All food! That would suck!!! Although where we are we have all the food waste taken out for composting which leaves nothing but couches and plastic (Maybe I'm exaggerating a bit). Ya the perfect blend is a fairy tale I know but I was just curious as to your usual practices w/out taking into account all the variables we encounter daily. That's interesting that you do your first two passes cross ways, we usually save that for last. What is the grade of your face? With a big packer like yours something like a 6:1 maybe 8:1?? At a foot to foot and a half crossways would make sense to me on that grade. I hear a lot of landfills do the two truck deck thing, we've never done that but I could see how beneficial that would be in the busy times, also would force a more quality packer operator if he/she is responsible for building out a truck deck every day.
I was taught by a lady who had been on the packer full time for about 10 years straight (very talented to say the least) she could build a cell by herself and it wouldn't have to be groomed by any other machine at the end because she left no fluffies and the grade was always bang on, they would just spread dirt and move on. She has this method which takes a little more time in the morning but pays of in the long run. It is hard to explain without watching it happen but here goes. If you got time in the morn or when ever (usually takes me 10 min or less on the average cell). You scrape into the packed garbage (Regurge) take out any high spots to leave a level cell and push a 2' or 3' windrow up along the finished edges, leave a 2 foot gap from the actual finished edge so when you eventually roll over it, it will squish 'into place' so to speak. When you are done you will be left with a bowl, just keep adding garb in the bowl till you get up to that windrows height. That regurge sure makes a nice outside edge, no un processed garbage rolls out over the edge cuz of the bowl, the base of the berm is a nice place to get rid of any matresses that keep popping up (we call those zombies).
As for passes my preference is to face the machine downhill for this first pass (I found that the machine is more balanced and packs the garb down in place), then up hill (I find this leaves most the weight at the back end which shreds the garbage), then on a 45 up hill which puts one wheel over the inside edge, then cross slope which leaves it nice and flat. If I don't have time I will leave out the 45 pass. We are told to do 5-7 passes, How I get my 5-7 is do your first run twice (down and up in the same wheel track) then move over half wheel widths as you go across the cell, then same thing when you get to the opposite side down and up twice in same track. This means that every bit of the cell is getting two passes when other people are doing 1. You'd think it would slow you down but it actually doesn't because you waste more time turning around and jostling into position in between passes. That leaves me at 8 passes total if I do the full range of passes I listed above, in reality I do that range of passes over one layer whenever I have time, usually about 3 times in a given day. I will suggest the two truck deck thing at work when we are in a more suitable area, we are capping the mountain at the moment, (all sorts of interesting angles)
. Let me know what you think of my techniques I'm open for questions an suggestions!