Hello, what do some of you use to keep gravel flowing in a hopper? There is one pit in general. We are working in right now and it doesn’t even seem like it’s freezing to the sides, but it just doesn’t wanna slide. We’ve painted the sides of the hopper with old engine oil, used diesel fuel, in the past I’ve used propane torches and hoarded the hopper in with tarps, but that tends to get expensive. We are going to price out some sheets of poly however they I am thinking are quite pricey as well. I’ve heard plywood works well, but I have never tried it. The pit we are in has lots of clay, maybe this is part of the problem, any anyone want to chime in, thanks
At the moment, sheets of OHMW is cheaper than steel. That UHMW if put in correctly, should do what you want. Plywood will soak in the water and stuff will freeze to the sides. For a long term solution, I might try and rig up some type of grid heater. What about a pneumatic or electric vibrator. We use the vibrators on the dump beds here and it works pisser in freezing conditions.
It might be just getting by in summer (Marginal), and then freezing temps make the hopper design all wrong. i posted a U-tube video somewhere on here, called "the Million dollar rathole" from USS on proper hopper design. It might help.