Building Lake Corona

[EddieWalker]

How are you going to compact the soil? The very worse machine for that will be something with tracks. For my place, I use my backhoe with a full load of dirt in the front bucket and go over each layer with the tires. My dozer weighs 40,000 pounds and after spreading dirt with it, the tires of my tractor will sink an inch or two when compacting it.

 

[jk96]

How are you going to compact the soil? The very worse machine for that will be something with tracks. For my place, I use my backhoe with a full load of dirt in the front bucket and go over each layer with the tires. My dozer weighs 40,000 pounds and after spreading dirt with it, the tires of my tractor will sink an inch or two when compacting it.

Trying to locate a vibratory padfoot roller to rent for the CTL. Hard to find. I've found one at a rental yard about an hour away. Waiting for the manager to call back and let me know if he will rent it to me. Was told I am outside of their service area.

 

[jk96]

They will rent the padfoot roller to me, just won't deliver to my location so that is the plan.

 

[ponytug]

They will rent the padfoot roller to me, just won't deliver to my location so that is the plan.

Good luck! I will be curious to hear how this works out for you. I'm on the fence about buying one to use on a few projects here.

Do you have a compaction plan in terms of how you will decide that a lift has been compacted enough? (And what is your plane for the lift height?)

All the best,

Peter

 

[jk96]

Good luck! I will be curious to hear how this works out for you. I'm on the fence about buying one to use on a few projects here.

Do you have a compaction plan in terms of how you will decide that a lift has been compacted enough? (And what is your plane for the lift height?)

All the best,

Peter

The one I am renting is an 84" Bradco. My plan is the bull in a China shop approach. Pushed dirt for about an hour today. Just eyeballing it. Trying to keep the first lift at about 6 to 8" before compacting. This is kind of a hail Mary approach to see if I can make it work. I really only have the one hillside to pull dirt from, no way to get trucks in with clay, so hopefully there is enough clay content in the dirt and the combo of cover, compaction, and adding bentonite will be enough.

 

[bindian]

Sounds workable to me.

 

[Kyle_in_Tex]

Hope it works out, thanks for sharing with us.

 

[jk96]

I've only been working an hour or two here and there do to being busy at work. Jumped on the loader again this morning for an hour and made a cut into and down the hillside I'm hoping to pull clay from. I wanted to see what the dirt before removing trees around the top of the hill and all of the topsoil. No use doing that if there wasn't usable dirt. So far what I'm seeing looks good.

Getting into some of what my un-trained eye says looks good about 4 feet under the topsoil. Pretty smooth on the cuts with the bucket and not seeing a lot of sand mixed in. Regardless of good or bad this is the dirt I have to work with.

 

[dodge man]

It looks good to me. Keep in mind there is a moisture content of the soil that gives the best compaction. My guess would be that’s to wet but hard to say.

 

[jk96]

It looks good to me. Keep in mind there is a moisture content of the soil that gives the best compaction. My guess would be that’s to wet but hard to say.

Not seeing any signs of excess moisture at the moment anyway. Grading out well and packing tight under the weight of the tracks without gumming them up. Everything is rolling off the bucket fairly well. Undercarriage is staying clean while working.

 

[EddieWalker]

When building my pond, I read that if you can pick up a handful of soil and squeeze it into a ball without any water oozing out, it's not too wet. If it holds its shape and you can see were all of your fingers are in it, then you are just right. If it falls apart, it needs water.

My first job after the Marines was operating a water truck on construction sites. Most of it was dust control, but I also spent a lot of time watering dirt piles while a wheel loader mixed it up before they used it. The guy in the wheel loader told me when to add water and when to stop, so it was always his call on how much was added. A few times there was too much and he would bring in more dry dirt and mix it in. It takes a lot of experience to know when it's perfect, but fortunately for pond building, a little wet is better than a little dry.

From what I see in your pics, your dirt looks really good!!!

 

[jk96]

Made it out after supper this evening. I was able to drop all of rhe trees in my way and get them drug out of the way. I will be ready to start moving clay tomorrow and hoping to get a good 4 or 5 hours in.

 

[BleedingOrange]

To the OP, I really enjoy your getter done attitude, along with the pictures and updates.

 

[jk96]

To the OP, I really enjoy your getter done attitude, along with the pictures and updates.

Thank you. Wrapped up my work list early. I just finished cleaning and greasing the machine and getting ready to head out on the loader for the afternoon. The cleaning part is what I hate most. I normally start out trying to be careful from spraying myself with mud. After a few unexpected blasts back on me I usually end up throwing caution to the wind and becoming one with the water and dirt. Today was no different. I'm still hoping to get four or five hours in today.

Goal is to get all of the topsoil stripped and hopefully a good portion of the pond bottom lined. Once I get the topsoil removed I should be able to push a lot of dirt downhill pretty quick. Size of this machine along with pushing down the hill should let me pretty much doze this hillside instead of carrying a bucket at a time.

 

[mostly_gas]

JK96 hope the clay seals the pond like you hope.

 

[jk96]

JK96 hope the clay seals the pond like you hope.

Same here. The deer and wildlife will continue to enjoy it regardless but I'd really like to be able to put some fish in it.

 

[jk96]

Wrapped up for the day. My goals turned out to be a bit ambitious. I ended up spending a lot of time cutting up and hauling out 2 more trees that were eventually going to need to go. Once I started on the topsoil I found out that there was more to remove at the top of that hill than anticipated. I was still able to get the topsoil removed on the half of the hill I'm currently working on and pushed a good amount of dirt downhill.

Here's my current mound of topsoil that was removed today.

Pictures of the hillside I'm pulling clay from after wrapping up this evening

 

[jk96]

Ran the go pro taking down one of the two trees. This one was around 20" at the base.

 

[BackRoad]

Looks like a capable set up. I'm good up to about 10 inches with my tractor...you're riding a beast!!

I find taking down trees at the root as you did, to be highly satisfying for some reason...

Enjoyable video!

 

[jk96]

It's starting to look pretty good from where I was a few days ago. All of the pond bottom is covered now and ready to compact. Probably going to go ahead and run clay cover up the dam as well. I was able to dig out and fix the break in the inlet tube. Dirt is looking good. I'm seeing uniform clay soil from the top of the hill I'm pulling from all the way to the bottom. Wrapped up at dark after moving the rest of the fish structure out of the pond. There's a small chance of rain here tonight and tomorrow morning. If we miss it then weather looks good until next Friday and should have this wrapped up.