Need advice to move 1-1/2 ton pallet of rocks

[olthumpa]

I have been the recipient of some much needed help from members of this site in the past, present and most likely the future. I have also gleamed many pearls of wisdom - either already put them to use or stored for future times. I am glad that I you were able to use some of my suggestion to get your project started.

As to the amount of beer.

You got the job done. You did not get hurt. You did not break the machine. I think you found the correct proportions.

 

[skeets]

Now just a cotton picken minute <<<< you didn't say nuttin about havein a few bottles of Guinness in a cooler,,, All you was talking about was rocks,, if you told somebody you have Guinness,welllll I would have been beat feetin down to help,, and maybe found a bottle of Jameson's along the way>>>> Its good you got it done I love it when a plan comes together

 

[Tooljunkie]

Well, now i feel somewhat entertained. Thanks.
Glad you got mission accomplished.

 

[Grouse Feathers]

Did I miss something, I thought the rocks were still scattered about the yard. For enough Guinness I am sure some of us could still make the trip to help pick up the rocks. Maybe you could figure one bottle per rock with stacking the rock after we pick it up extra maybe another bottle.

Larry

 

[Daren Todd]

Never underestimate the motivational power of pizza and beer

 

[olthumpa]

Never underestimate the motivational power of pizza and beer

I wont crash this

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bRnLao0uf_w

 

[Daren Todd]

That's one of my favorite movies !!!! wife rolls her eyes when i net flix it

 

[ShaunBlake]

Okay guys, I seldom chill the Guinness; the six-pack I did chill was consumed before the end of Easter Week. There is now one (1) Guinness Stout, sitting next to the 'fridge (as cold as it's gonna get). Anyone who wants to come down and stack some rock is welcome to it. (Well, excepting Grouse Feathers, who clearly would need more than I have on hand, at a one-rock, one-Guinness rate.)

skeets, I am terribly sorry I didn't notify you -- I truly expected I was the only one around who liked that stuff. I mean, if anybody was buying it, why would it sit around so long that it turns black? To make up for excluding you, PM me with your FAX number and I'll FAX you this last one. (DON'T post it in for forum or your FAX machine will get flooded, prolly with Coors! )

 

[Tooljunkie]

I tried guiness once. Not my favorite.it was at a harvest party. Theme was beers of the world, we poured off a half bottle into shots and shared. Whoever preferred the present beer got rest of bottle. Tasted a lot of beer that night.
Only know of 2 stout beer (off) drinkers in my community, i was a bartender in my past life. I dont drinknow what i used to spill then.

I like beer, just not a lot of it.

 

[Daren Todd]

I grew up in an area that had several different micro brewers. Local bars supported local so the beer specials were always the local stuff. So consequently I developed a taste for trying new beers I rarely drink now. Usually a couple beers a month. But when my wife and I go out to eat I gotta check the beer list and see if they have something new to try And when traveling especially to other states, I gotta try the local beers. I guess the plus side to that is I'll drink just about anything

 

[Grouse Feathers]

I feel bad about being left out as you would have plenty of time to get more Guinness as two per day is my absolute limit. This also has the positive benefit of limiting my number of rocks per day. Early in this post I seem to remember the reason for this whole exercise was to save your back and I have the same weaknesses age and back. When I first considered a tractor I was looking for a snow blower and no fel that would have been really "stoopit".

Larry

 

[William1]

I am planning a similar but hope fully, a little easier job. I have a stream that feeds my pond. Mother nature wants to change the direction of the stream and I've decided to battle it. So I need to build a rip-rap wall about 3' tall and about 20' long. I am going to get 2 ton of rip rap (6"~8") at some point and then hand load it in to the bucket of the BX and drive it to the spot. With the bucket on the ground, it will be at three feet above the stream. Then neatly stack/place.
I'm hoping to put about 400 pounds at a time in the bucket. 10 trips. The bad part is having the drive the tractor across my lawn but there is no way to get through the woods unless I create a road/trail.
Fortunately, I somewhat like manual labor as long as there is not a lot of climbing up and down (both knees already replaced) and the FEL does make thinks 10X easier.
I've never bought RipRap before. I assume it does not (cannot, or be stupid expensive) come on pallets and even if it did, a BX25D with pallet forks attached to the bucket could never lift them, right?

 

[CaveCreekRay]

The choice stuff might be on pallets but, out West, they just haul it bulk. Out here we use a lot of granite varieties and some really rusty-brown-green-colored shale. They put a street through the edge of a hill in North Phoenix and dynamited out the hillside. It was all green rock that made a great rip-rap. Odd color for out here.

I am about to start a large yard renovation and I will be buying tons of it. Let me know what you get and what it runs. It would be nice to see what its going for elsewhere.

Good luck!

Ray

 

[William1]

Price (loose) is $35/ton.
The quarry is about 6 miles from me and I expect, no matter how much I buy (1 ton, six tons), delivery will be at least $100. I'd borrow a trailer from a neighbor but I'd hate for it to possibly get dented during loading by a monster front end loader dumping from 20' up!

I really ought to look into it now but it is hard to get excited about rock when there are so many accessories I need for my tractor.............

 

[cerlawson]

William 1:
If the rock size is as you say, that is what I'd call uniform sized. As such, water can work its way via the voids and erode soil through those voids. In time failure can result. I'd try to slope the soil area first as flat as you can, say 2:1, better 3:1 and then lay a filter fabric down, probably a woven type. Then your job is more likely to be success. Your state DOT Materials Section may be able to offer advice. Advice from a geotech civil engineer here.

 

[William1]

The wall of the creek is near vertical and sloping it is not possible. I was planning to place geotech fabric behind it, with the thought that everything will settle and the slope will be minimized.
The first thirty feet had just flat rock placed on it with gaps and has worked great for ten years. The issue is that the direction up stream has 'moved' and now directs the water against one wall during extreme conditions.. So I am excavating out a large area and just want to 'shore up the wall' on one side. The water will be 'coaxed' to go straight and the one wall, a bit protected.

 

[Tooljunkie]

Side slope needs to be 4:1. But if you have to work with what is there, you may need geo behind and a wire mesh to retain the stone.

You may want to research Gabion wall
And bank stabilization.

 

[skeets]

A guy I use to know that worked for PennDOT somehow got several Jersey barriers that had been damaged a bit. And they set them in the creek with a BAH,, ( big ass hoe) then back filled with rock from the stream bed mud gravel what ever they could get. He passed away 1 year ago and he put it in when I was a young man and they are still there and as far as I know have never moved

 

[ShaunRH]

Just my $0.02 but I'd mortar those puppies for that length and height. If you have fabric and wire behind it, it will bond to both and stabilize the entire wall. You can put additional stone in front of the mortared stone and it will absorb some of the energy of the oncoming water and prolong the retaining wall, which is essentially what you are building.

Cerlawson has really good advice and experience in these areas so I'd do what he recommends as a minimum. It's nice to have some real experienced folks here on the board.

 

[ShaunBlake]

William1, I understand your concern over damaging your neighbor's trailer. I suppose that even if you got a careful loader operator (which is likely), the rocks might "splash" against the sides and do some damage.

However, perhaps you could use his trailer to move the rocks from where your delivery driver dumps them to the section of the creek where you need them. You'd still be doing a lot of the grunt work that your new knees can handle, but fewer trips across the lawn.

Please keep us updated on your progress, and keep in mind that pictures always help us understand the objective. Also, many of the picture nazis (the tractor-porn addicts) are likely to start screaming at you: "Without pics, it didn't happen!"

Best wishes for your project!