Here our pictures of the handout I use to teach hands on Motor grader training with the South Dakota LTAP
This looks like interesting information. Is there a published copy I can get of this? Thanks for posting.
Roads here run a 3% crown. Most government paved roads are 2 9inch lifts of 3 inch minus material, 6 inches of inch and a quarter minus, 2 2 inch lifts or base asphalt, and an inch and a half of seal.
Majority of this handout comes from this book if you google it you should come across a pdf of the book if ya don’t find anything I can email you.
Thanks for sharing always find it interesting how others do things.
Google is your friend. 30 seconds of searching and here's a link to the complete document in Adobe pdf format. All 153 pages of it. https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/construction/pubs/ots15002.pdf
Good stuff!!! Thanks for posting this thread!!! Only thing I read that I didn't agree with was using a torch to straighten a worn cutting edge. Was surprised there was no mention of rotating the edges. I would never consider using a torch to remove material. Seems counterproductive. I've had some heated discussions with farmers about how their gateways should meet my roadbed. They want them shaped like the example of how to NOT do them. So we discuss it for a few minutes and then the inevitable question must be answered. "What is the priority, the road or the gateway?" In the end logic prevails and they understand. I have worked on many field entrances . The runoff has to be directed toward the road ditch before it gets to the road right of way. I'm in the middle of a FEMA Disaster Relief claim. Was discussing the tonnage rate for re-establishing a gravel surface on my roads that were eroded away. Your gravel application guide is what FEMA is using to determine my replacement gravel. To make it more understandable and logical, on my 16ft roadbed, 7 feet per ton of gravel. 17 ton load covers 119 feet. Thanks for the link Nige!!!
we torch them straight all the time. When you're making ready for asphalt, you want a perfectly square edge
No worries. You're more than welcome. I've downloaded it too, You never know when something like that could come in useful, even if it's only as a tool to (metaphorically-speaking) beat someone over the head with........
Your welcome figured this thread would be useful to a lot of people on this forum I myself don’t cut my edges straight with a torch simply because I don’t use a regular true harden blade anymore I run the double carbide edges and have been getting 4 years on a set that’s grading and plowing snow putting a new set on this spring and keep my old set for snow plowing suer enjoy not having to change edges.
Yep, I can totally understand that. Just can't understand it in regards to gravel road maintenance.
Yep, I saved it as well.
Can you post a pic of your cutting edges?? Not sure I understand what you are using. I've put 320hrs on our new grader and still on the first set. I've rotated them 5 or 6 times.
Here are a couple of pictures of the double carbides I run
I'll bet those things are heavy!!!! Is that why you use 48" length? I can see how the thickness would increase wear time dramatically!!!
Our graders run 8ft x 12” deep 1-1/4” thick flat edges. Try picking one of those up....
Wow, I didn't know you could buy cutting edges that large!!!!
IIRC they weigh something like 350 pounds each.
Yeah there pretty heavy the 4ft sections are pretty easy to handle plus once you put them on I rotate them once halfway through the season then don’t have to do anything with them plus you always have a straight edge to work with.
Thanks for sharing always find it interesting how others do things.
I have seen these blades before at a heavy equipment show, our department would never buy those, to pricy for them, but they would last a lot longer then the old style straight blades for sure, I like the picture charts of the road way good guide, but keep in mind not all roads are the same or have the material on them like shown in the picture's, sometimes you have to find and recover material and then you have to deal with rocks and sod, learning how manage that and put a crown in and leave a smooth road with good drainage will separate the men from the boy's.
Image?
I've been preparing my roads for the annual gravel allocation, 65 tons per mile. I totally understand trying to "find and recover material".
65 tons per mile you will be spreading it pretty thin I would say, that like 6 tandem loads per mile, how many roads do you have to look after?
Sorry thought I had an image. The snip is from the GET Handbook. There were also 8ft x 13" deep x 1.75" cutting edges in the Warehouse but I don't think I ever saw one actually installed.
Yeah, it's horribly thin. I maintain 50 miles. With that small amount of annual gravel drainage and road shape is critical!!!! The areas that drain well get by fairly well. The areas that don't suffer and always require additional "spot rock".
I’m surprised that they won’t go with a carbide edge when you first get them yeah 2000 dollars sounds like a lot of money but I’ve now put 1900 hours on these edges so to me it’s well worth the money plus don’t have to change edges anymore. I totally agree with you on recovery of gravel and dealing with vegetation separates the drivers and the operators we mainly just put them phots in for what a good road should look like because as you know in this work if ya can’t picture what the road is supposed to look like in your head before you start your not going to be a very good operator.
Yes I agree, but its hard to get the department and some older hands to change and try new things even when it makes more sense, I use Stinger blades year round and I prefer them to the older straight blades, I am on my 4 year with them, other then changing out the bits every now and then when they get wore down and putting hard surfacing on the ends I have over 6000 hrs on them, they are up for replacement this summer, $3600 Canadian for a set, I like your pictures thanks for sharing them, I do a bit of training on road recovery every now and then to help out the newer operators learning on our graders, as you know it takes lots of patience and I try not to over whelmed them till they get the swing of things, some new operators can get stressed out really quick on a grader trying to learn.
Wow, 2053 tons of gravel per mile!!!!! That would cost my Township $1,359,086 dollars..... That would take our entire budget for 27 years to do it once!!!!! Would be interesting to compare tax base between our two locations!!!
Is that an average thickness that you can thicken up or thin down as needed?
Very comprehensive guide but I didn’t see too much about adding moisture when maintenance grading. Maybe it’s different in the north but, more often than not, it’s as dry as a wooden god while grading here and some water and a roll makes a huge difference. We’ve adopted a simple technique which ensures that almost every drop goes into the road and is not lost to evaporation.
Moisture is not a problem in my neck of the woods, a lot of times we have to much which causes pot holes, we call it job security, a roller would make a huge difference, but we never use them.
We usually get enough moisture not always the right time though I would sure like to hear how your doing the water though
Nige... you are the man! Good find. Thanks for posting the link.
Well, I’ve seen a lot of crews doing grade, water, roll start by blasting down the road with the water truck using a big pressure spray that covers the full width of the road. Looks impressive, but by the time the grader gets to the end of the first pass a lot of the moisture has been lost to evaporation, especially during summer. As well as pressure sprays, our water truck has two gravity fan sprays that each cover almost a truck width. So for every pass we have the truck just in front of the grader with one spray covering only what is about to be cut...meaning that as the water hits the road it is almost immediately turned into the rill where it seeps through the loose soil. By the time the rill is worked across the road and back it is nicely mixed and ready to be laid out to reinstate the crown.
The one township I do is a very populated township I have several miles that have 12 houses on them we’ve put traffic counters out and I average 100 to 200 vehicles a day on my well traveled roads there annual budget for the year is 400,000 dollars that’s just one of the 4 other townships I work for.
That's an Annual allocation of gravel. Anything needed in addition comes out of our Annual Budget. In Missouri it's called the CART rock program. Can't tell you what the acronym stands for. Tax money collected at State level is dispersed back down to the Counties. They then disperse it to Townships if applicable. We always end up buying all the "spot rock" we can afford. By the end of the year very few roads have any loose gravel left.
Not sure how many miles of road that township has?? I'm maintaining with $1000 per mile annually.