old grayfellow
New Member
Hi
This is my first post on the heavy equipment forums, and i'm looking for suggestions or recommendations about how to do a small scale digging project in bedrock. I'd like to remove the top 3-6ft or so of dolomite from an area of about 50' x 150'. The area currently has the bare bedrock exposed on the surface, and the bedrock extends downward at least 90'. In the local area around the site, there tends to be quite a lot of flat flakes of this rock between 1" - 5" thick (and surface areas ranging from a loaf of bread to a kitchen table), just lying loose, I guess cleaved off by freezing water over the generations. So there are probably a fair number of horizontal bedding planes (natural weak layers in the rock) that allow it to separate into sheets like that, although i don't know for sure how deep these bedding planes are found.
My question is; what approach/what kind of machine would be best to do this job?
The only approach i've ruled out is blasting, since i assume it would not be cost effective for such a small project.
Approaches i've been thinking most about are:
1) an excavator (probably a larger one), to just smash and dig
2) a single ripper tooth to replace the bucket on a backhoe (i have a 9000#/65hp ditch witch backhoe)
3) a hydraulic breaker mounted on the backhoe to break it up
4) a vertical rail-mounted hydraulic drill on the backhoe, to use in a quarrying approach with hydraulic splitters or feather and wedges. That way maybe i could get some usable building stone out of the project.
I'd like to do as much of the project as possible myself, to save on cost and ... just 'cuz. But i'm not ruling out hiring somebody, if its just not feasible to do myself. I also have a small dump truck to transport the excavated rock out of the site.
I'd be interested in hearing ideas.
Thanks
This is my first post on the heavy equipment forums, and i'm looking for suggestions or recommendations about how to do a small scale digging project in bedrock. I'd like to remove the top 3-6ft or so of dolomite from an area of about 50' x 150'. The area currently has the bare bedrock exposed on the surface, and the bedrock extends downward at least 90'. In the local area around the site, there tends to be quite a lot of flat flakes of this rock between 1" - 5" thick (and surface areas ranging from a loaf of bread to a kitchen table), just lying loose, I guess cleaved off by freezing water over the generations. So there are probably a fair number of horizontal bedding planes (natural weak layers in the rock) that allow it to separate into sheets like that, although i don't know for sure how deep these bedding planes are found.
My question is; what approach/what kind of machine would be best to do this job?
The only approach i've ruled out is blasting, since i assume it would not be cost effective for such a small project.
Approaches i've been thinking most about are:
1) an excavator (probably a larger one), to just smash and dig
2) a single ripper tooth to replace the bucket on a backhoe (i have a 9000#/65hp ditch witch backhoe)
3) a hydraulic breaker mounted on the backhoe to break it up
4) a vertical rail-mounted hydraulic drill on the backhoe, to use in a quarrying approach with hydraulic splitters or feather and wedges. That way maybe i could get some usable building stone out of the project.
I'd like to do as much of the project as possible myself, to save on cost and ... just 'cuz. But i'm not ruling out hiring somebody, if its just not feasible to do myself. I also have a small dump truck to transport the excavated rock out of the site.
I'd be interested in hearing ideas.
Thanks