DOT Info

[patrickg]

This DOT site http://www.dotd.state.la.us/highways/project_devel/stand_plans/
Has PDF file format plans for building lots of things that are useful to rural folk


Box Culverts
Catch Basins and Manholes
Cattle Guard
Concrete Retaining Wall
Corrugated Metal Pipe
Dead End Road Installations
Driveways
Erosion Control and Bedding Material
Expansion and Construction Joints
Fences
Guardrails
Mailboxes
Portland Cement Concrete Pavement Details
Right of Way Monument and Witness Posts
Signing and Pavement Markers
Speed Change Lane for Interstate
Spur Dike Details
Steel Wire Bar Support

I found it while researching cattle guards. Best price I found on the net was almost $1500. Can buy new built to order 20000 lb rated 16 ft wide by 7 ft (in the cow walking diection) for $600 from a supplier 25 miles away or another 90 miles. (South Central Oklahoma) Shipping wold be expensive for ordering over the net. I picked up the first of 4 today (about 2000 lbs). Strong trailers with brakes are good thing.

Patrick

 

[Bird]

Patrick, in '90 up in Canada, enroute to Alaska pulling a 5th wheel trailer, we were driving down a country road to a campground and saw a sign "Texas Gate"; didn't know what Canadians called a Texas Gate until I found it was what we call a cattle guard.

Bird

 

[ERNIEB]

Bird, I never heard that before. Last week, I was hauling some material onto a ranch near San Marcos, and had to cross seven cattle gaurds to get to the dump site. That's a record for me, the most I've ever had to cross on the same ranch.

Ernie

 

[Anonymous Poster]

Patrick

Thanks... nice site find. /w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif

 

[patrickg]

Now that I have plans from the USDA and DoT for cattleguards and have found them on the net from about $1500 and up (mostly up) + shipping (medium one probably weighs a ton). I found a local (25 mi) source and a 90 mi source of real strong ones for $600-$700 ($700 has gate too). As soon as I found them locally for so much less I lost incentive to gather materials and fab them myself. It has been too hot and humid to want to get into leathers and burn a bunch of rod (Too HD for my little wire feed gun).

Well, I can still use some of the other info, especially fence stuff. Got some good info, I think, on a USDA site but it is in three different formats only one of which I can read, GIF, and it is way too small to make out the detail. I can't work with GIF in Photoshop or paint to blow it up so I will have to try to find some software for graphics file format translation.

Patrick (Cooling off with mild thundershowers (Oxymoron?) today)