[TheForge] Adventures in steel delivery.

Thu Mar 14 13:05:21 EDT 2013

This road was cut from the mountainside.  It is 2 years old + and 
stable.  Been using it when reasonably dry, so it is pretty well walked-in.

This clay may not be anything you've encountered before - it is like 
concrete when dry and like ice when it gets too wet.  Murderously so and 
ANY vehicle including tracked can get completely hosed in it, especially 
if there is more than about a 2* grade.  If you have not seen it first 
hand you would have a hard time believing it.  When this shit is REALLY 
wet, a D6 would have a very difficult time getting out of this driveway. 
  Twenty feet east and it would bury itself in no time and would have to 
sit until things dried out before it could climb out of the bowl.

I dug a good drainage ditch and it works well - put in a pair of 12" 
culverts in, one halfway up, the other about 30' from the house. 
Digging those ditches was loads of fun.

On 3/14/2013 9:27 AM, wmullett at bright.net wrote:
> You can't build any road just on top unless your already on a solid foundation.  So if you already don't have a base, your just wasting money.
>
> Before the fancy fabrics, the process was still basically the same as what Frosty writes.  Excavate the top/sub soil to below frost and build your base then add your top layers.
>
> For a drive, if you have decent, draining sub soil, you might get away with less base depth but clay is not it.
>
> ---- Original message ----
>> Date: Wed, 13 Mar 2013 21:11:08 -0500
>> From: theforge-bounces at mailman.qth.net (on behalf of Andrew Vida<osan at netlabs.net>)
>> Subject: Re: [TheForge] Adventures in steel delivery.
>> To: Blacksmithing List Sponsored by ABANA<theforge at mailman.qth.net>
>>
>> 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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