Celebrating Positives (offset of the Gripes Thread)

[nomadpete]

You are confusing two very different rocks, Spacey.

 

But I get what you are saying about retirement.

 

Nevertheless, I am an old, ever less able, cranky, retired nomad who is still insisting on chasing what some call dreams.

 

 

Edited November 2 by nomadpete
I made some dreams a reality. I just hope I can remember them.

[Marty_d]

I'm looking forward to retirement. Work takes up too much time that could be better used on meaningful activity.

[facthunter]

I've never had spare time.  I wonder how I ever had the time to fit a job in. When I was flying I also sold NEW machinery and ran a mower repair business.. Nev

[rgmwa]

Work always seems to expand to fill the time available. Retirement work doesn't pay very well though.

[facthunter]

No shortage of those who want it all for nothing.  The People WITH Money are the hardest ones to get  it out of. Nev

[willedoo]

That's one of the reasons why they've got money. They don't like parting with it.

[facthunter]

They get it easily and undervalue other's skills..  Nev

[willedoo]

The bludging is over and it was back to some hard work today. The house flippers rang up and have a bunch of give-away stuff to get rid of. They're trying to wrap the job up before the holidays and put it on the market. Today I got a couple of loads of left over 140x19 merbau decking that I can use. It's about $1,500 retail value. Tomorrow will be another two or three loads of blocks and plywood. Somehow I always seem to end up with a heap of half blocks and not full size. Always handy for corners or piers though. Thursday they are ripping up the driveway so I'll get a couple of truckloads of broken up hotmix to fill some holes in my track.

[willedoo]

By truckloads I mean 8-10 cu.metre tippers not my little ute.

[old man emu]

I'm using Merbau 90 x 19 to make external window surrounds. I've already cut the pieces for one window, but I've been a bit distracted from that job.

 

140 x 19 !!!!!!!!!! You've struck the mother lode.

[willedoo]

Merbau is nice timber, nice and stable and durable. I also picked up 20 0r 30 metres of 140 x12 spotted gum T&G overlay flooring. They're short off cuts, around 1500 to 1800 and have a few cracks and large gum veins but will be ok for something rustic.

[old man emu]

22 minutes ago, willedoo said:

I also picked up 20 0r 30 metres of 140 x12 spotted gum T&G overlay flooring.

I hate you! You lucky, lucky bastard.

[nomadpete]

Something for OME to celebrate.  His dry spell might be coming to an end.

 

[old man emu]

I watched an isolated rain cell approach my place yesterday afternoon. I'm sure that the closest edge passed by a bit over 100 metres away on the other side of the highway. I didn't even get a sniff of rain.

 

I was speaking to my son in Sydney last night and he told me that his boys' sports practice had been cancelled due to rain. I've decided that I'm going down to Sydney and spend a day or two just standing in the rain. Not even going to pack my Driz-a-bone.

[willedoo]

I'm very proud of my free road material delivered today. It's the recycled driveway from a house in town my new house flipper acquaintances are renovating. The driver said it was about 18 cu.metres, I guess it would be about right. The next step is to figure out the best way to use it without watching it all wash away down the hill. It's broken up hotmix interspersed among the gravel base. The gravel is not your normal final surface road base, this stuff is smaller aggregate and a lot of fines. It will be ok for filling some big holes and laying proper road base over the top of it.

 

I'd forgotten how limited single drive trucks are once they get off the bitumen. We had a storm last night so the top inch or two was a little bit greasy when he brought the first load. He didn't get far with the single axle and no diff lock. After he got out on the bitumen and did a reverse gear charge from there, the momentum got him in place. A bogey drive with a diff lock would have just walked straight in. On his second and third load the wind and sun had dried the dirt so he was ok.

 

[nomadpete]

All very well as long as you can spread it and ovelay it with fines to fill the gaps. How are you planning to compact it to stop it washing away?

[onetrack]

Wet it down extremely well, and hire a decent-size compactor (preferably a vibrating roller), and it will go down solidly, and stay in place, if done right.

Make sure you clean all the loose rocks and dirt out of the holes before it goes down.

[willedoo]

1 hour ago, onetrack said:

Wet it down extremely well, and hire a decent-size compactor (preferably a vibrating roller), and it will go down solidly, and stay in place, if done right.

That works ok for not so steep situations. Whatever I put down has to be sealed to stay in place. If you don't seal it you will get a usable drive for a while until the torrential downpours rip it out. At the moment I'm trialing a test strip of interlocked recycled concrete pieces overlaid with roadbase with some cement mixed in. It's holding up so far but again, is not a permanent solution. The driveway is 500 metres long and steep. The terrain makes it difficult as there's very few places you can get a spoon drain in. Most of the track is an infall. One 100 metre section is only a slight slope and it works ok with three concrete drains running across it to take the water away. For the other sections it's too steep for whoaboys.

 

That's the big challenge with my track, trying to break up the flow otherwise the momentum of the flowing water does the damage. If drains, whoaboys and pipes block up the water gets up a lot of force due to that momentum, and would run the full 500 metres down to the road. A continual maintenance problem with the drains is the amount of bush. It results in a lot of leafdrop and when it rains big clots of leaf matter can block the drains. I've certainly had a lot of fun with it over the years. Photos are deceptive. In this photo below, that section is a lot steeper than what it looks in the photo.

 

[willedoo]

2 hours ago, onetrack said:

Wet it down extremely well, and hire a decent-size compactor (preferably a vibrating roller), and it will go down solidly, and stay in place, if done right.

I remember doing a section of the driveway about 25 years ago where I had loads of 50mm mixed stone and fines trucked in and road base over that. I spread it with my little TD8 and I hired a smooth drum vibrating roller that a mate drove. The slope was fairly difficult for the smooth drum. The mate would have to back down to a flatter area as a launching pad then charge the slope to get to the top and vibrate as he backed down. We got the job done though and it's surprising how that section has held up over the years. It washed over time but still has road base on it and not much 50mm showing through.

 

The road base they sell around the district is good for flat ground but not much good on hills. The council had a small local quarry back in the 80's that had great stuff for laying on slopes. It was reddish in colour and it's secret was it had a good clay content to bind together and hang in on slopes.

[willedoo]

3 hours ago, nomadpete said:

All very well as long as you can spread it and ovelay it with fines to fill the gaps. How are you planning to compact it to stop it washing away?

Pete I won't put it down until I sort out what will go over it. The old pieces of hotmix are only a small portion of it. Most of it is a fairly fine substrate that would need something over the top of it. Either that or blend a lot of cement into it. Even then it would eventually erode. The problem is those days when we get several inches of rain in a few hours. I've seen 12 and 14 inches of rain in a day here. Our record was 33 inches in 24 hours in 1992.

[facthunter]

You have got yourself a lifetime Job.  Nev

[onetrack]

A mixture of lime and cement added to the road base will greatly assisting in the binding of the material - but you'll need at least 4 or 5% lime and cement by volume.

The lime and cement needs to be well rotary-hoed in. Road stabilisers are just big rotary hoes with on-board lime and cement hoppers.

 

https://auststab.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/Profilers-versus-stabiliser.pdf

 

The track steepness, and heavy rainfall, and leaf litter blockages, can only be handled by large diameter culverts with sizeable inlets, placed at regular intervals down the slope.

 

Keep your eye open for Armco culvert material in ex-mining surplus auctions. Sometimes you can also pick up surplus concrete culvert pipes in auctions, too.

 

https://infrasteel.com/what-are-the-primary-components-of-culverts/#:~:text=Arch culverts allow water to,and an inlet%2Foutlet conduit.

 

Edited November 14 by onetrack

[willedoo]

4 hours ago, facthunter said:

You have got yourself a lifetime Job.  Nev

Certainly have there. I know a few people who just can't comprehend why I don't give up, move to town and die of boredom. We all know the destination so I figure why not enjoy the journey while you can. Better to die with your boots on than in some miserable nursing home bed.

[willedoo]

3 hours ago, onetrack said:

The track steepness, and heavy rainfall, and leaf litter blockages, can only be handled by large diameter culverts with sizeable inlets, placed at regular intervals down the slope.

That section in the photo posted above is about 100 metres and is the only section that can't take a culvert due to the power line running under the centre of it. Luckily at the bottom end of that 100 metres there's a short flat section past the power cable where water can be diverted off track. At the moment it just has a whoa-boy for diversion but I've got a big culvert planned for there to take the infall water from the 100 metre stretch. Sealing the inside gutter would also offer less resistance so the leaf litter washes through a bit better.

 

 

[facthunter]

You have to divert the water OFF the road in fairly short sections so the volume doesn't get  too high. Grates will block up with twigs and leaves. It really needs sealing with sufficient compaction to support  and you'll need gutters on the up slope side.. BIG $$$'s.   Nev