Sebculb
Gold Member
Hey everyone,
So now I've got another pipe dream that may or may not be a good idea. Want to get your opinions/experiences before I decide to move forward with it.
I drive backhoes in Costa Rica. A lot of my work is making or maintaining farm roads or driveways to peoples homesteads. Gravel isn't used as much as Rocky shale clay soil mix (called "lastre") because the terrain is very steep and mountainous and loose gravel just washes down the hill and the shale clay mix ties together and compacts down better.
Rollers exist here but they aren't that common and it's expensive and inconvenient to truck them out to the country. But these dirt roads do come out nicer when you roll them.
So my big idea is to make a roller that attaches to the front bucket of a backhoe and drive that up and down a road a few times after spreading out the base material.
A possible design could be to put two steel drums with the ends removed one on top of the other with a thick pipe in the middle that could serve to put some kind of axle assembly through. Fill the two barrels with concrete and fabricate some kinda structure to mount it to the front bucket. Maybe something similar to how pallet forks mount I dunno yet.
Two barrels is approximately the width of the backhoe. Perhaps I could do it with concrete culverts or a stack of old tires. But the weight of the two barrels filled with concrete would be about a ton.
Is that heavy enough to have any appreciable effect compacting the road surface? Was thinking of making the axle assembly either "floating", so the roller could move up and down freely and adhere to the road surface better and allow for easier steering, or "rigid" so the weight of the front end of the backhoe can push down on it too, which will help compaction a lot but really mess with the steering. Like when you put the bucket down too hard and it lifts your front wheels and the thing can't steer just pushes straight forward. Perhaps a little bit of float? That way i can compact harder in the straights and ease up in the turns. Hmmmm...
Another factor to maybe take into account is that the big fat hoe (7 tons or so) already compacts a lot with the tires and it's just the space between the back wheels that needs an additional roller. Should I make it narrower just to cover this space? Or wider just so it's more uniform and weighs more? Perhaps just a tidbit wider than the hoe has certain appeal also. Although the thing should probably be transportable in the front bucket too.
The roller we rent is a big sucker, has to weigh 8 to 10 tons comparing it to the backhoes in size. And it's got this vibration thing going on in the front roller. Rubber tires in the back. I dunno if a little rinky dink homemade roller could have any appreciable effect compared to that thing. But then they have these funny little rollers they use for home asphalt jobs and they seem to work okay so maybe my idea isn't totally useless.
Sorry for being so long winded, and thanks in advance for any input.
So now I've got another pipe dream that may or may not be a good idea. Want to get your opinions/experiences before I decide to move forward with it.
I drive backhoes in Costa Rica. A lot of my work is making or maintaining farm roads or driveways to peoples homesteads. Gravel isn't used as much as Rocky shale clay soil mix (called "lastre") because the terrain is very steep and mountainous and loose gravel just washes down the hill and the shale clay mix ties together and compacts down better.
Rollers exist here but they aren't that common and it's expensive and inconvenient to truck them out to the country. But these dirt roads do come out nicer when you roll them.
So my big idea is to make a roller that attaches to the front bucket of a backhoe and drive that up and down a road a few times after spreading out the base material.
A possible design could be to put two steel drums with the ends removed one on top of the other with a thick pipe in the middle that could serve to put some kind of axle assembly through. Fill the two barrels with concrete and fabricate some kinda structure to mount it to the front bucket. Maybe something similar to how pallet forks mount I dunno yet.
Two barrels is approximately the width of the backhoe. Perhaps I could do it with concrete culverts or a stack of old tires. But the weight of the two barrels filled with concrete would be about a ton.
Is that heavy enough to have any appreciable effect compacting the road surface? Was thinking of making the axle assembly either "floating", so the roller could move up and down freely and adhere to the road surface better and allow for easier steering, or "rigid" so the weight of the front end of the backhoe can push down on it too, which will help compaction a lot but really mess with the steering. Like when you put the bucket down too hard and it lifts your front wheels and the thing can't steer just pushes straight forward. Perhaps a little bit of float? That way i can compact harder in the straights and ease up in the turns. Hmmmm...
Another factor to maybe take into account is that the big fat hoe (7 tons or so) already compacts a lot with the tires and it's just the space between the back wheels that needs an additional roller. Should I make it narrower just to cover this space? Or wider just so it's more uniform and weighs more? Perhaps just a tidbit wider than the hoe has certain appeal also. Although the thing should probably be transportable in the front bucket too.
The roller we rent is a big sucker, has to weigh 8 to 10 tons comparing it to the backhoes in size. And it's got this vibration thing going on in the front roller. Rubber tires in the back. I dunno if a little rinky dink homemade roller could have any appreciable effect compared to that thing. But then they have these funny little rollers they use for home asphalt jobs and they seem to work okay so maybe my idea isn't totally useless.
Sorry for being so long winded, and thanks in advance for any input.
