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What's your hoe doing?
- Thread starter aighead
- Start date
Swetz
Senior Member
Lets look at it another way...If you plant some prime rocks, fertilize 2x a year, and water them just right, maybe you could open a rock quarry in a couple of years...I think that is what happened near my place.
https://www.google.com/maps/place/H...!3d41.4644667!4d-75.408732!14m1!1BCgIgARICCAI
https://www.google.com/maps/place/H...!3d41.4644667!4d-75.408732!14m1!1BCgIgARICCAI
aighead
Senior Member
aighead
Senior Member
Ford f750 with a 10900 lb capacity, no CDL needed, for a week, rentable for $1300. I'm assuming they wouldn't be happy with the mileage I'd add as well... And that's probably not that many rocks, really. I could conceivably take 4 trips in a week but good God would I be beat! Locally, it looks like I'd pay about $1300 per that sized truck of "Ohio Granite"
Or a semi-full, though I imagine that is much harder to load and secure so not likely really this price:
Or a semi-full, though I imagine that is much harder to load and secure so not likely really this price:
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Willie B
Senior Member
Mine tried to do what it couldn't do.
I burned a boulder recently to reduce its size. Got it on the wall. Next rock I thought I could push if I couldn't lift. I misjudged it. Yes I can lift it, but moving after lifting proved unfeasible!
Sad thing, I noticed a slice in a front tire, probably 1991 vintage first thing this morning. Wondered how much longer it had. Now I know. Tube lost air, wouldn't hold more.
I burned a boulder recently to reduce its size. Got it on the wall. Next rock I thought I could push if I couldn't lift. I misjudged it. Yes I can lift it, but moving after lifting proved unfeasible!
Sad thing, I noticed a slice in a front tire, probably 1991 vintage first thing this morning. Wondered how much longer it had. Now I know. Tube lost air, wouldn't hold more.
Willie B
Senior Member
Lets talk about how lucky. You can have every !@#$%^&*()_+one!
My dream is to live in a level meadow, no rocks, no trees, no floods, ideally no neighbors.
JWeir
Well-Known Member
Dang WillieB.....that looks like my backyard in Maine!
Willie B
Senior Member
The rest of 2 acres once looked like this. This is a temporary terrace to build the wall. It'll be removed 6' lower once complete. The yellow building is vacant except two weeks a year. It has been owned by 4 generations. They now live out of state.
aighead
Senior Member
Willie B
Senior Member
Oh well, they were living on borrowed time. No big deal to replace the tires, I knew when I bought the tractor it needed them. They were factored into what I offered for the tractor.
I often consider machines like this. This one has 3500 hours. The bucket has been abused, but not worn out, the loader floor is rusted, but not worn at all. Tires haven't been worn out, they are just old. What did the machine do to rack up so many hours?
I met my friend, (the king of idling) on the road yesterday. I noticed a lot of black smoke from his road tractor, I thought it bad, then I realized the smoke was coming from the Caterpillar grader he was hauling. It was running at full throttle.
They have an International TD7E Crawler tractor on its third set of chains. The clock reads over 30,000 hours. They start a machine early morning if they think they might use it. If the day doesn't go as planned, it sits there running. It's common for them to find a machine running, forgotten for a day or more.
Even I, use a backhoe for a welding bench. Something in the bucket, or chained to the rear bucket, I use it to turn, or position it for convenient position. It stacks up hours!
Willie, you need a 'pet rock' to put in the backhoe bucket and offset some of the weight ! Stick it out farther for more traction Then again, you could go at it the other way and chain the biggies to the hoe and have the weight over the big tires.
I have to admit to trying lots of things and more than once, just dragging the darn things.
Then again, you could go at it the other way and chain the biggies to the hoe and have the weight over the big tires.I have to admit to trying lots of things and more than once, just dragging the darn things.
Willie B
Senior Member
This time dragging was not an option. That'd be too easy. The lady who owns the neighboring property is a nasty old lady of 90? years. She has threatened my life, accused me of unspeakable crimes I wouldn't know how to commit. She is little problem to me, she lives in Michigan, hasn't been here in years. She has several family members living near. They report to her. Good rock fences make good neighbors. I can build a wall, I can't cross onto neighbor property to build it.
Willie B
Senior Member
Today I moved the (I hope) last of the giant boulders. I'm building a wall along the property line. I can pull heavier rocks than I can push. Usually, I move a backhoe to where I can pull a very big rock. The Case 580K is a mid sized machine I've had it 14 or so years, it lifts less than the more recent John Deere 410C. The thumb on the 580K makes it exponentially more useful, but moving BIG rock is always going to involve the 410C.
Today I placed three monsters on the wall. Two were too big for even the 410C, I had to shed some weight with fire. I have consumed my supply of trash wood. I hated to resort to more fire.
Two rocks I had broken just small enough to coax into place, (roughly 8000 LBS) I'd drag twice as heavy. This building a wall from one side is for the birds!
Today I placed three monsters on the wall. Two were too big for even the 410C, I had to shed some weight with fire. I have consumed my supply of trash wood. I hated to resort to more fire.
Two rocks I had broken just small enough to coax into place, (roughly 8000 LBS) I'd drag twice as heavy. This building a wall from one side is for the birds!
DMiller
Senior Member
Fire causes the rock to shear as water within the stone boils and it breaks. One stone becomes many. Basically Spalling but on a larger scale.
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Willie B
Senior Member
Yeah, Best way I've found is an oil burner like you'd find in a BIG oil furnace. At moment the biggest one I have around is 20000 BTU. I have used a big weed burner torch, but I have to keep switching tanks because they frost up & won't evaporate.
Most often it is done with a wood fire.
Sometimes I get lucky, It breaks in half, most times it comes off in 6" thick flakes.
I started on one maybe 8' long 4' wide 3' thick Late in the day last Sunday. The wood I had was stove wood left outside too long. Getting a fire going with this wet, moldy wood is a slow process. It just started to burn when the sky opened up, and it rained hard. I had piled 1-1/2 cubic yards of wood on it arranged to fall into the fire as the bottom wood burned away. It did burn nearly all the wood despite the rain, but was less effective than I hoped. It broke off maybe 600 LBS.
Mid week I found time to hand load another bucket full of wood. It'd been pushed into a heap mixed with gravel & had to be hand loaded to separate. It was pretty bad wood. Thursday just before dark I got it going. It burned slowly, (crap wood) but broke off another several hundred pounds Lightened it just enough to chain it up & drag/ waggle it in place under the wall.
This portion of wall was there in the devastation of Hurricane Irene in 2011. It diverted 6' of rushing water past the house & garage. The sugar house at back of the property didn't fare as well. FEMA estimate was $118500. damage.
If the next one proves bigger, I might want the wall to turn the corner. It also affords some privacy.
