I don't know if this is a dumb question or not. I'm open to it being dumb and removed due to the particularity/specificity of the question, so mods if you want to delete this fire away... I’ve got the use for, basically, infinite amounts of rocks/boulders of varying size. While I don’t plan to sift through piles of dirt for rocks that are softball sized or smaller, the lovely wife and I will grab them when we see them and I don’t find any pockets of gravel sized stuff, really. This post is more specifically asking about rocks that are basketball sized (in any direction) and bigger. I've read a lot about y'all digging up rocks in your adventures and with some mostly minor digging in my yard I've also found some. I assume all areas of the planet vary wildly in the concentration of rocks to be found but I'm wondering if there are any general tips or possible patterns to find rocks when you aren't digging in an area that is just chock full of rocks that end up being annoying to you. So far, I’ve dug around in my yard and the neighbor’s yard, about a half mile away, a bit and I find the occasional big rock here and there. For an example, I dug a hole about 16 feet deep and probably a bit wider than that across and found 7-10 good sized rocks in that dig. Do you experienced diggers find that I’m likely to have that same ratio in an area that isn’t heavily rocked? Are there ways to look at the ground that an inexperienced digger may not instinctively notice that may lead to a greater concentration of rock (or point to more rocks over here, for example)? At no point did I hit an area where I felt like I’d find more in the same place, so that hole was pretty sparse, but maybe I didn’t read the ground very well. I know that the biggest boulder I have came from my pond when they dug it and it’s around 4’x7-8’ so there are substantial rocks out there but I’m not sure where to look. Do I just dig? Thanks, as usual, for all y’all’s expertise!
I live in NH- The Granite State. We have plenty of large rocks and also some ledge. In my adventures, I've gotten a similar proportion of big rocks as you. If I wanted to find concentrations of rocks, I'd look very hard at the soil survey maps that are available online for most of the country. They show different soil types and define the amount of rock. I don't think the maps are perfectly correct but it's a good place to start. I think they are showing the surface soil but you may be able to figure out where a river or glacier left a concentration. Sometimes I see a rock that has been pushed up ( by frost) over the years but even that doesn't garrantee there are more rocks under it. And also... I got permission from a town to take all the large rocks they had dug up next to a dirt road. You might be able to do that. Good luck !!
What you need to find is if there are any glacial moraines in the area. Glacial activity in the past will have deposited literally tons of rock in a concentrated area. A large glacial moraine surrounds our farm. We have more rock than dirt in places. The bottom land by the river is pretty good but under 3 feet of soil is 200 feet of gravel straight to bedrock. In the upland area a hole the size you dug would yield a triaxles worth of rock if you screened it. We have erratics around here the size of houses.
Around here, it seems that gravel rich areas are covered with softwood trees. But in the same breath, softwood doesn't always mean gravel. When prepping for an asphalt driveway, one thing you don't want are large rocks close to the surface. About a month ago we did a driveway, and the first thing I noticed were a couple of huge boulders in the yard. Now I'm no geologist, but most people don't have things like that hauled into their yard. They were probably dug up when the basement was put in. I dropped the ripper on my little grader, and found a truckload of rocks. Two of whick were at least 4 or 5 ton
Around here, its mostly sandstone, I think the biggest I've moved was about 800#. I have 10 or 12, down at the bottom of the driveway, hoping to snatch the oil pan offa one of the thousands of citiots, that HAVE to turn around, on my grass!
I don't have a real great answer, but just digging blindly for them seems incredibly laborious and something I spent time doing as a kid (With a mattock and a shovel). I was a weird kid. I know here in southern Minnesota there is a heavy concentration of what you're looking for in the sand pits. I am sure there is a fancy geological explanation for it. You can buy them but they are pretty expensive. There is a silica mine I do work at once and a while and they piled all the topsoil into a big mesa looking feature when they would clear way to mine the sand. The soil has a heavy concentration of rocks and over the years the rain has washed the sides of the "mesa" and they have rolled down the side and are ripe for picking. This is a big corporate site with too many rules to get in there on the weekends to pick them, but you might look around your area to see if there is anything similar where they are basically unwanted and see if you can buy some cheap or even get them for the taking. Farmers often have rock piles around too from picking them out of fields. Also sometimes free for the asking. What are you doing with so many?
I love these. At the mine I mentioned above there is a beautiful striped erratic about the size of a pickup truck. I wish I knew how to move it. I'd love to have it at my house.
Wow, I expected this post to be met with silence, thanks y'all! Pixie- I'll have to consider looking at soil maps. I'm not sure what, out my way, has been farm vs. woods prior to me being out here, other than there's a lot of woods around. And I'll have to keep an eye out on the side of the road. My only problem there is having stuff that I can drive the backhoe to, since I don't have a different way to move them. Ct Farmer- I actually live on the top of the moraine, but a few miles out, from the city called Moraine (see below), that glaciers produced to create the valley part of the Miami Valley where I live! The presumption is that my biggest boulder was indeed moved glacialy due to it being big and smooth. While I'd love to have some house sized rocks moving them would be problematic... cuttin edge- I'd love to see a couple 4 or 5 ton rocks but again, moving them may be problematic, I'd certainly love to try! DIYDave- You sound like my neighbor! He's got people running off the side of our narrow road all the time and has tried many different methods to keep that from happening. I think his next attempt will be a bamboo wall (depending on how a bamboo wall I put up goes, and by that I mean a living patch of bamboo that creates a wall, not dead planked bamboo). Andy- I keep forgetting about farm fields. I only have to travel a few minutes west to get quickly into farmland... That may be a good option. As for what I need them for? In the second picture below you'll see my front yard. I'm aiming to turn the pond into a pretty, serene, little Japanese inspired swimming hole. At the left side of the white block area is a hill I added to the yard, which the wife covered in softball sized rocks and some plants to obscure the view across the road. The plan is to make a fake creek from that hill all the way down the white area in the picture, then also surround the pond with as many big rocks as I can find. I'll likely do gravel lining in the pond proper but would like many varying sizes of rock otherwise. The less I have to buy the better. Diesel is cheap, as is my time, compared to truckloads of rock. Moraine! The river is creating the valley that you can't really tell has pushed the hills out to the east and west. I live at the west point of that line, about a mile east of me is the top of the west side of the valley and I'm kind of on a plateau before it dumps out into farmland a mile or two to my west. The white block is the planned area for a fake creek (approx. 80 feet long) originating from a small hill that is currently there on the bottom left of the white block. I plan to pump water from the pond over to the hill, where it'll run down and filter itself through plants and gravel, so the swimming portion stays nice and clear (if things go as planned, which they very well may not!). You can see my current boulders already sitting in this picture at six o'clock of the pond, I've got about double that there now.
That looks like a fun project ! I needed lots of big rocks to face an embankment and 'decorate' along my driveway. I lucked out with the free rocks along the road. Got all of them home with my 580K though some had to be chained into the big bucket and I usually needed a counterweight ( rock ! ) at one end or the other . A couple I just dragged home. You will be amazed at the size of rock you can maneuver around if you think about it. My neighbor still talks about the VW Beetle size rock I moved away from his driveway
Indeed! It'll also possibly be a very expensive project (by my standards!). So far, I've only had to drag one rock that I'll quantify at the size of a third of a Beetle and while I couldn't pick it up it did scoot nicely. I really enjoyed digging the one big hole I've done so far and I have a lot of unused space to dig in without causing much trouble. I get unreasonably excited when I'm finding these rocks, nature is cool!
DOT legal? I hate rocks.
So pretty! I would say not DOT legal if you plan to drive them all the way to Dayton for my yard, Oldcatpusher! My guess is I only don't hate rocks because they aren't usually in my work or life way, ever. I could see being a farmer or in construction and getting very tired of them!
We always find them while trenching for utilities and the rock is just inside the trench... removing it makes the trench four times as wide(or more) in that spot
Perfectly legal thats how you get rid of the damn things just let them blow off on a corner in front of Aighead place
Used to be able to judge land by the size of the farmers rock pile but so much has been cleaned up around here that doesnt work as well anymore
Carefull how fast you let them off the trailer Especially the more round ones
I know how you feel. I dislike even breaking out the hammer. Makes for a long day and hurts to think of how hard it is on the machine.
Ooooooo that's got to suck!!! when all you want to do is get the trench done... We have a good sized hammer for our EX120 but mostly it is used for demoing large concrete pads and footings.
This is why I never really pursued getting the one I like out of the quarry. Might be able to get it into the bucket of one of the 988s.... maybe, but then how do I keep it on a lowboy in the event I find someone crazy enough to haul it for me...
Many moons ago a friend and I were out shooting woodchucks, an unheard of pastime then. Drove past this farm, beans just coming up, 6-8 big rockpiles out in the field, we could see several chucks eating the tender sprouts from the road. We stopped and introduced ourselves, asked if we could shoot his woodchucks. The old gent (Ivan) just gave us a blank look, "you want to shoot woodchucks?" Yes sir. Never had anyone ask that before......go ahead, kill every damn one. We drove behind the barns, set up and started in.... I thought it was rather strange that ol' Ivan had 3 td25's parked there. We eventually walked out to some of the rockpiles....it became very apparent why Ivan had 3 td25's. Mother nature wasn't kind to him, average rock size was about 5' tall on every damn pile. Ed
When I was working at facing and supporting the big embankment in front of my house, a friend at the other end of my dirt road offered to bring a load of pesky rocks and place them with his truck mounted log loader. Sounded great ! I got home one day and the rocks had arrived but his loader didn't reach the bottom of the embankment and when he let them go, they rolled some and were all about 5 feet from the bottom edge. Nothing I could do about it as my backhoe didn't reach either. A few years went by and I suddenly had a porkupine infestation. Logs and brush and stuff had fallen on the rocks ( mostly 4' diameter ) and the porkies had set up camp. Fortunately, a couple of years later, the neighbors were adding on to thier house and needed to get rid of fill and I had it dumped over the embankment to fill in around the rocks. Haven't bothered to face it again.
Aig, keep us in the loop. My wife has had her eyes on a project just like that for years. I occasionally see the Pinterest picture of somebody's natural pool. Except, I have lots and lots of limestone rocks around which is what made her start the idea anyway. So not to hijack your rock thread, but keep us up on your progress please. FWIW- My Cat 420D has some BIG hooks on the top of the bucket for hang on forks. I've found the forks aren't good for large rocks because they are too far out there, but I have moved many large rocks by getting as much in the bucket as I can and then wrapping a chain around the hooks and rock and tilt the bucket back. On my farm, OSHA doesn't come by much. Put the machine in 4WD and head on. 4WD because the back wheels may not touch ground much. Can't lift high, but you can move them around the place OK. As I recall, I can lift more rock that way than my Case 586 forklift can.
Our big stuff comes out of our quarry if needed for specific jobs. You always get oversized rock in a blast, too big for the crusher, so it is set aside. If we need a lot, a little tweaking in the drill pattern, and detonation timing and you get lots of big stuff. We are doing a shoreline protection job now. 10,000 ton of 4 to 5 foot rock. Nothing like 30 ton in a tri axle dump trailer hanging on till the last second then all coming out at once to bring you around first thing in the morning. Thank God for high lift tail gates
That reminds me of a scene I saw take place, a few miles, from here, some messicans were unloading boulders with a toro dingo stand-on loader, and I watched them chain and drag a boulder off the side of the flat bed f-450, or whatever truck, they were usin. Soon as the rock, and the forks cleared the side of the truck bed, the operator flew up and into the truck bed, woulda cleared the whole truck, iffn'n the other side rack had been off! THe things you see, when you don't have a camera handy!
I'd happily give you my address to do so, but I'd rather not see a big old Boulder roll past the house like that other picture! RTSmith - I will, though I think the 5 year plan we came up with about 3 years ago, to get this going, may have been ambitious. There's a billion expensive ways to make a pond work and I'm broke most of the time. I'm leaning towards billboard vinyl as my liner, but even that looks to be about $2k just to get started. I've learned loads now it'll take motivation and energy I can't seem to find very often. And I didn't start a hundred bonsai trees 20 years ago to place around either... Oh yeah, also thanks, I've been trying to think of ways to move these rocks once they are all here. I don't mind going slow and I'm sure some will be too big to pick up but I think I'm with you on how to roll them up into the bucket.
Do you know anyone with a crane and one of these? Pretty failsafe way to deal with big boulders. I was placing these around trays full of electrical hydraulic and fuel lines over the water.
Wow! That's sweet Tugger2!
A local logger with a grapple fork on a truck might be able to help here...
I drive by this fairly often, wonder if they didn't feel it was worth removing to develop the lot.....lol What you see is a good 8' wide. Ed
That's a big one Bumpsteer! I'd like to know if it's round or flat bottomed.
Might be just the tip of the iceberg
It is... Think that part of town was developed in the 50's, they didn't have equipment big enough to deal with it. Ed
They probably buried it right below the surface back then.... and you can see just how much it's grown since
I wish I had a picture, but that was before I had a camera phone. About 12 years ago I was plowing a field for my grandpa and the chisel plow damn near leapt out of the field. I've found plenty of rocks plowing, but never one that tripped 3/4 of the shanks. I go get a skid steer with rock bucket and start digging around trying to find an edge. After I got to 4 ft diameter I quit and called Grandpa. He has my uncle bring the backhoe out to dig it up. The rock was around 8 ft across and not coming out. So he digs the biggest, deepest hole he can with that old hoe, undermines the boulder and buries it. Hopefully we will never see that one again, but if we do, we've got an excavator now that will put her down even deeper.
A long passed friend had an excavating business....the 690B was on a pond job. Farmer next door asks the operator if he has time to dig up a rock....Doug ok'ed it and the operator went at it....got it exposed and he couldn't move it. Phone calls are made...farmer tells Doug he can have it if he gets it out. Getting late in the day, beer has been flowing and a challenge has been issued. A ramp for the lowbed is dug next to the rock, another is dug perpendicular, so the 5 yard loader can push. A trip to the pit for the loader and a stop for more beer is made. We finally got that damned rock on the lowbed and chained down at 1:00am. Down the road we went, crossing the scale at the grain elevator just for grins, one could see the readout thru the window, only 12k over. Finally got it home, safe and sound. Doug put it in the front yard. Ed
Welp, my first, in earnest, boulder hunt in my own back yard was, basically, fruitless. I went back to the back 40 (really back 2) and found nothing bigger than a basketball, most were slightly bigger than a softball... You can't win every time I guess. I fished for a long time and never caught anything, it's kind of like that...
Well, that's discouraging ! I bet if you truly 'needed ' to bury, say, a waterline, you would find a whole line of rocks LOL But maybe that's just the way it is around here
Hahaha! No that sounds exactly right! Looking at the pile of maybe 10 small rocks I got today versus the 2'x4' I got a couple weeks ago was kind of sad. There are a couple weird whitish ones?
See if you can find a buddy with GPR ground penetrating radar... should easy to find rocks then ...
If they are solid white, usually with a flat side, I'd guess quartz. Mottled, mixed up coloring might be granite. Just guessing by what we find around here. The rocks here often get discolored by the iron in the soil.
For some reason I have a feeling this cartoon fits here-Bugs Bunny-Wet Hare. https://www.supercartoons.net/cartoon/1040/bugs-bunny-wet-hare.html
I was thinking quartz as well, I'll have to go out and take a look tonight, now that the rain has likely washed them off a bit...
We been fining plenty of em' and ours ain't quartz!! Plenty of 2+ footers And lots of 5-6 foot across boulders.
Oh man, beautiful! I could use all those, from the bottom picture!
Found some more last couple days on a logging grading job!!! This one was too big and I have to leave it to grow some more lots of little rock offspring from it but I couldn't even budge it so am guessing it is bigger than a VW or two
Wow! Good ones Ronsii! That third picture looks like a bunch of flint? I don't know much about rocks other than the flint I've seen tends to be extremely sharp like that.
I fractures like flint and a few others... but I think it's just a landscape rock... you see a lot of retaining walls made from it... poor choice because it tends to fracture on a seasonal basis... and I've seen embankment walls under roadways failing because they used this stuff.
Ship me a load of 800 pounders, I need them fer the end of my driveway, where all the a$$holes HAVE to turn around, in my lawn! My goal, in life, is to see an oil pan stuck on one of the rocks, down there, and an oil stripe, leading to the DOA bmw...
If I can find a usps flat rate box big enough I'll give it a go
If that's a real deal, I'll take you up on it too! Ha!
I think I've mentioned and shown pictures of the clearcut field across the street. Anyway there's a bunch of land and rocks there and I asked the owner of the property if I could have them. He said that he thought the guys that cleared the land for him may be selling them to landscapers but if they didn't I could have them. Well months have now gone by, no one seems to be doing anything on the property and I had enough beer in me, last night, to go grab a few! A couple have been teasing me for weeks now as I see them when I drive past. Regardless of any of that I've doubled up on my pile of this size rock and I'm thrilled about it!
Around these parts we use our rocks differently. Instead of digging them up, we just dig them. Completed five so far, just waiting for that roadheader to show up and we'll make a few more.
I'll try this again
Am I seeing that you are IN the boulder, @rsherril ? Insane! Seeing that you are in far west Colorado also reminds me of our family trip to Mesa Verde, where the natives built into the side of giant rock like that... Very neat! I guess I'll toss in a picture of that too! This picture is showing how these folk would scale the cliffsides: Hole-N-The-Rock style, if you don't know there is like a house in there. And a tourist trap.
The Hole in the Rock was constructed in the 1950's as a restaurant. Many Uranium miners in the area at that time and they were employed to make the space. I found myself working in and around these mines for twenty years and understood how comfortable compared to outside they could be. It's not unusal to have 40 degrees F temperature swings in a day and over 100 degrees in a year. The rock mass moderates that. Good ventilation is a must. Insulated sheetrock interior walls make it acceptable for most people. Using rock for shelter is common. Using modern building technology in combination with modern mining technology, make this feasible for living enviroments. I know of a dozen or so in the general area, Around the world I suspect that thousands are in use today. Any way, I like your boulder hunt. I would suspect that there are tools like ground penetrating radar or sonar that might refine your search a bit. Maybe some geological maps available that may indicate higher concentrations. My motto "A Rock for every purpose and a purpose for every Rock".
Ever run into residual radiation or radon problems in rock houses?
@rsherril I've done some studying on geological maps at the suggestion of someone else here, but either don't know enough to read it properly or I can't find precise enough info. I know there are big rocks around but ruining the entire yard, in the hunt for them, seems like a bad idea!
None that I know of. The primary issue would be the accumulation of Radon gas from the surrounding earth and ventillation solves that problem. Most issues have come from water and humidity with rot/mold problems. Some issues with rock fall, both can be mitigated.
This might be appropriate here. https://mymodernmet.com/dick-clark-the-flintstones-house/
VT is where glaciers went to die. I believe there were staggering deposits of rock when glaciers melted after the Ice Age. Adding to glacial deposits, I live in a steep valley where a high speed, (lots of vertical) stream flows. Each major flood event brings millions of tons of rock down from the mountain. One storm washes boulders away, next brings in more. I paid for years to have them hauled away, then I bought machinery. My wife says rocks are my hobby. I pile them ever higher to make space between them. I'll get pictures. Years ago a contractor was hired to surround 22 handicapped outhouses in the National Forest. While there are billions of boulders in the National Forest locally, he wasn't allowed to use them. Each outhouse was to have 25? 4' boulders in a circle surrounding it. The contractor came to me. I said "Knock your socks off. Take all you want." I came home after he left. My father was around at the time, I asked: "Why didn't he take any?" He said: "He took 7 tandem loads." I couldn't see a change! If you pay for a rail car, I'll fill it free.
Here is a wall I built 10 years ago. 7' tall, 120 feet long 12' wide at base. My excuse was a flash flood diverter, but also to dispose of rock. 2012, water was splashing over the top of it, but gravity swept it past the house & garage. The sugar house at rear of the property didn't fare as well. 24 X 40 building, half the footprint was left hanging over nothing but air. I could walk under the concrete slab that had been poured on level ground. I figure I lost 2000 cubic yards of earth, mostly boulders. Otter Creek is 1/2 mile away. None of the big rocks made it to the creek. Most were smashed into smaller pieces.
The job im on now has some tunneling going on. they are in glacial till with random boulders ranging from 6ft to gravel. Some of the samples are coming up to over 23000 psi . Pretty hard boulders to stand up to being rolled around under the glaciers.
Here in the Granite State, the size and number can vary quite a bit. Some places you see 3x4 foot rocks sitting on the ground in the woods every 15-20 feet. The kind of thing that would turn logging in to a maze game. Other places there are just a few the size of VW Bugs scattered around. Every piece of rural land I've owned had them spaced in an evil pattern underground so that augering to place posts turned into a game where for every two holes completed, the framing plan had to be reconsidered at least once. I finally gave up on having a plan and put the posts where ever they would go and had a heavy plate and scabs and braces from there to complete a pole barn cover for a 28' RV.
@Willie B that wall is lovely!
Pixie, That sounds a bit like up in the wooded area behind my house. Except here it is all limestone. Might be why there are two limestone quarries within spitting distance of my house! Can not understand how the deer manage to walk around in those woods! Back when we bought the property for the house I first borrowed the old back-hoe from work and ran it down to the property and used it to dig a hole in the middle of the field about where we would be placing the house just to know there was actually enough dirt to have a full basement. Funny thing is when contractor was digging the hole at the east end he hit a big rock so moved the hole a few feet to the west. Sure enough when he got to the west end he found another one of those VW size rocks! Dad and I spent the better part of a day with jack-hammer getting it to a size the contractor could move with his little dozer and back hoe!
We have glacial till here that is sort of banded worse in areas. My cousin bought property to build a house in one of those stonier areas and discovered some monster boulders when they started excavation. One was right in the middle of the soon to be basement. They spent a weekend with backhoe and bulldozer (Deere 450 and Deere 310A) trying to dig it out and gave up when they realized it was bigger than the dozer. They moved the entire house location some 30ft and prayed they didn't find another boulder like that.
The fix is in one word: Fire. I get rocks too big to move with the 410C. I have two right now in the way of a project. A weed burner torch works OK if the propane tank is big enough. I've done it with a oil burner out of a big boiler, but the traditional way is with a wood fire. works especially well if you can dig under it.
@Willie B explain further please...?
Expose at least one side of the rock. Build a fire up against it or use a gun oil burner from an oil furnace. The heat on one side will cause expansion & it'll flake away. It's best to keep the flakes moved away to let the heat penetrate the rock. As a young man I did it more, didn't have machinery to move big rocks. I've probably broken 100 rocks this way from boulders weighing four or five ton to liftable size. My fire pit doesn't look very good. It was three large boulders lined with fire brick. No mortar as it'd crack anyway. Bricks were once large fire bricks, most are broken. Still the bricks protected the rocks for years, no cracks. Once when Mrs B & I were away, my son had a get together for our Daughter In Law's birthday. We came home to this. He swears there was no unusually big fire, I've got my doubts.
Wow! I've never heard of or thought of that technique for breaking up rocks but it makes sense, thanks for letting me know!
https://www.labyrinthdesigners.org/...ry-ancient-method-to-shatter-carbonate-rocks/ SO's brother used LPG burners to dig a hole for a swimming pool this way.
Broke it Saturday. This rock I could lift with the John Deere 410C. It lifted both rear wheels off the ground to lift it. I don't know if I could calculate the weight of the rock from that, but the tractor weighs 17400 LBS with me sitting in the seat. There is a great portion of that weight at rear. Much of the time I find it lifting front tires off the ground. First is a picture of a failed attempt with a weed burner torch. Propane tank was too small & it frosted up. Torch flame withered down to nothing. Next is a bucket of rotted wood I wanted to dispose of. Final shows a few cracks barely visible in the picture, but obvious to the eye. Drop a boulder on it at this point, it'll break. I ended up breaking it into an 8' long X 4' wide X 1.5' chunk & a 3' slice, plus a billion small pieces. I took final pictures, but they are no where to be found.
Such a pretty rock! That appears to be about the size of the biggest one in my yard, I wish I could get several handfuls more that size.
I calculate that one at 9000 LBS. Be careful what you wish for. I can't move it.
I further worked on the boulder today. The fire separated maybe 1/4 in one piece. I had thousands of little pieces & visible cracks through it. If I left it through a winter, it'd break further, but it was in the way. The process involves lifting a smaller stone as high as possible, and drop it on the bigger one. Fire caused flaws, impact will break it. First picture is the first segment popped off by fire, maybe 1/4 total weight. It's 8' x 3' x 18" Next is a handy stone I'll drop on it.
Third drop I broke another chunk off Fourth drop my drop stone broke. Note the discolor around the edges. I presume the rock is somewhat porous, and absorbed color from soil
Great @Willie B !
@doublewide did you put those there or is that a honeyhole?
Haha, honeyhole.
Rocks deposited by glaciers are pretty ugly at least around here. You need rocks that are weathered by a river or time. I live at the foot of mountain. Lots of rocks but not weathered enough. Nothing worse than rocks that have been split. Maybe make rocks out of concrete.
Beauty is in the eye of the rock owner... I like them a little worn and showing some moss/lichen but having a flat side. Really dislike teeth marks ! Often river rocks are rounded and hard to stack into a wall and seldom sit flat. A local contractor builds rock retaining walls out of rocks that were in a grinder and they are ugly !
My rocks look ok with moss but if you clean off moss they look like crap. Definitely not eye of beholder. Nice rocks command good prices. Best to get opinion from professional.
Another score!
Mine show teeth marks, or fire. I've never known what they are. I've asked a few geologists. They say it is some vague rock somehow similar to granite. I know it is HARD, harder than granite ever hoped to be. I've wanted 36" squares 2" thick to make counter top. I've presented the idea to several stone cutters. All will only cut square stone.
That's kind of surprising @Willie B I would've assumed they wouldn't care so long as you were willing to pay for the waste cuts. Maybe even waste cuts on the bottom too, if they need to secure it to a bench or something.
Something about the shape of the stone deflecting the diamond saw sideways. I only somewhat understand the process, I think they would use rope saws. The Danby Marble Quarry is a couple miles from here. The boss once said "Bring one up some Saturday, I'll see if I can do it." Bad luck for him & me, a week later cancer hit him hard. He died a month later. I've cut marble with a 10" diamond blade on a 9" hand held grinder. It is VERY soft, easy to cut.
I remember watching some tv show where they were making huge cuts on random shaped stones and it looked like a crazy process but that's why I mentioned that it seemed possible. I don't remember the show name.
Today was rough. I kidded myself. The "road" I had built inside the wall had a few bumps. When I dig out a "bump" it usually is a 4' boulder. It takes a while, but I dig it out & fill the hole. The monsters I can pull, but can't lift, they slow the process. Sure enough, there were two! Now I have to go get wood.
One of my pipe dream/who knows if I will ever actually get to it projects is so build a diamond wire saw set up to slab boulders. I have seen some used for garden paths and sidewalks and figure there could actually be a fun side income in that - but too many irons in the fire right now...
Where I live marble is the stone actually quarried. Danby marble was once claimed to be the world's largest underground marble quarry. The stuff is EVERYWHERE. I'm not clear why, but they used to dump millions of cubic yards off the parking lot at the mouth of the quarry. A town road runs along the base of that dump. Local people have always picked from it for projects. The quarry people frown on the practice. Not far away are several granite quarries. 15 miles away are a row of slate quarries. Still I know of no one who has built a stone saw. All that I know of have manufactured machines. To me marble (the most easily available) does not appeal. As kitchen counter top, it stains way too easily, is fragile, sensitive to hot stuff, and white. As paving, it is slimy when wet, not the sort of thing you want for stairs even.
My boulder hunt is likely to hit the commercial side of things this coming Friday. My lovely wife is building a patio off the side of the deck out back and she wants to build a low wall which will have the inside filled in to come up to grade. So she's hitting up a local rock store to see the offerings. I plan to go with her to look at the larger offerings, and to try to understand some costs at truckload volumes. Having never bought a truckload of big rocks I don't really know what to expect would fit in a dump truck, nor how much weight that is. We've got a quarry of sorts down the road and she suggested to me that I should go try to get a part time job there in trade for rocks... Don't know the likelihood of that happening but I'd be willing.
Good luck on tandem loads of rock from the "stone" quarry. Got a quote from a quarry in North AL for nice blue stone slabs 1-2' thick perfect for retainer wall building and they quoted $1400 a load of 100 SF of vertical wall. Yikes - $14 a SF.
Yea people often got a shock when they priced large rocks from the quarry where I worked. Thing is it takes lots more time to load a 10 ton rock than it does to load a 30 ton load of crushed stone in a dump truck. Plus most want to be able to pick and choose which rocks they want so there it also a bunch of time spent with loader sorting through a pile of shot rock to get to the "perfect rock" for the customer.
I can only vaguely picture 100 square feet of stone, but 1400 bucks seems like a fair amount, probably too much!
Just remembered the time when one of the rich people on the lake near here was doing some landscaping along the shore and wanted some stones to keep erosion at bay. The contractor was picking out the stones and hauling them to the site on a lowboy trailer. Problem is one of the "perfect stones" when it got to the site was too heavy for his equipment to move and had to be returned to the quarry!
Think 10' wide and 10' long - 100 SF. Or more for a retainer wall 5' tall and 20' long. Kshan at this quarry you don't get to pick and choose the actual rock. Pick the style you want and the truck shows up. All in all $1400 included a 1 hr one way trip so it's not that bad.. After I was quoted that price I started to separate the large slab rocks we haul to our dump and push them to the side... I've got $3K in a pile..
OK, 1400 bucks may be about what I would expect to unhappily pay at 5' tall and 20' long. A foot-ish wide?
These stones would vary between 1-2' wide on average. The 100 SF is the "Face Footage" of the wall which is what you will see vertically looking at it.
That is what we do. The blueish rock we buy at 100$ a ton and the brown stuff we pull out of a pit my boss has. There is a layer in the water you can not see. the brown stone is 12 inch thick and the blue is 19 inch thick. The brown walkway is about 4 to 6 inch thick.
Well, our rock shopping adventure has come to an end. I think we are getting about 2 tons of a thin flagstone and a ton of some other crap to build the wall. And a ton of sand. About 1900 bucks delivered. I'll post some pictures once it shows up. I also priced, but wasn't smart enough to document, some bigger rocks, which I think were about the size of let's say half a loveseat with the back chopped off, for around a 100 bucks. I didn't buy any but I may head back down to the store and get a couple. They are bigger than what I typically find around here and not that expensive, and if I can add more to the delivery of the other junk it helps. As I think about my pond project, which is the real root of all this nonsense, I'm likely to spend a real sh1tload on rocks. They had some nice looking stuff, like the below, for 230 a ton, with some negotiating (likely to mean 10-15% less) but I could use this entire corral full a couple times over. Then also need some pea gravel to fill in empty spaces. I've come to the conclusion that diesel is significantly less expensive than rocks. I need to find the thread posts with the rock screening jigs so I can copy the style and start digging holes out back. I think, with screening, I can find a lot of usable rock for, basically, free, and I'll stumble upon some good, bigger, rocks in there too. There's nothing really stopping me from digging 2 acres of 15 foot deep holes to explore.
@Don.S that's beautiful! How did you place them so nicely?
Good rocks make a big difference but honestly that is why we just laugh when some one says i will rent a machine and do it for less. When you get guys that have sat in a excavator for tens of thousands of hours they are pretty good. That. Job took 4 days to get to that point and three guys. One operator in a excavator one in a small wheel loader who also plays labourer and a truck drive. So rip out the old wood wall and remove and load in truck then dig back property about 5 feet and haul away. Haul in rocks and build wall then back fill with 4 to 8 inch stone and top with soil. That was done in 3 days then the customer added the walkway so the 4th day we did that and top soil.
That looks like the 4 to 8 inch we put behind our walls. I think we buy it for like 17$ a ton.
Well done Don. That's a nice stone wall. Wife and I are planning a new house on a dog lot close into our metro area and will require several retaining walls. Your wall is exactly what I have in mind of building.
We work really hard to try and avoid visible shims and there was only 1 cut made on a rock on that wall. Its the building out of the water that is the really hard part as soon as you start to work the water gets so dark you cant see a rock once you put it down. That wall i spent two days in the water with a laser and feeling around with my hands and a level measuring off a string line to make sure its straight.
Uh, I certainly like the sound of $17 per ton than $250!
You can have these for free if you come get them. The digging right here is more than 50% rocks.
250 a ton, and not even nice cobble. Before we opened the quarry, they used to screen the cobble out of the winter sand, then later crush it for drainage stone, or cement agg. I think armour rock is around 5 bucks a ton if you load it yourself. Mind you, it's like 4 or 5 ton per rock
We have a number of quarries near. It is all Calcium Carbonate, or others are Dolomite. The product is all blasted. Based on size & level of processing it ranges in price $7 to $10 a ton loaded in your truck. I don't happen to posses any flat rock. All of mine is glacial & the corners are knocked off. A very few will have one utterly flat side. I build a retaining wall in rows. Place a layer, then fill level behind it. Next layer must rest behind center of the below. A freestanding wall is two rows of boulders with small stuff between, then go up from there.
We often play with rocks. That took two days.
Beautiful @Don.S ! You guys and your cheap rocks! We got a delivery yesterday but I was busy and didn't take a picture yet...
DonS, those must be shaped by men/machines ? One in a million here have anything vaguely resembling 2 paralell sides ! Had a little boulder hunt today. Building a 'retaining' wall along the driveway at my project house. All the reasonable sized ones were gathered up into stone walls many years ago. Had to find ones that were dug up more recently ( 30 years ago) for buried phone line . Easy to find the motorcycle and bigger sized ones. Breadbox to truck-mount toolbox are a little more elusive. And I can't just dig around cause the only area not covered in large trees has the buried line.
I love your size descriptions @Pixie ! Hopefully you were successful! Here's my stash, the last picture will be the rocks we use for the wall and at the store it seemed like a full skid would be way too many, so we reduced the amount, now it looks like it may not be enough.
You are killing me! There's A power Wagon on blocks! Mine is 1956 C4. They only made C4 part of two years, I guess they made so many mistakes they started fresh. 1956 first year of synchromesh, double frame, 9500 GVWR option. Mine must have been a dually, it has 4.89:1 gearing. It has had all the gearboxes gone through, fresh engine 1000 miles ago. I have factory winch front + Garwood GY16 behind the cab. The rear winch powers the dump body, (my own design).
What about women? My sister has a glare that can cut stone...
I was wondering if you'd notice that. The customer was doing a brake job on it. I don't know the year or any details but I can ask him about it next time I see him.
My mother in law, (she's dead). These days, my niece, frighten stone to shape. Don't get me wrong, I like women, they are 56% of humans. Two specific women could frighten stone into shape. I never feared my sister, proves I am a fool. I never feared my mother in law, Proof positive! My niece causes earthquakes, she's so scary!
Good catch on the power wagon! I didn't see it but it's sweet!
Well done Don. What type of stone? Looks like limestone. Is that a HL4C laser in the box? We've got 3 of them and they are damn good lasers.
First 4x4 offered to civilians. Dodge claims 1945, hours after the last military 4x4 rolled off the line. The Power Wagon was not a horsepower monster. Engines ranged from 80 to 115HP, all 230 Cubic Inches. About 1960 they moved to the 251 Cubic inch Engine, more torque, but less speed as it was all more stroke. With winch, it was said "a Power Wagon could go anywhere" This was never true, but near.
Yes it is with a spectra hl700 receiver. I am not sure what kind of stone it is all i know it its hard and heavy haha. We have a cat 359d and it had a hard time moving many of them. Most of the time we move them into the site and remove all the scrap with a deere 244j loader. All stones get placed with a 308 cr with a rototilt and the 2D system . If you do alot of rock walls and finicky stuff the tototilt is absolutely amazing. The 2D is great for us since alot of the walls the base is under water so you cant see anything so its all by feel.
Since it sounds like there's some experience here, please let me know if this plan sounds good. In the picture below, the wall will be back filled about 12-18 inches on the left side of the picture. We plan to stack the wall rocks 3 or so high and the fill will be basically level with the top of the wall. We plan to glue the rocks in place to maintain a dry stack look, but I'm nervous that folks walking on or sitting on the wall will tip it forward, to the right of the picture. I thought of pounding rebar into the ground at an almost 45 degree angle, towards the right side, in the yard, and leaving about 4" sticking up to epoxy in between the bottom layer of stone, in between each rock horizontally. Once that's good and cured my thought is that should sufficient to anchor the narrowish wall to the ground, then gluing the stones above would be sufficient to hold the whole thing together... What d'ya think? It's too late to get wider stones but we could possibly spend more money and double the walls thickness front to back.
Might be an optical illusion, it looks like your wall is leaning the wrong way. A wall needs a bit of tilt toward the uphill side. Stones that small won't be real stable anyway, but start them 1/2 bubble off level top toward the uphill. You'll want it drained. Put crushed stone behind the first course. Second course could be placed flush, but if it stepped back an inch it'd be more stable. Any water in or around the wall will freeze & move it a bit each freeze cycle. Drainage under & behind the stone goes a long way toward stability.
Thanks @Willie B ! It's not an optical illusion they are tilted a bit the wrong way. We do have nice gravel under but not behind. I'll share your advice with the wife.
We may have a language problem. Gravel, in my language won't work. In my world gravel is a mix of sizes, called out by the biggest. We might ask for 3/4 minus as a top dressing for a driveway. The gaps between stones are filled with smaller particles. We call out 1-3/4" drainage stone, 3" stone, 5" stone. It is only stone at or near the specified size. There is enough void between stones for water to flow through. Quarries here are producing "white pigment" and "limestone slurry". Stone of the wrong color, or wrong chemical analysis was once waste product. In recent years they process waste to sell. Another quarry makes asphalt. State specifications call out the details of ingredients for pavement. The stuff that doesn't meet specs has to be removed.
Played with a few little dragon's teeth today
Culvert headers. That thumb is begging for teeth. A little piece of grader cutting edge, or grouser stock would improve performance.
When we got the pile of stuff delivered I meant to go back to the rock store to buy a couple big ones to add to the delivery. I wasn't motivated enough to actually do it but they had a couple big flat ones, kind of like what you have there, @materthegreater . I don't know what they would have cost but it appeared as though they'd been in the 200-300 buck range.
Yeah I installed a couple of 6" culverts, I think these might do for headers Actually, the customer is having me collect them for a "stone circle". Not exactly sure what it actually is That thumb is the worst excuse for a thumb I've ever used, other than a mechanical thumb. It's destined for the scrap pile if I end up keeping this machine. I'm hoping to upgrade before the year is out.
Hmm, I could load you up with a truckload and you could resell them out there and make a big profit
I wish @materthegreater ! I did contemplate the math, while at the rock store, but I haven't sat and seriously looked at it, for comparison of buying stones versus picking some up from some of the generous people here who have way too much! My guess is at ~$200 per ton of bigger rocks a 5 ton rental dump truck doesn't hold much.
In the mid nineties the US Forest Service in their infinite wisdom installed wheelchair useable outhouses along the Long Trail. In the economy of 1995 they were to cost nearly $30000. each. The landscape architect wanted a 30' circle of weathered boulders around each. We are surrounded by 200,000 acres of National Forest with millions of boulders within reach of the road, but the contract specified none of those boulders could be used. The contractor approached me. I gave instructions not to damage the paved road, and don't strew them around any worse making his selections. He was unloading a 30 ton excavator when I left that morning. My father was across the road, I figured he would supervise. I got home, it was clear the guy had moved a lot of rock around, but volume hadn't diminished in a noticeable way. I asked my father why he hadn't taken any. Dad said: "What are you talking about? He took 7 tandem loads." I don't know what trucking costs, but boulders costing as much as you describe, it might be worth your while to transport free boulders from somewhere else.
I'm no artist, even a sketch of something I plan to build is embarrassingly crude. I have long wanted a chain binder I could use to cinch a chain around a round boulder, Conventional binders need a foot or more flat surface to tighten. It occurs to me a hinged binder with acme screw in center I could use an impact wrench to tighten & loosen might work. Is anything on the market that'd work? Do I have to invent my own?
Just use a lever hoist
https://www.speedbinders.com/
I don't really know anything about binders but those look pretty sweet.
They are sweet as load binders. A binder needs 24" of straight chain to work. Wrapping a chain around a round (sort of) rock, it'll pull the threads sideways, ruin the binder. A bit less true with cam binders, but they don't work well either.
That was a big wall.
Progress! My wife's a beautiful monster of getting things done. Dirt isn't entirely in there but the wall seems to be holding up pretty well. I think it's also tall enough that people won't be inclined to walk up it, but from on the patio down may be a different story. We'll see how that goes. And I'm sure it'll be a seat to some extent.
I got one for you. JD 410C was BIG, with what I considered a lot of lift. New to me, looks to have more lift. I moved a monster to the top of the wall, then rooted around for what was under it. Next rock proved bigger still. I can drag it with backhoe, but lifting it, I'll try tomorrow with front bucket. I'll guess 10,000 LB. 7x3x5=18900. Knock off 1/3 for missing corners (it ain't square), I'll call it 10,000 LBS. Connecticut neighbors are rocked out, I don't know where this walrus goes. I think fire, I can better handle it smaller. Aighead: If you want it, bring your truck.
I park trailers at the end of the original driveway. Any & all flat surfaces on my property have been wrestled from nature by removing rocks & trees. I wanted to extend the parking far enough for truck hooked to trailer (58'). This means removing enough earth to flatten 10 x 40' lowering grade 3'. One monster after another is showing inches, but hiding feet. The one I'm struggling with now is 12' long. I've dug all the way around it. I'll burn it into submission below grade, take it out in pieces. Meanwhile, I unearthed this baby rock yesterday. No direction of it fits inside the front bucket, I chained it up. The Case easily lifted it, no struggle at all. When I attempted to drive gently it didn't go well. Entire rear of the backhoe lifted, flopped sideways & swiveled to the right until right rear landed on the ground. Simultaneously, I dropped the boom & It all came to rest in a not graceful way. NO I DID NOT SOIL MYSELF! There wasn't enough time! Perhaps this machine has more hydraulic power than it should. It has a button to give it more hydraulic power, I don't dare push it! As is, I often lift the front bucket off the ground pulling with the hoe.
Be careful Willie! Sounds like a bit of recalibration is in order!
Here's a boulder for you, a leaverite that was in the path of the new driveway I was dozing in. it looks just like the iceberg that it is, solid and only about 15% showing. We cleared the brush from around it so it is not lurking to take off your fender. What is really funny is you can see it from the google satellite view!
This one was not so solid. I picked it apart with the dozer in a few minutes, cutting off a semi-flat spot for him to use at the end of the road. Lots of baby boulders for Mrs @aighead
I think I'd spray paint the big one orange, skyking!
I think a small stake with a tasteful reflector on both sides will do.
Much better and less annoying plan!