RDrancher's Photo Thread

swick1 · Oct 27, 2012

Thanks a bunch! This makes me much more confident! I'm going to compact with a walk behind vibratory plate.

RDrancher · Oct 28, 2012

You're very welcome! Be sure and post some pics of your project. We all love pics!

RDrancher · Oct 31, 2012

Finished up a little driveway in Denton today.

Here's the start of the job and using the Rachet Rake to remove sod.

Verizon's line buried 2" deep and 6' from their mark.

Denton now requires some type of border, so I decided to use "usually easy to install" metal edging. Sometime in the past someone had buried a bunch of rock and broken concrete where the borders needed to go, making it impossible to drive the stakes. I had to drive a steel stake using a single jack for each hole before replacing it with the little metal stakes. 14 pieces of metal edging with four stakes per piece. Lots of fun.

Graded and complete.

swick1 · Oct 31, 2012

How did you drive it with a jack?

LJH · Oct 31, 2012

Really nice RDrancher! This rookie is sure enjoying all these pics you're posting, and learning a bunch from them.

RDrancher · Oct 31, 2012

swick1 said:
How did you drive it with a jack?

Single jack is slang for a short-handled sledge hammer. I take a 15 pounder and cut off the handle to about wrist to elbow length.

LJH said:
Really nice RDrancher! This rookie is sure enjoying all these pics you're posting, and learning a bunch from them.

Thank you!

swick1 · Oct 31, 2012

That's a good idea! I never have a big enough hammer. Now I know why!

dex3361 · Oct 31, 2012

RDrancher said:
Finished up a little driveway in Denton today.

Here's the start of the job and using the Rachet Rake to remove sod.
View attachment 286912 View attachment 286913

Verizon's line buried 2" deep and 6' from their mark.
View attachment 286914

Denton now requires some type of border, so I decided to use "usually easy to install" metal edging. Sometime in the past someone had buried a bunch of rock and broken concrete where the borders needed to go, making it impossible to drive the stakes. I had to drive a steel stake using a single jack for each hole before replacing it with the little metal stakes. 14 pieces of metal edging with four stakes per piece. Lots of fun.
View attachment 286915

Graded and complete.
View attachment 286916 View attachment 286917

Another nice looking job I am sure these sell themselves when people drive by and see how nice it looks.

Bob77064 · Oct 31, 2012

RD, good job.

RDrancher · Nov 1, 2012

Thanks guys.

Started phase two of the RV access job and did some additional work on the bottom section today.

Stockpiled road base for the upper road, gravel for a french drain and rip rap for more culverts.

Started grading out another drainage swale.

Removed a couple of feet of rip rap for access to the geotextile, graded, then added additional geo and rip rap, doubling the size of the main catch basin.

swick1 · Nov 1, 2012

Looking good! Btw: I'm doing a project where I need to build a very small detention pond. It's 8 ft by 25 ft by 6" at the shallowest point and 15" at the deepest point. The gutters and a French drain tie into it. Would this be called a detention basin? Water will soak through it into the ground. There is no outlet.

LJH · Nov 1, 2012

Cool! Is that your Pete & pup?

BTW, where I come from rip rap is a whole lot bigger, like, small boulders & takes an extra-heavy gauge truck bed as not to leave big divots. And it still will if the loader operator lacks finesse. Slight thread drift, sorry - harkening back to my glory days.

RDrancher · Nov 1, 2012

swick1 - Sounds more like an open soak pit than a retention pond. If you dig it deeper and fill it partially with clean gravel it'll help it to soak into the soil better.

LJH - Not my Pete but I wish it was!

I size the rock for the job. Since I do a lot of the smaller stuff I use a lot of 4-8" rock. Back in the old days we used to place a lot of the large rip rap you mentioned and pump concrete between the boulders for containment banks. Some of the drivers that didn't have rock boxes would line the bed floors with wet clay to keep down the divots. It didn't work that well. I guess that they really needed the work!

BTW, I don't mind thread drifts at all. :thumbsup:

DT86 · Nov 2, 2012

About that border... Is it to keep the edges neat? I just can't understand why they require it??

RDrancher · Nov 2, 2012

From what the code violation lacky told me, its to keep grass from creeping into the driveway. Guess they've never seen it grow in the center?

The City is really on a roll handing out violations for fences and driveway / parking areas. A lot of folks getting the violations really can't afford to repair anything in this crappy economy. Maybe someone should get a petition going to cite the City for potholed roads and missing street signs.

two_bit_score · Nov 2, 2012

RDrancher said:
From what the code violation lacky told me, its to keep grass from creeping into the driveway. Guess they've never seen it grow in the center?

The City is really on a roll handing out violations for fences and driveway / parking areas. A lot of folks getting the violations really can't afford to repair anything in this crappy economy. Maybe someone should get a petition going to cite the City for potholed roads and missing street signs.[/QUOTE]

Amen! :thumbsup:

We could probably start a very active thread on idiotic code enforcement decisions.

But, back to your work. You make doing excellent work look easy. That attests to your excellent ability.

.

RDrancher · Nov 6, 2012

Started working on the upper driveway and parking area today.

Here's where the road will be located. I pulled out an old slab that wrapped around a propane tank and hauled it off to the crusher.

Removed the fence and started up the hill.

Benching in the parking pad.

RDrancher · Nov 7, 2012

The ground is more sandstone than dirt and a pain to grade. I wasn't too happy with the looks of the slope either.

I decided to dig out next to the slope and sift through the junk, hoping that I would create enough decent dirt to dress up the slope and compact the area where I would be cutting a swale. While digging it out I hit some nice decomposed sandstone / clay mix, so I hogged it out and made a stockpile. Then I dressed up the slope, cut the swale and compacted the area back in.

LJH · Nov 7, 2012

RDrancher said:
The ground is more sandstone than dirt and a pain to grade. I wasn't too happy with the looks of the slope either. I decided to dig out next to the slope and sift through the junk, hoping that I would create enough decent dirt to dress up the slope and compact the area where I would be cutting a swale. While digging it out I hit some nice decomposed sandstone / clay mix, so I hogged it out and made a stockpile. Then I dressed up the slope, cut the swale and compacted the area back in.

Stoopid newbie question -

So, that beautifully smooth & graded sifted material in the last picture is covering up the extra-chunky stuff in the first picture, right? Pray tell, how did you sift it? 'Cause I need to do something very similar in an equally rock-rich area. Backdragging it either bounces the bucket or digs furrows with the chunks (and of course, I don't know WTH I'm doing, that always helps :confused2

.

DT86 · Nov 7, 2012

Sorry if I missed this but is that your Kubota? Either way how do you like it? I've not had the chance to run one but the cabs seem like they are a mile wide. If I ever bought one I'd look hard at the Kubota and the one armed JCB.