, but easy for estimating. In an 8 hour day, that would cost you $400 to hire it out, but if you did it yourself, it's just twenty bucks in diesel fuel. Ten yards an hour is one load every six minutes for 80 yards a day. it's not much, but with a little extra effort, you can do more in a day and get that up to 100 yards a day for 500 yards a week or more. If you have the time, this is probably the only real workable way to do it on your own for as little money as possible.
Before buying anything, I'd call in at least five contractors and see what they would charge to do it for you. If it's less then what you would expect to depreciate the cost of the machine and they can get it done in a week, it might be cheaper to hire it done. You never know with contractors, some are hungry and wanting work, others are busy and don't really care if they get the job or not since there is so much work out there. They are probably going to do the best job, but because they are in such demand, they will be the most expensive. But don't confuse expensive with good. Some charge more based on the style of your home, what you drive and how desperate they are for cash. In my business, there are allot who base the price they charge on the house they are working on. Fancy house means charging more money.
Take your time, do the research and don't rush into anything. I'm seeing some low hour machines going for some great prices at the local auction, so if you decide to buy, figure out what you want and what you have to spend. Know that first, and then take your time looking around and waiting for the right deal.
Good luck,
Eddie
