When I worked in SoCal several years ago a few of the guys work with had an instrument they called a Swede. It was just an steel 8 inch ring with three legs that came up a foot. They held a half inch pipe centered on the ring that had a 3 foot metal rod that slid inside that pipe that you would sit on top your blue tops. I probably didn't describe that very well. Then 2 guys with tape measures would use it as a 3rd point and line of site to set blue tops. Worked great for sheet draining or even setting the crown in a road. Anyways I thought I might make one this weekend and show these young bucks how to do things when we don't have GPS. Where are my old-school guys that know what I'm talking about. I will throw a picture up after I'm done making one.
I am curious to see this. I'm not old school but I'm glad I learned on lock levels and grade stakes before GPS
Use em' all the time Dozerboy Sometimes it's just quicker than setting up a laser or when a laser is impractical, ours are made a bit different than your description... square base all aluminum... and zipties make for great offseting markers
Boy, I am waiting for this, cause I am confused.
I never had a Swede but i did have a Norwegian female grade checker ! I really did ! Pictures please of your Swede in use please. I never heard of it until this thread.
What a great tool for things like parking lots! Glad to see you out sharing the SoCal way of doing things.
Exactly!!!! would love to see a pic... Tinkerer
Yair . . . Can't quite get my head around this . . . yet. (grins) Another handy and inexpensive gadget is the Yowie level. Essentially a hundred feet of clear plastic tubing filled with water and the ends taped to a couple of five foot moldings. Get rid of all the bubbles, set the sticks side by side, mark the level and you are ready to go. They were standard in the olden days for laying out contour banks and I have used them for shed pads. by-wash construction and for determining proposed high water line for dams with out having to clear a line of sight. Cheers.
Never heard the term "Yowie Level" but I've used a "water level" many times. Are you sure the guy telling you what it was called didn't get stung by a wasp while y'all were talking?
Have used water/yowie levels many a time... great for bvlos operation like scrub says and also up in skyscrapers where a regular level won't work because of building tilt here is a hightech version of em' http://www.tigersupplies.com/Produc...dzMR9k-MNWR-d-XNCDp7Qr33lTyNJ2pOMZxoCbQjw_wcB
Yeah, I've seen that, it looks cool. I just keep a couple of 2' pieces of clear tubing, one with male and one with female garden hose fittings. you just screw them onto any garden hose and add water.
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Sorry guys I got 3" of rain so things have been hectic. 2 photos one showing how it would sit on a hub needing fill. I decided to add a set screw to hold the 3' rod inplace just in case.
I'm still confused. Blue Tops are also a mystery to me. For 40 years all I've ever seen/used are hubs and grade stakes.
It has been about 40 years since surveyors set blue top stakes in my area. Its just a 2"x2" stake pounded down until the exact desired grade is achieved on the top of it. Then it was painted blue. The problem with them is that they were located right where the cut and fill was. The operator HAD to cut or fill exactly to the "blue top".
Blue top is just another name for a hub on finish grade. Generally anything blue is finish grade. Let's see if I can explain this. Say you need to grade a parking lot and all you have is curb stakes. Well you want to put out some blue tops between your curbs without doing a bunch of caluations or setting up a lazer. You put the swede on a hub on one side guy1 stands at the hub on the other holding a tape measure at 3'. Guy2 puts hubs in the ground between the swede and guy1 holding a tape measure on top the hub. To check the grade guy1 uses line of site between his tape at 3' and the swede which is also 3' tall to read what the tape guy2 is holding is at. Road crowns are are real easy. Say you have a 6" crown. Put the swede on one side of the road guy1 on the other and guy2 in the center of the crown. When guy1 reads guy2 tape at 2'6" then the road is on grade with a 6" crown.
Yair . . . Dunno, I'm not quite with it. We had a system where all operators working close to grade had what we called 'eye levels', little flat sided optical jiggers (I think about 2x) that could be held (or taped) against a flat surface, they were about six inches long and carried in a belt pouch or on the machine. All machines working close to grade had a piece of heavy 2x2 box section welded to the blade or bowl (at a convenient position and height) marked with graduations signifying height above the cutting edge. Cutting channel with scrapers the top mark I think was at twelve feet . . . that is to say the channel was eight feet deep, the bank was four feet high and the finished level was marked on an off-set at the outside toe of the bank. Under more normal circumstances the operator or off-sider could hold the level against the 2x2 and sight over to the blue 'finished level' tape on the offsets which were set at a height to suit the machines . . . not too much bending over. In practice with a few machines working, an off-sider with an eye-level and a lath would indicate height of cut or fill after each machine came through. To determine the bottom, bench and bank heights of (say) that irrigation canal, the final trim grader operator had a slightly more elaborate instrument to take levels from the pegs and off sets when the centre-line was re-established. How things change. I just had a look in Google images and the ones available these days all seem to have round housings . . . all I ever remember years ago were square ones so they could be held against the lath. I might add that particular (sometimes unlikely) blokes became extremely proficient at cutting grade. We had a one eyed Kiwi bloke on a Johnstone 621 who didn't need a grader. Surveyors were expensive and very hard to come by. All the original layout benchmarks, offsets and levels had to be maintained at all costs. Sorry, long post. In these days of GPS an Laser probably boring all you blokes stiff. Cheers.
Not really boring, because GPS and lasers have their issues too. I spent a few hours with our GPS putting out some grade stakes today just find out the model builder screwed it up and everything I put in is wrong. I got 10 guys on this job and we're all sitting here spinning our wheels, because some Computer nerd with fat fingers can't double check his work.
Yair . . . Gotcha Dozerboy ! I have often wondered did those systems suffer glitches. Cheers.
So are you using a sight level? Or are you just lining up sight of the swede and the 2 tapes to see what lines up?
I think we used to call those sight levels Pee guns. I had to rough in a rocked up yard for storing heavy equipment one time and used a camera on a tripod to do something similar. I set up at the highest spot and had a rod man with a stick with some tape at various heights. Every low spot I took a picture. Used some ground paint to identify the spots and had a rough idea of how much to cut and fill that rutted up mud hole they called a used equipment yard.
^^ just eyeballing through the swedes, but the sight levels like scrub mentioned are very handy for getting quick elevations especially when bidding a job.
I usualy kept a 4ft level, folding rule, and a sight level with me. Rarely needed anything else.
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When I started doing residential excavation in 1997 all I was given to check grade was an eye level and it's all I really needed. The screen on the back of the rops on those Dresser dozers I ran were 2" grid and I had other reference points on the machine. I was digging 6 crawl spaces a week for one of the big builders we worked for so I got very good with it. Benching in crawlspaces was no big deal with one of those. Also kept a torpedo level and a few different lengths of 2x4 handy to do sidewalk grade off the curb. Worked that way for years before lasers were common and had very few problems. I would still use it but the bubble broke in my good one and I haven't ever replaced it. Don't do much of that anymore and use a laze when I do. I love the idea of the swede and have never seen or heard of one. I also liked Scrubs description of how they did it and I think I would have liked the system he describes very much.
Scrubpuller ; Here where I live we call them eye levels. Most of them are x2 magnification and are a round tube. I have a square one just like you described. I found it in my grandfathers house after he died about fifty years ago.
Just line up the top of the swede with the tapes. If your trying to eyeball a long ways then you can get out the sight level just for the magnification. You don't want to level it because that would defeat making it sheet drain.
You You have no idea! We had my surveyor come out in case I was just screwing up since it's been over a year since I used GPS to layout anything. His was off too. So I spent the day figuring grades off our crap plans while the computer nerds figure out where they screwed up. That's one of the biggest problems with the use of GPS now. Plans are really lacking then it comes to grades. Like the roads on this project. There is just contour line for grades. You have to guesstimate the high and low points based on the % of rise and fall on either side of it.
Finally remembered to take a pic of my swedes... notice the ziptie on the center one, it's just left over from doing a curb offset on a previous layout.
Yep, those are swedes. We use 3 swedes for setting hubs, this way the hubs line up, and are kinda monkey proof. You have to keep an eye on who is using them and where they are being placed. 3 stands, 2 end targets, say one curb and one hub at a grade break. The third is moved at hub increments between the other 2, and are "naked eye" leveled in between the target swedes, so it is a 2 man operation. This is a dumbed down version of a transit system, and relies on how good the eyes of the person doing the sighting is, but you are generally within 1/4 inch. We set hubs for whole parking lots with grade breaks as well as buildings. It helps if one of the labors is smart, but you can get them started and micro manage at a glance. The advantage is being able to set grade breaks off survey stakes, then sighting them across to the next grade break or feature. There is no math except to offset the heights. I hope this explanation helps for anyone that runs into these little stands.
Hand levels ( eye level) are about the best thing ever you can do anything with them and the battery never dies I still use mine every day when I dig plumbing Never heard of a Swede before but it seems simple enough It still amazes me how much GPS and lasers get screwed up because people can't do math or have the wherewithal to check there set up and God forbid a benchmark is written in decimal feet and not inches people can't even begin to understand that
True. However, we aren't talking about a level surface, and math isn't always the answer. Unless you are going to stop and do geometry on the fly for every 10, 15 or 20 feet on a grid across an entire area with only hard "points" at the edges. Now, dont get me wrong, peep levels and lasers are awesome. Combine with a link rod or stick and it does great things with a little know how. This is, for all intensive purposes, a measure once, do an entire area system of sighting grades. Once set, you just move them. I'm sure everyone here can agree, if you tell a labor that a 47 1/4 inch tall stand has to be offset down 8 inches, they will have a hard time doing that. For this reason, they usually dont get engineer sticks, as you never know if they are using inches or 10ths. They also rarely even know what a sight level is, or how to offset across a slope to get a height difference, or set a stake with a measured mark and measure offsets across a grade. Most people will learn this in a surveying class in college, or learn this thru trickle down experiences. On normal civil plans, when you have a scale, they usually give you points at grade breaks. Otherwise it's just an approximate % grade and 2 end points. Across 300 feet, that's a lot of points, and assumes that the end points are correct. Then your math also assumes people can measure super accurate lengths on dirt, and hammer a hub in that exact spot. Then you have the issue of curb grades, existing grades, etc. You can average rough(not exactly flat) existing grades with these also, and set hubs based on those grades just by choosing starting points. Swedes have a sole purpose of never being wrong across short to decently long distances, based on eye. You can do the same thing with a transit, over longer distances, which is a surveyor standard, but labors and most construction workers dont really know how to use those. These are strictly a niche that gets the job done with 2 labors, and it doesn't much matter how sloppy their work is. Offsetting to the side too much when placing a hub can change a slope a little, but in that line, you have infinite points already calculated. Similarly, you can boost the range and accuracy with a peep sight and rod, making a makeshift sighting transit. But I'm getting off topic.
Seriously no one knows what swedes are? I use them every day. Use them to check crowns in roads especially. You use them to check between two grade marks to match grades when you are not working on a level surface. You can also adjust one swede to compensate for sections of base rock, concrete, Asphalt etc. they are the most useful things around. If anyone in Northern CA would like to learn how to use them. My going rate is $100/hr hahaha
Very useful tools. I taught one of our design people (sharp young gal ) to do a full survey to get a DEQ permit for a culvert replacement using them. My boss would have sent out a survey crew for a day and a half. We did it all in about an hour.
here is a quick vid I made to help a friend. Maybe it will shed some light on these mythical beasts.
swedes getting some love today.
You need a good farmer on a blade to come through there and harvest those carrots I see sprouting...
Anyone have a parts list or a diagram on how to fabricate some swedes? Even just the base where lath can be inserted to use as a swede as well. Currently don't have access to a laser and the Trimble gps is wacky with the canopy. I made a make shift swede with wood and a lath but the wind kicks and just blows it right over. Thanks for the help. I don't really wanna spend $300 on kuker ranked swedes
If you're working alone 2 sweds and an Abney Level makes life simple and job accurate.
We would like a photo of this grade checker
LOL I was just going to link you the Kuker Renkin and got to the end of your post. figure a 6x6 base of 1/4 steel will stand up, 5/8" tube welded to that 36" long and a "T" of tubing that fits inside it. drill a hole, Weld a 1/4" nut at the top of the 5/8" and use a plastic knob to set the moving part. Notch the base to fit around a hub.
Using swedes in practice: Set up 1 end where the grade is correct, and adjust all 3 swedes to the same length. ' Take swede 3 out to the other piece of grade that is correct. Place that middle swede between them and then sight across those 3 tops. you will see if you need a cut or fill. if it is a fill, you can pound in a hub to the right elevation. Repeat repeat repeat and you can make good smooth subgrade.
Back in the day that's how we did under slab preparations and used a similar system for laying pipes. We called them bonning rods though, then lazers came along and a labourer lost their job.
Pics of the NFGC.
My Dad built the first garage at their place in 1992 with one. I remember as a kid thinking it was some super fancy tool. I'd love to know what drugs the crew was on that poured the slab at work. It's so lumpy doing 5mph on forklift is like going off roading. A few spots are scraped down even from the bottom of the mast rubbing... I'd guess a good 2" up and down in 5ft in some spots. And the floor drain is the highest point, so water runs into the offices and bathroom.
Also known as a-Swede. *
That's for grader operators who can't follow grade instructions. They get a hard tap on the Swede ( noggin or head), all the same thing.
Or drivers.
good to know. I have one I found on the highway.
The Swedes just won the men's world curling title.
Okay got it. How about for slopes? Same concept, correct? This is referenced to as an "offset" correct? Forgive me for being a greenhorn, just trying to get as much info as possible. Any and all input is appreciated. Anything else about how these things work or are utilized in the field?
yes you can clean up a slope with swedes too, but I have not tried it. I only did things like this: Big road repair we tore it out 5' deep and brought it back up. You have good pavement on both sides of the repair. Set up swedes on that pavement on each side of the fix, at centerline and each fog line and pound hubs using the middle one. Now you have connected the dots.
Oh neat.