Building my tractor bridge across the creek

[bcp]

The other extreme, when you have plenty of logs/poles.



Bruce

 

[srs]

I bought the teeth on-line, (E-Bay maybe?) and had mine custom made by a local welding guy.
Any number of teeth/spacing I wanted.
Worked out great!

Thank you sir.

 

[RalphVa]

Was wondering how you got those logs across the stream. At one point during our very wet 2018, we were thinking we needed another tractor crossing further downstream, and I was entertaining the purchase of one of those pole beam things on the 3ph to get some railroad ties across our little stream.

For our people bridge, we just stood some 4x4s on end and let them fall across the stream. For bigger stuff, would need something else.

Since 2018, our present tractor crossing with 5 or 6 four inch PVC pipes underneath the filled-in and concreted crossing works fine. During 2018, the pipes kept getting filled in at the front.

Ralph

 

[fried1765]

Was wondering how you got those logs across the stream. At one point during our very wet 2018, we were thinking we needed another tractor crossing further downstream, and I was entertaining the purchase of one of those pole beam things on the 3ph to get some railroad ties across our little stream.

For our people bridge, we just stood some 4x4s on end and let them fall across the stream. For bigger stuff, would need something else.

Since 2018, our present tractor crossing with 5 or 6 four inch PVC pipes underneath the filled-in and concreted crossing works fine. During 2018, the pipes kept getting filled in at the front.

Ralph

No matter how many 4" PVC pipes are used, their small diameter is easily plugged with debris.

 

[deezler]

The other extreme, when you have plenty of logs/poles.

View attachment 674810

Bruce

That is a truly nutty amount of trees used just to.... go after more trees. Looks quite sturdy though!

I wonder if they disassembled it to harvest those logs also, after the clear cutting was done on the other side of the ravine?

 

[airbiscuit]

If you look at the men standing on the logs, it gives you an idea how large those logs are.

 

[MIkeWard]

Great build, I enjoyed your project and thought you did a super job.
I came across this build a few days ago and thought you all might enjoy watching.

Building a bridge - YouTube

 

[deezler]

Great build, I enjoyed your project and thought you did a super job.
I came across this build a few days ago and thought you all might enjoy watching.

Building a bridge - YouTube

Thanks Mike! That's funny, pretty sure I watched that Andrew Camarata bridge video a couple years ago. I forgot about it, but its cool to skip through it again. I pretty much used the same general process to build my bridge - sturdy abutments on each side, get your beams and decking across, then drive across to dump fill on the far side. His is a lot sturdier (and expensive) haha.

Well my excavation guy is ghosting me on a gravel delivery lately, so I had to suck it up and borrow neighbor Bob's dump trailer for a load on Saturday morning. Threw the kiddos in the trailer and off we went up to the Rock Shoppe.

I didn't need much, but wanted good fresh clean gravel to fill up against my wood end boards. It was a gorgeous day in the woods on Saturday to finish up my bridge approaches. I think I'm done! Unless the warm weather coming up this week makes me think about laying another coat of paint/preservative on the decking....

 

[dodge man]

Looks pretty darn good to me. In an ideal world the poles would be under your tractor tires but with two layers of deck boards it looks plenty strong. Thanks for sharing your story and pics.

 

[deezler]

Thanks. I was mostly concerned about driving any heavy weight on the outside of the poles, since then I might be relying on only my fasteners to hold the decking boards down to the poles. So by spacing the poles further out, I'm always holding the decking down while driving across. Plus the wider vehicles issue I mentioned previously. We'll see how it holds up! :tired: