"Pumping" gravel uphill?

[alegriarick]

The gold dredges in the Amazon basin pump gravel all the time from 100meters and up to 30 meters deep. A friend built his pumps using a big six cylinder diesel motor, and hoses which were 8-12" diameter. The pump was made out of half inch steel plate, and the impellers were made of curved sections of pipe welded to a disk (1/2" x about 12-18" dia) They were about 4-6" long and there was some room between the impellers and the wall. I wish I had some pictures to show. They are pretty awesome machines - but they are also very damaging to the ecosystem in the river. But it can be done. Probably on a smaller scale for you. Why don't you pump water up to your gravel, and wash it on a sloping plywood rack with little strips of wood fastened across to catch the small stuff.

 

[BrentD]

Could you maybe build something like a ski lift with 5 gallon buckets that could maybe automatically dump them when they got to the top?

 

[BHD]

this is a possibility or some similar, picture form the link,
Concrete Construction Methods And Cost 1
but instead of to load the wagon, go up the hill and dump at the top,

write up on the illustration,

A mechanical arrangement capable of handling a considerably larger yardage of material is shown by Fig. 8. Two men and a team are required. The team is attached to the scraper by means of the rope passing through the pulley at the top of the incline. The scraper is loaded in the usual manner, hauled up the incline until its wheels are stopped by blocks and then the team is backed up to slacken the rope and permit the scraper to tip and dump its load. The trip holding the scraper while dumping is operated from the ground. The[Pg 22] scraper load falls onto an inclined screen which takes out the sand and delivers the pebbles into the wagon. By erecting bins to catch the sand and pebbles this same arrangement could be made continuous in operation.

 

[deereman75]

What about dry screening it up top and then pouring the fine stuff down a pipe to take it down there. Something like a trommel used for sifting this stuff at the quary, but a smaller one.

 

[Mace Canute]

How about pumping creek water up the hill to screen and was there. Keep the big stuff up there, return the fines with the water downhill through another pipe.

Bingo! Why anyone would consider any other method is beyond me..unless they are masochists at heart.

 

[BHD]

for the $20 difference unless your considering a semi load of rock, (then you need a more competitive bid)when you figure your time even at a few $ hr, and cost of what ever you consider your equipment is worth,

I have pour cement my self and mixed it my self, with a good mixer, not a toy, but a full one sack mixer, I spend nearly the same money by the time I figure fuel and price of gravel and cement as I do for ready mix, all th work to mix one yard of cement saves me about $10 when it is figured in, and I tell that is a hard $10 in my pocket, and if I pay two kids for the heavy work it cost me more money than the ready mix, the only time it pays is if the need is for less than 2 yards, and most of the time less than a yard, as they have a short load charge,

by the time you get the rock home down the creek and back up with just time involved, your going to eat up that $20 fairly fast, a yard is 27 cubic feet of material,

I am goign to say save your back and just buy clean rock, unless your method of washing it is so simple that your not needing any work involved, in it,

 

[FDuce]

after your done washing out gravel you will be left with a lot less tonnage than what you started with. So if you pay $11 for a ton and wash away say 2/3 of the weight you are left paying $33 per ton for the finished product anyways.

 

[kubotakid USA]

I need some clean, graded 3/4" crushed gravel, which is about $33/yard. Otherwise I can buy "3/4-minus" for $11/yard, except it comes full of dirt, and, well, "minus".

I can run it through a screen myself and clean it and save myself a lot of money. Problem is I would need to do this in my creek which is about 40 feet downhill from the gravel delivery point. It would be nice to have the sand and small leftover gravel down here.

I was thinking I could run a 4" pipe straight down the hill, at about a 60 degree angle, and funnel gravel down to the creek area with gravity. (and maybe a little water) Once it's down there I can use the creek to sift and clean the gravel by pumping lots of water over it.

Problem is getting it back up the hill. No chance of any vehicle driving down there, not even the smallest tractor. How would you move a bunch of clean 3/4" gravel 40 feet up a hill? Is there some way I can "pump" it up the way they do with concrete? Maybe dump some gravel in front of a jet of water? Some kind of screw mechanism?

Otherwise I'll be stuck pulling buckets up with a winch, and that won't be fun....

I have to ask,..why do you need washed stone??, and why not just dry screen the stone, the same way we sift top soil, Ive made viborating top soil screens using nothing more then an old ford starter, (extended shaft) coupled to another shaft, with a welded off set weight to make it viborate when it spins, this extension is between two pillow block bearings, very effective and simple build, the screen is on a slight angle, and you could add water, if you need cleaner stone, just a farmer way of thinkin, Eric

 

[dwilliams35]

I live on a major river here, and back when I was a kid they pumped gravel directly out of the riverbed: had a big "stinger" on a barge that they stuck down into the bed and busted it up, then some major-league pump sucked it up and pumped it as much as a half-mile (with a booster pump midway) up to the high bank for washing: it was a pretty big-time operation, not sure the EPA would go for it now..

 

[ChronicCodez]

How about a conveyor belt. Simplify it even by modifying a used hay conveyor (craigslist) or build one from scratch (Popular Mechanics plans). **** if you could find enough treadmills and string them together. I did this while digging a six foot hole once, it works very well.

...Or, make a simple track up the hill out of cheap lumber to pull along a Little Red Wagon. Find a $10 electric boat winch, run a switch to the bottom of hill and wallah!

Of course you still have to shovel a little

 

[ChronicCodez]

Hey I've been censored! Well...****

 

[toy]

My brother dug out a basement by hand a long time ago and he built a conveyor belt to carry out the dirt. He used an old front tine tiller and took the tines off and hooked a pipe to it and used it to drive the conveyor. I don't remember what he used for the rollers but I know that every thing he used was elcheapo. He even made a tail piece to throw the dirt and rocks on and he caught the dirt at the top of the belt in a craftsman cart that he pulled with his riding lawnmower to dump the dirt.

 

[powerpace]

It still amazes me that people pay for gravel by the pound. In the PNW it is by volume. When you figure how much gravel you need it is done by volume. Delivered by a 5 or 10 yard dump. Paid for by the pound doe's not make sense. The Mafia still exists on the East coast is my guess. I just paid $15.00 per yard for 3/4 washed in Douglas County, OR.
To help with the problem, pump the water uphill or pay the extra dollars and make it easy on the environment and youself.

 

[bcp]

It still amazes me that people pay for gravel by the pound. In the PNW it is by volume.

Around here consumer/retail places charge by the cubic yard, no scale. Quarries charge by the ton as weighed on their scale.

Bruce

 

[rambler]

Now imagine with me for a second...if I have some sort of auger attached to the end of the gravel pipe. If I continue to feed gravel into that, it should, in theory force it's way all the way up the hill....no? I'm thinking basically an auger that would fit tightly (but still spin) inside the bottom of a 4" pipe.

Or would the auger need to extend all the way up the hill?

This is one of the most impractical but entertaining threads I've ever read.

Your bubble up screw press idea will _not_ work. Nope, never. Not. The gravel will pack up about a foot - probably less - from the end of the auger inside the pipe, and stop any more movement. Period. Won't work.

A screw auger extended all the way to the top would work, tho you would need much bigger than 4 inches to move material 3/4 inch in size. You'd bind up a small auger with such big particles. Us farmers use augers all the time to move grain, you'd need what, 12 inch or bigger pipe to make this work out? Just a guess, but you have a scale of the size pieces you are moving, to the cross section of the pipe, and no way will 3/4 feed through a 4 inch auger. It would need to be a 'robust' auger to move gravel 40 feet without shearing off, or punching through the tube, as well.....

--->Paul

 

[porky69]

It still amazes me that people pay for gravel by the pound. In the PNW it is by volume. When you figure how much gravel you need it is done by volume. Delivered by a 5 or 10 yard dump. Paid for by the pound doe's not make sense.

One of our local gravel/rock/brick suppliers sells by the yard or by the ton, and wouldn't you know it when you buy $50 worth of rock you get the same physical amount whether you buy it by the ton or by the yard.

 

[wrooster]

It still amazes me that people pay for gravel by the pound. In the PNW it is by volume. When you figure how much gravel you need it is done by volume. Delivered by a 5 or 10 yard dump. Paid for by the pound doe's not make sense. The Mafia still exists on the East coast is my guess.

Good grief.

Gravel and other stone products are sold by the ton because there is a certified scale involved, versus the cubic "yard" you got because the front end loader guy (who is making $9.50/hr) said that a heaped loader bucket "is a yard". The reason that these places sell by the yard is that they are too cheap to install a proper scale, and they are making more margin (=money) selling product by the "yard".

How have you measured how much you are actually getting, and do you know how much you are getting ripped off by?

In any project, one figures out how much is needed by volume, then you look up what that translates to in weight (there is a site called Google which can assist you with this), and then you buy by weight. It's really not too hard. If you are having difficulty with the concept or the math, perhaps an east coast Mafia guy could help you figure it out.

Wrooster

 

[slowzuki]

Ain't gonna pump any kind of crush on a budget. Concrete pumper can only do it as its in a slurry.