anyone know what this machine is/does?

[bigblueox]

hi guys. i was wondering if anybody knows what this thing is? i have no idea. they are building a new road near my house and after they have set what looks to be the final grade they use this thing on the soon to be lanes of traffic pre-pavement. the water truck trails it and the other truck leads. looks to me like they are dumping something on the ground and using the mystery machine to incorporate the element into the final grade. is it like portland or some kind of strata to improve resistance to sinking? i'm just guessing here? looks like what ever it is it needs lots of water. Those are some BIG MFD axles on the support trucks. I'm stumped.

[cat320]

looks like a giant roto tiller . my guess is they are adding some kind of cement tar product then mix it with the water to get it hard and then roll it to get it ready for asphalt.

[Countryboy]

Here ya go....:thumbsup

Wirtgen WR 2000 Stabilizer/Reclaimer (http://www.wirtgenamerica.com/rs/wr2000.html)

6893

[Tigerotor77W]

I've actually been wondering this for more than a decade -- I know what they are, but can someone shed light on what exactly "stabilize" means in the roadbuilding context?

[JBL]

I believe they add sometype of chemical that helps control water absorbtion in soils. This prevents the soil from shrinking and swelling. The machine is basically a tiller that mixes the stabilizer with the soil.

[cat320]

i guess i was not to far off.

[9420pullpan]

lime stabilization or soil crete. they do it alot out here in CA
the last pic is the truck that spreads the lime of soil crete then they hook up the water truck to the mixer and mix it up grade it and then it get hard. sucks digging through it.
i guess one of the major advantage is that it allows you to have a smaller section rock-stone ac etc.....

[68ATractor&Box]

lime stabilization or soil crete. they do it alot out here in CA
the last pic is the truck that spreads the lime of soil crete then they hook up the water truck to the mixer and mix it up grade it and then it get hard. sucks digging through it.
i guess one of the major advantage is that it allows you to have a smaller section rock-stone ac etc.....

Spot on :thumbsup

[LDK]

Here ya go....:thumbsup

Wirtgen WR 2000 Stabilizer/Reclaimer (http://www.wirtgenamerica.com/rs/wr2000.html)

6893

Hi CB, they use those soil stabilizers a lot in Europe using either lime or cement powder, after it has been through tilling and mixing in the lime and water a grader usualy follows doing the trim work. It started becoming popular in the UK about 20 years ago, possibly now some of these machines leave it at finished grade.

[surfer-joe]

Yeah, it's a soil stabilizer. Sort of a very large roto-tiller. I ran one in Vietnam 40 years a go, a Pettibone model. The outfit I worked for in California recently also had two, but we rarely used them. Those were made by Koehring, but were really the same Pettibone design. They were all were powered by a Detroit 8V71 318 HP diesels. They drove through a hydrostatic transmission with a two-speed rear axle.

Basically, you prepare your subgrade, then as we did in Maryland on Rte's 2&4, a subcontractor out of Virginia came in and blew dry cement into the front of the machine which then was blown into the tiller box. It was mixed with water and the existing subgrade material, mostly sand with a bit of clay and silt in our case. This material comes out the back of the roto-tiller box in a very fluffy and thoroughly mixed condition, just like your garden. It is not like wet concrete, tho you can ad enough water to make it that way, but I never saw anyone do this. A vibratory smooth-drum compactor and a wobbly-wheeled roller took care of the compaction duties. Sometimes a blade would work the pass right after the first roll from the compactor to ensure a smooth and level surface close to grade.

When finished, the subgrade is then a very hard and relatively smooth surface, "stabilized," ready for either direct application of asphalt pavement, or another layer of base gravel or finish concrete.

In Vietnam, we used both what is called soil cement, which came in hundred pound bags that we threw down in front of the tiller, bag and all, or we used asphaltic cement, which came in barrels and was pumped into a distributor truck and sprayed down in front of the stabilizer or pumped into the tiller box thru a series of pipes and nozzles. Either one made a nice surface for the huge warehousing and storage lots we built or the roads along the coast in sandy areas.

In Colorado we used one to blend enzymes into some real silty material that we were trying to build a road out of. The enzymes were supposed to activate in the wet soil, then die and leave a very hard surface behind. That worked, to a point. The big problem after that, was that we at the project wanted to install a 6 inch layer of base gravel on top of the enzyme'd material, then put down two 4" layers of asphalt. The home office and the prime contractor didn't allow us to do that. Too expensive they said. They instead insisted on just putting down tar and chips in two layers, which a local firm did for us.

That turned out to be a bad mistake as the tar and chips did not provide enough stability and protection to the enzyme'd sub-base. That base kept sloughing loose and the patch of tar and chips above it slid right off the road, or in very hot weather, rolled up on the truck and trailer wheels like a jelly roll. We spent a fortune of the taxpayers money patching that road with asphalt, it was nearly all asphalted by the time the haul was done. Spent twice what the original plan called for with asphalt pavement over gravel.

Some of the tillers in Vietnam were smaller machines powered by 671 238 HP in-line Detroit's. Everything else was the same basic design, only smaller.

In California, the tillers were also used to blend tank bottoms with gravel or sand to make a crude asphaltic material. This was then spread over oilpatch roads to control dust, but also to allow some travel during wet weather, when the local soil turns to grease. Some recycle outfits use fly-ash instead of the sand or gravel, or just about any other material that can be blended in to make a base material.

In New Jersey at Stewartsville Dam, we used a big Cat tiller just to dry core material to a certain moisture spec. It was a wet fall and coming up with just the right spec material fresh out of a cut was difficult. We bought a $500,000.00 tent, equipped it with 16 1,000,000 BTU propane heaters, put one guy inside the tent with an 866 International tractor with a big disc turning the soil over, and another guy running the Cat tiller doing a more complete job of fluffing and drying. Both fellows went inside wearing Carharts and were down to their skivvies in about 20 minutes. It averaged around 125 degrees inside the tent when the ends were closed. The core material was moved into the tent with 631E scrapers, and removed by them when the soils engineers said it was down below the moisture spec.

[digger242j]

I've heard the stabilized end product referred to as "soilcrete".

[LowBoy]

I have had some time working with a crew 2 years ago with one of these, only Caterpillar brand. It's technical name is a "reclaimer", which in essence, is a rotortiller on steroids.

Here in the northeast anyways, they're used to grind up an existing asphalt paved road, and the material becomes a mixture of the sub base and the ground up asphalt. The "chemical" that we used in this process is calcium chloride, usually a 35% mixture (65% H2O, 35% calcium.)

Once the road is ground up, a roller is following right behind the reclaimer to compact the loose material just enough so the traffic doesn't get stuck in it.
(I know all this 'cause your's truly was THE rollerman that summer, while trying to "find myself"...):confused:

It was truly an interesting and fascinating job, not to mention the biggest money I've ever earned at prevailing wage, but it only lasted me 2 months because the guy running the reclaimer was also the foreman, and was such a no good, miserable SOB, that if I stayed any longer, there was going to be a confrontation between us, so I decided to let him be in his own miserable, booze filled world and not stick around.

That said, the process was even more involved.

Once the material got rolled with the vibratory roller, the grader man came right behind us and did his magic. When he was done, it was also my job to get into the calcium distributor truck, and apply the product. It's a triaxle truck with a 5500 gal. tank, a spraybar across the rear, and a computerized pump system that you program inside the truck. If the job called for 10 gallons per foot, you calibrated that into the computer. There is a radar gun underneath the truck that shot the wheelspeed, then in turn it would relay that info to the computer, and the pump would run at the compensated speed to distribute the calcium at the controlled rate.If the road was 10-12 feet wide, we added 2 foot sections of spraybar to each side, and you would have to do the math to refigure the application rate...You had to be in the proper gear to do all this, all the while you're driving, watching the readout screen, and pushing the buttons to match all these variables up. It was interesting..

The calcium chloride served a couple of purposes. First and foremost, it is used as a dust control product, as well as a binding agent to the material. Secondly, it penetrates down into the material, depending again, on a predetermined application rate, and forms a frost barrier. They claimed it would inhibit frost down to a foot deep.If used underneath a new asphalt mat, it supposedly keeps the frost from heaving the blacktop for a certain number of years.

We also did a few baseball fields with this thing. We went round and round into a tighter and tighter circle, tilling up the soil, the grader in the rear, until it was all freshened up and smoothed, and rolled. Makes 'em like new again.

Towns and municipalities around New England use this method much more nowadays on their deteriorated roads due to the cost savings, as opposed to new blacktop. The reclaimed roads (with calcium,) are also much more forgiving to frost and settling afterwards too, because it makes a new sub base that has movement qualities during the freeze/thaw cycles,and adds new integrity to it. The cost savings, according to many of the town road supervisors that I got the chance to visit with, is significant.

The rotating drum has about 96 carbide tipped teeth that are pressed or hammered into their own individual shanks. Hit one buried boobytrap like a manhole, and you have to stop and pound out every bad tooth and replace it with new ones.I saw many a day when he'd hit something 3-4 times a day, sometimes within an hour, and go through 100-150 teeth in a day. That's a lot of hammering with a 2 pounder and the 1/2" drift.I would chuckle to myself every time the "boss" hit something, because he was the one that did the tooth changing. The teeth cost $2.30 a piece, and they get a deal on them because they buy a trailer load of them on skids in the spring, about 100,000 of them, and are just about out of them by the season's end, running 3 reclaimers. I'd love to just have the scrap teeth they leave behind, but they are smart enough to gather them back up and cash them in at the scrapyard every year...:cool2

I really enjoyed that job as far as the process, but obviously disliked that jerk that was in charge that ran the machine. The graderman was an owner/operator of a JD 672, and those two were 2 peas in a pod. They worked together for 10 years and had a "racket" going as far as knowing when and where to kill time, etc. They never included me in their conversations, lunch or coffee,or anything, like I was a leper. I finally realized why they went through a dozen men in my position in the last 2 years, according to a few of the town road commissioners.They were masters at the game of getting the jobs done and goofing off for the remainder of the job.

I wish we could put together a team similar to that which I worked on, only consisting of decent human beings such as Grader4me on grader, someone on a reclaimer, and me doing what I did...I'd bet it would be a lot more pleasurable working conditions. Anyone interested in dropping $800,000.00 for a machine? There's plenty of work for 'em...:D

[surfer-joe]

You know, I had 800 grand in my pants pocket just the other day, but it must have fell out in the parking lot at the dollar store. Sorry!

I forgot to mention that some folks have absolutely no idea what's under a Scotsmen's kilt, nor under the hood of a stabilizer tiller box. What's there actually, is a darned expensive component with replaceable teeth. Which on every one of these machines I have first come across have been worn down to the nubbin.

The stabilizers in Vietnam had worn out teeth, and there were no replacements that side of Hawaii. I took the old ones off and had our welders build them up with 6011 and some hardface. They would last about two or three days and back to the weld shop. Don't know if they ever got any new ones.

California was the same way. Looked under the skirt and said. "OH-OH!" Sure enough, not only worn out but worn clear down into the tiller drums to the point we had to pull them out and have two contract pipe welders work a week rebuilding the brackets for the hammers. (Expensive those pipe welders are!)

The Cat in New Jersey was a rental from Foley Tractor. They called me up to the tent about 3 in the morning one time and told me it wasn't doing anything at all. Up we go and I asked if anyone had looked at the teeth on the drum? Blank stares -- "the what?...... Where?...... Not my job man!"... Sure enough, I called a mechanic over and had him remove the rear skirt so we could see inside. Where's the teeth I wondered?

Well, the two operators had run this machine about two hundred hours drying out bank run core material and had worn off everything on the drum down to the round pipe it was made of. Smooth as a babies butt. My boss nor the project manager were even the least bit amused the next morning when I told them I'd ordered "a new drum assembly, bearings, seals, and all the teeth and adapters for about $80,000.00." "Oh, the Cat house will have two service techs here around noon with that stuff to install it. It has to come out of York, Pennsylvania and the next closest one is in Denver." Wow, were they hot! I said "hey, don't holler at me, I didn't destroy it, I mostly just get things fixed around here you know." "By the way, I ordered another 25 grand worth of extra teeth and some adapters, they're coming from Peoria."

I then went home to bed, it had been a bad night altogether. When I went in the next afternoon my boss told me he had talked to the service manager at Foley, an old pal of his it turned out, and Foley was going to cover about half the cost because they had sent the machine to us with the teeth about half worn out. He also mentioned that the project manager had set about the union steward, the two lead hands, and the night shift manager and foreman for a couple of hours about not inspecting the teeth a couple of times a shift. I got involved too and had to go up at least once every night and check to see where things were at after that.

There's a message here for those that may encounter one of these babies some day.

[LowBoy]

California was the same way. Looked under the skirt and said. "OH-OH!" Sure enough, not only worn out but worn clear down into the tiller drums to the point we had to pull them out and have two contract pipe welders work a week rebuilding the brackets for the hammers. (Expensive those pipe welders are!)

The outfit I worked with did their own rebuilding of the drums come end of season. They built a stand for them and placed them on it so they'd rotate, and could weld freely in the shop over the winter. They actually did some slick modifications to them which Cat even accepted without voiding the warranty. Added some extra bar steel to the drum to act as counterweight, to give the drum more turning force, and hardfaced them as well.

I certainly wouldn't want to commit to a lifetime of running one of those animals myself. Their brutally noisy, hot, dusty, and move a maximum of 60 FEET per minute if in good material. I know the newer, more upscale versions like Wertgen have cabs and a/c, but that just makes a cream puff out of ya...

There's a message here for those that may encounter one of these babies some day.

I'm thinking the message may be..."If you hear a BANG while you're grinding, you may wanna check under the panel in the rear to see if there's any problems?" Just a thought.:rolleyes:

[Tigerotor77W]

Wow! Lots of replies since I posted, so thanks for all the information.

I didn't realize that there was something mixed in; just thought it was tilling the soil (and hence couldn't understand how that added any strength to the material). :)

[alco]

I have had some time working with a crew 2 years ago with one of these, only Caterpillar brand. It's technical name is a "reclaimer", which in essence, is a rotortiller on steroids.

So there is actually a difference between a reclaimer and a soil stabilizer. A reclaimer can also be used as a soil stabilizer, but a soil stabilizer can't be used as a reclaimer. The reclaimer is used primarily for pulverising old asphalt and mixing it into the road base to blend everything back together and eliminate any heaves or base problems without removing any material or trucking it in. Sometimes an admixture will be added, be it cement powder, lime, liquid asphalt or something else. A stabilizer is used to mix some sort of admixture into the existing soil to enhance it's load bearing characteristics and stability. It is not for pulverising asphalt or such materials. The main difference between them is the drum fitted to the machine. You can actually switch out the drum on either machine to turn it into the other. A reclaimer has more teeth, closer together in a different pattern than the stabilizer which has fewer teeth spaced out more.

[LowBoy]

So there is actually a difference between a reclaimer and a soil stabilizer. A reclaimer can also be used as a soil stabilizer, but a soil stabilizer can't be used as a reclaimer. The reclaimer is used primarily for pulverising old asphalt and mixing it into the road base to blend everything back together and eliminate any heaves or base problems without removing any material or trucking it in. Sometimes an admixture will be added, be it cement powder, lime, liquid asphalt or something else. A stabilizer is used to mix some sort of admixture into the existing soil to enhance it's load bearing characteristics and stability. It is not for pulverising asphalt or such materials. The main difference between them is the drum fitted to the machine. You can actually switch out the drum on either machine to turn it into the other. A reclaimer has more teeth, closer together in a different pattern than the stabilizer which has fewer teeth spaced out more.


This is correct. I initially missed the hose and fitting on the front of that Wirtgen stabilizer in the very first picture, thinking it was a straight reclaimer.

[surfer-joe]

I had to laugh LowBoy, remembering the time I'm sitting in my pickup on a job in Santa Fe, New Mexico, watching a big Cat planer machine mill off about two to three inches of asphalt. Wambedy-bang!!.. The machine bucked and burped and puked carbide milling points all over the place. Seems the kid running the magnetometer missed a big buried manhole cover and that rig hit it dead center.

Wow, was that operator torqued!! He was also the owner and just made a boo boo that was gonna cost him plenty, plus hold everything up a day or so while he fixed his machine. I took some pity on him and had my mechanic, George, go up and help him for a while. I never saw the kid again.......

[bigblueox]

ok a few more questions. I understand the whole idea of mixing in the adative and everything but why would they do this in virginia RED clay? this time of year it gets rock hard literally. I've been ripping with an 8 shank ripper to plant corn a few months back and am wearing out liners and teeth every ten acres!!!(8 liners+8points=1200 bucks every ten acres for 1200 acres!!Feeding america and going into a bottomlesspit of debt PRICELESS!) why is it necessary to make the ground stronger? it is only a 4 lane bypass not more than a 1/2 mile long. Also is it just lime like you would apply to a field to control soil ph? if so, if you add excess wouldn't it destroy the surrounding land as far as fertility is concerned? I'm not a ECO-nut just a farmer who'd like to have some green left for my kids.BTW thanks for the posts!

[LowBoy]

I had to laugh LowBoy, remembering the time I'm sitting in my pickup on a job in Santa Fe, New Mexico, watching a big Cat planer machine mill off about two to three inches of asphalt. Wambedy-bang!!.. The machine bucked and burped and puked carbide milling points all over the place. Seems the kid running the magnetometer missed a big buried manhole cover and that rig hit it dead center.

Wow, was that operator torqued!! He was also the owner and just made a boo boo that was gonna cost him plenty, plus hold everything up a day or so while he fixed his machine. I took some pity on him and had my mechanic, George, go up and help him for a while. I never saw the kid again.......

Yeah, those planers (or mills,) can do some destruction in short order to themselves.I remember working with a milling crew several years ago that were grinding up asphalt off the road to what they referred to as a "zero-zero cut", meaning down to the concrete existing road...but NO MORE! The operator wasn't focused that day as good as others, and drove that drum down into the concrete, and you talk about a blood-curdling noise.:eek:
That was the end of that workday.

The jerk I worked with was forever hitting manholes and hidden pipes which he couldn't really help, but it still tickled me when it happened, because it meant him taking off his Home Depot musical earmuffs and actually getting off his arse and having to do some official work.

He thought he was the only one capable of pounding out the bad teeth and replacing with new ones, as I offered my help a couple of times in the beginning, but once I saw what kind of a winner he was, I just let him think he was right. Besides, I didn't hammer my wrist once with being un-involved, unlike him. He whacked his wrist more than once with a full swing of a two pound hammer, and I knew it hurt, despite his manly version of not letting on it did...:notworthy

One day he came across a bunch of hardheads as we call them around here, or cobblestones around 4-6", that just wiped out a good 1/2 of the teeth by staying caught up in the drum and not expelling them. He had to change a bunch of 'em. Not even a full hour later, he grabs ahold of an old manhole that wasn't on the town engineer's print, and wiped the teeth all out again.
He's rip roaring mad by now, and I'm thinking..."Good for you, you idiot"...He deserved that double whammy in my view.

Those are some pretty high maintenence machines, no wonder they have to figure about $5K per day to run them, a roller and a grader!

[Dozerboy]

ok a few more questions. I understand the whole idea of mixing in the adative and everything but why would they do this in virginia RED clay? this time of year it gets rock hard literally. I've been ripping with an 8 shank ripper to plant corn a few months back and am wearing out liners and teeth every ten acres!!!(8 liners+8points=1200 bucks every ten acres for 1200 acres!!Feeding america and going into a bottomlesspit of debt PRICELESS!) why is it necessary to make the ground stronger? it is only a 4 lane bypass not more than a 1/2 mile long. Also is it just lime like you would apply to a field to control soil ph? if so, if you add excess wouldn't it destroy the surrounding land as far as fertility is concerned? I'm not a ECO-nut just a farmer who'd like to have some green left for my kids.BTW thanks for the posts!

Just because the ground is hard doesn't mean its suitable to build on. When clay gets hard it expands and then shrinks as it dries which is very bad for building on. They are not going to add more lime to a larger area then they have to since that adds cost, so it shouldn't be getting on to the surrounding land.

[bigblueox]

HEARD ya. thanks guys:notworthy

[Dozerboy]

Oops I ment to say "when clay gets wet is expands" not hard.

[Grader4me]

II wish we could put together a team similar to that which I worked on, only consisting of decent human beings such as Grader4me on grader, someone on a reclaimer, and me doing what I did...I'd bet it would be a lot more pleasurable working conditions. Anyone interested in dropping $800,000.00 for a machine? There's plenty of work for 'em...:D

I missed this tread all together! Alot of good and interesting info. LowBoy old buddy..If you can get the machine I'm with ya! Oh..Don't forget the grader! Also thanks for the compliment!

[Deas Plant]

Hi, Folks.
Yep, those gadgets are just about like overgrown rototillers. DownUnder, there is quite a bit of lime or cement stabilsing done in various places, lime being the more common additive. Adding lime to the soil also often has the added advantage that it tends to make the soil water-repellant. This effect can vary with soil type and DOES vary with the quantity of lime added.

One or two outfits that I have seen operating these machines will spread the lime on the road, then run a water truck over it several times to get it wet before running the Pulveriser, as they are often called Downunder, over the road to do the mixing. Adding the water in this way creates LOTS of lime fumes which seem to get into even air-conditioned cabs. The expressions on the faces of the truck drivers might be comical if it weren't so stupdily unnecessary.

Every Pulveriser/Stabiliser I have ever seen, and that's a few, was fitted with water metering equipment so that the water truck could be coupled to the Pulveriser and the Pulveriser could meter the exact amount of water needed for the material being worked and the additive being used. Not only is this method more accurate as regards the amount of water added but it adds it far more evenly than could possibly be done by the water truck working on its own.

Just my 0.02.

[Klutz]

Also is it just lime like you would apply to a field to control soil ph?

I'm no expert in soil stabilisation but I do remember some school chemistry (and the wikipedia address). There is a difference between lime and lime.
Slaked lime (calcium hydroxide) is used to control pH.
Burnt lime is or quicklime (calcium oxide) is what you get if you heat up slaked lime. Burnt lime combined with gypsum and some other ingredients is used to manufacture cement. Burnt lime sets, just like concrete but not so powerful.

Anyway by mixing the burnt lime in with soil the whole mixture kind of sets lightly.

Sometimes only burnt lime is used, sometimes a more cement like mixture is used.

What I understand from reading UK magazine Earthmovers is that in Europe at least, soilstabilisation is used primarily in wet areas with low strength soil.

From reading this post it seems like soilstabilisation is used a bit different in US. More like a replacement for base or to lessen the need for base. Did I get this right?

[Dozerboy]

I'm no expert in soil stabilisation but I do remember some school chemistry (and the wikipedia address). There is a difference between lime and lime.
Slaked lime (calcium hydroxide) is used to control pH.
Burnt lime is or quicklime (calcium oxide) is what you get if you heat up slaked lime. Burnt lime combined with gypsum and some other ingredients is used to manufacture cement. Burnt lime sets, just like concrete but not so powerful.

Anyway by mixing the burnt lime in with soil the whole mixture kind of sets lightly.

Sometimes only burnt lime is used, sometimes a more cement like mixture is used.

What I understand from reading UK magazine Earthmovers is that in Europe at least, soilstabilisation is used primarily in wet areas with low strength soil.

From reading this post it seems like soilstabilisation is used a bit different in US. More like a replacement for base or to lessen the need for base. Did I get this right?

I have used it the same as they do in the UK, but not just in wet areas in clay. I don't recall how its use affected the amount of base that was used if did at all.

[d6peg]

I would love to have one of these things to use in the fall to get my garden in shape for next spring.:)

[deeredriver]

Usually they use code "H" or "L" lime. This is a real high calcium lime that is very fine and kiln dried. All of it in this area (lower IL) comes from a company called Mississippi Lime, located in Mo. The lime is put down first, by what ever is available. Trucks, loaders, highlifts, ect. A fresh air system is necessary if using any open equipment. This stuff is bad on the lungs, and causes your eyes to burn. Then it is tilled in with water. This will not work without water. I have seen semi trucks being pulled into the site buried down to the axles. They can drive out after they uses this lime and incorperate it with the soil. The truck then only sinks 2-3 inches, where as before it was on the axles.

[MUDSLINGERS]

This is a mixer. We use these all the time on our road jobs to mix in lime or flyash ( coal dust) to harden up the dirt. Usually were the ground don't seem to dry up. There nice if you have someone that knows how to use them.

[northwest41]

To me this is all talking about a BOMAG MPH-100 (Bomag at one time was owned by Koehring). Anyway the idea is to reclaim by having the rotor teeth chew up the asphalt and throw it against a screen in the covered tiller portion of the unit. the right sized asphalt would pass through the screen and the oversize would stay in the chamber being chewed up by banging the rocks etc. till they made the right size.

The stabilizer had a different drum and teeth and mixed the product together, such as a gravel road mixed in with hot liquid asphalt pumped from a truck actually attached to the stabilizer and the hot product metered into the base. Once the stabilizer passed the mixture could be rolled by pavement rollers and presto-chango, instant paved roadway.

If you watch a rear tine rototiller and imagine that this is a road you will get the picture.

By the way back in the 50's and 60's there were lots of stabilizers and mixers like that, Seimans, Eimco, Bomag and P&H all had stabilzers as such, the P&H was a very large crawler machine that could do a 8 foot swath and had about 4 sets of rotating blades in the stabilization chamber. The Bomag by contrast had a single drum with various teeth mounted onto the drum depending on what you were mixing, most were carbide tipped strike on teeth that would last a few days at most and wwere not cheap to change out.

[Taylortractornu]

About 7 years ago I met an old man that had an old Raygo Mixers. he bought it from TVA for 2500. It looked like a big tractor with the tiller on theback. It had a Lovely detroit I cant remeber the size but she was in tune. He told me he was starting a largetruck patch in a big area and needed to condition it. He told me that his feild was once a borrow pit for a road and the topsoil and loam was gone. IHe told me it wouldnt grow anything but Kudzu. Well this area had a big Ice storm and he had let the tree companied and the city and countyies dump all their chips in this area. After about 5 years of letting them chips and leaves and manure rot down he in iles he spread them with an old AC track loader and took the Raygo to them and tilled all that good black humus down 12 inches deep. Til lthe day the old man past on it was prime truck patchin ground.

[Knucklehead]

I didn't read this whole post, but I used to haul what we called code"L" for Mt. Carmel Sand and Gravel. The one job that sticks in my mind was on hwy231 in Indiana. We got like a 1 1/2 inch rain ,and I was scheduled to deliver to this job the next morning. I called and asked if we were still going,they said yes.To make a long story short, By the time I unloaded, I wasn't even leaving a tire track in the dirt!!!!!!

[mouse]

wirtgen have publicly available on their site very good tech manuals on recycling and stabilisation.

another additive they advocate is foamed asphalt

the idea of the recylcing plant is to re-use whats already there rather than take it offsite for processing.

[ghitch75]

hey Knucklehead where in southern Ill are you?......

[AtlasRob]

The problem you get with these toys when trying to stabalise ground that needs stabilising is keeping the buggers the right way up :rolleyes:

If you look at the amount of leg ( strut that the wheel is mounted on ) on the lower side, it is at maximum with the wheel well buried, the other side is retracted as far as it would go.

To say the operator feared it was going over is an understatement. At the time it had about 6t of powder on board.


41162

41163

It came out with the assistance of a 20t exc to hold it down and a 30t ADT for pulling. I must say I was impressed with the towing lug on the ADT.

[RolyD8k]

yes Rob there very unstable,we worked four benches with two wirtgens
and they cut some antics.

[AtlasRob]

there very unstable,we worked four benches with two wirtgens
and they cut some antics.

Great pics as ever Roly :notworthy I do like seeing those toys of yours at play.

I dont understand why the Wirtgens didnt mix as they went, it always strikes me as being so messy when a seperate machine lays the powder out.
I can only think that it is time saving. The mixers dont have to stop to reload, and it looks like you were keeping them busy :D

[lmr824]

about 12 years ago i bought one of these old monster tillers for my farm,250 hp cummins diesel driving a 8 ft wide tiller drum with tines on it ,i spent about 2500 on 72 new tines but yet to mount them maybe this year,it did a great job tilling but went threw tines real quick,
It says putt bros on it but cant find any info onthem or anyone of these machines,any ideas anyone??? mike lmr824@aol.com

[MrKomatsu]

Bomag has a huge line of recylers and stabilizers....from the MPH100-MPH454....rear and center tines.....nice units....bn to the Stugart factorys and the kewione illinos...opps..spell check.

[Dozerboy]

A Bomag is what we have they work good. I like it better the those stupid Cats. Why you would ever design a heavy machine that mixes unstable soil so that most of the weight is on 1 axle is beyond me.

[MrKomatsu]

10/4 on that Dozer....I 2 like the Bomags.....As a matter of fact i know them like the back of my hand.....Been the the oridginal factory in Stuttgart Germany many moons ago as well as the Kewana plant here stae side......Of cousre WPI is the dealer down here......Good machines....

[oversize]

http://www.stabilisedpavements.com/default.htm

Here is web site for company that does this type of work and has a few of this type of machines

[bluebob]

Looks like a spreader / reclaimer