[TheForge] Adventures in steel delivery.

Wed Mar 13 22:11:08 EDT 2013

Can't do most of this Jerry - $$ is the issue.  The clay of the drive 
gets very mushy when wet.  I will put down the typar and cinch the edges 
into the clay, maybe using an old fashioned half-round sod cutter. I 
already graded the drive into a trough about 4" deep.  I will fill as 
you specify to get the most dense compaction possible and hope that will 
do the do.  Grade to the road is very gentle - not more than 5 - 7* 
except at the last 75 feet where it is a bit steeper.  It's the best I 
can do at this point in history, unless I happen on to that large canvas 
bag on the side of the roadway with oodles of cash or bullion in it.

On 3/12/2013 5:30 PM, Jerry Frost wrote:
> Glad nobody was hurt outside of the steel company's pocketbook. Think
> they'll give you a discount on future orders? Think they're looking for
> a couple new drivers?
>
> Ries has it about right but be aware the conditions at your location
> will dictate specific soils stabilization requirements. Typar is one
> brand name of geotextile like Ries describes and probably the most
> popular in Alaska.
>
> What's the gradation of the pit run available? You'll need different
> gradations depending on water table, FS soils depth and grade. If you
> have non-FS (Frost Susceptible) soil you're lucky. FS soil holds water
> so it expands and contracts when freezing/thawing. If it's sticky of
> flowing mud it's FS. Excavate below ground water by a couple feet and
> lay your Geotextile so it forms a trough and fill it to water table
> (ground water table that is) with bone rock, no fines. (I'll define
> fines shortly) This will form a zone where water can flow under and away
> from your driveway. Cover the bone rock layer with geotextile and fill
> in lifts less than 2' if you have a proper vibrating roller to compact
> it. If you're using a plate compactor fill in 6" lifts and compact
> thoroughly. (till compactor is bouncing) Do NOT use much water, the less
> possible the better. Too much water and it'll start replacing gravel in
> your lifts. A rule of thumb indicator of excess water is free water
> under the compactor. If water splashes out from under the plate it's too
> wet, if wet mud forms it's too wet. It should only be damp to be right.
> However if it's dusty or fines, sand or gravel vibrates loose, moves or
> just doesn't set up under the compactor add a LITTLE water.
>
> Okay, so much for compacting as a general rule. Good gravel is composed
> of a gradation of sizes that fill the voids formed when particles lay
> together and do so uniformly. For instance, 4ea. 3" stones laying hard
> together have spaces everywhere BUT contact points. Fill these spaces
> with the largest stones that require three pieces to fill the space and
> repeat till the grain sizes pass a 200 screen, minus 200. -200 is on the
> small end of fines. -20 is sand, 4 is pea gravel. Crushed -1" is D1.
>
> Okay, what a proper gradation does is fill virtually every void to yield
> 100% compaction and it is as hard a non-consolidated (stone) formatin as
> you're going to find. In practical terms 100% is a term used to define
> fill that has been compacted to it's practical limit or good enough for
> the structure it's going to support. Glacial till is about as close to
> the theoretical 100% as you're going to find though humans try. For
> instance most nuclear reactors sitting on uncnsolidated soils are on
> "over compacted" material done by dropping a 10+ton wrecking ball from a
> couple hundred feet repeatedly till it bounces on impact.
>
> So, lay your bone rock drain rock leaving several feet till your reach
> OG (Original Grade) and fill in lifts till you reach to within about 6"
> of finish grade and fill the last 6" with D1 and crown IIRC 1/2" to 10'
> from the center of the road to the shoulder for drainage.
>
> And so ends Doc. Frosty's road building tutorial as recalled from his
> dented haid.
>
> I'll see if I can borrow the ASHTO manuals or maybe check the library if
> you have questions. There are field tests that will serve in place of
> lab tests, so long as you aren't building a public road. There are also
> ways to overdesign to make up for not doing proper testing.
>
> Jer
> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Andrew Vida" <osan at netlabs.net>
> To: "Blacksmithing List Sponsored by ABANA" <theforge at mailman.qth.net>
> Sent: Saturday, March 09, 2013 4:31 PM
> Subject: Re: [TheForge] Adventures in steel delivery.
>
>
>> Our short driveway is asphalt. Adjuster came yesterday and said it
>> will all be covered, so we're good there.
>>
>> The longer driveway is about 700 feet. I will put down typar (sp?) and
>> do the gravel with fines exactly for the reasons you state. Have to
>> regrade first. I'll get a bulldozer and fix it... shouldn't take very
>> long. I used to grade my mile long driveway in about 5 hours.
>>
>> We just had the second very wet winter in a row and to be frank I am a
>> little tired of slogging around in the red shale goo. I got so stuck
>> in it the day before yesterday I almost had to leave the boots where
>> they were. Luckily I am too stubborn. :)
>>
>> On 3/8/2013 1:16 PM, Ries Niemi wrote:
>>> Out here, we live on an old river delta, where a big enough rock will
>>> end up in china if you leave it where it is for a few years.
>>> We use "road cloth", which is this ten or twelve foot wide black
>>> porous fabric, it lets water through. You pre-grade your driveway,
>>> then lay down the road cloth. Then, you dump something like 1 1/4"
>>> with fines- gravel with the grit still mixed in. After a winter, and
>>> a bit of driving on it, it hardens up into a pretty solid driveway.
>>> Sometimes we use "pit run", too- its smaller gravel, with more fines-
>>> it hardens up even better, but the smaller gravel is less resistant
>>> to being spun out by car tires.
>>> Its a LOT cheaper than paving. Still costs money, though- I probably
>>> have 500 feet of it, with my various driveways- a fair amount of dump
>>> trucks full.
>>>
>>> ries
>>>
>>>
>>> On Mar 8, 2013, at 9:59 AM, Andrew Vida wrote:
>>>
>>>> All covered. Got us a rental car and adjusters should be out early
>>>> next week. Other than repaving the entire driveway, I am not sure
>>>> how they will repair the damage there.
>>>>
>>>> On 3/8/2013 12:00 PM, CGRAF wrote:
>>>>> I am hoping that the house is OK. The dirt can always be pushed
>>>>> back in
>>>>> place.
>>>>> Does the trucking company have insurance to cover any structural
>>>>> damage?
>>>>>
>>>>> Mike Graf
>
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