Best "cheap" materials for gravel parking area?

[deereman75]

A plate tamper isn’t heavy enough to do anything beyond what you could do by just rolling it back and forth with your truck or tractor. And they’re expensive. $5-600 for a very bottom of the barrel to a couple grand.

Having compared the results side by side, that is just simply not true. Obviously depends on the material to some extent. Clay a plate tamper is no good for. In well graded aggregate it's the vibration that is effective.
Pack an area of road base or traffic gravel with the tires on your compact tractor, and run the tamper over it. It will pack down wherever you run it. Pack an acre well with the tamper and drive the tractor over and it won't mark it.
There is no way you can claim that "isn't doing anything"
The problem comes from people not knowing how to use them. You can't just dump everything down and run it over top. They're only effective in 4-6" lifts. If you try using it like a smooth drum roller obviously you will be disappointed.

Considering it is typically $100-150 a day to rent one, $5-600 is what I would consider extremely cheap. They work perfectly well and will last for a number of years if maintained.
The heavier diesel tampers are expensive, but they hit substantially harder. Enough to be effective even on clay.

 

[jjeff]

Anything's probably better than what I had to use pushing a camp road in the Up, all I had available was top soil and boulders, I called It "Yooper Gravel" lol.

 

[jigs_n_fixtures]

I have heard of complaints when using “millings” as driveway material. That they always remain gummy and stick to shoes and are tracked inside of the house. Friend had this issue had to pour large concrete parking areas outside of house & shop to prevent tracking. He regretted the 20 tri axle loads that made up his driveway

The solution is to overcoat it with a driveway renew asphalt emulsion and then spread a bunch of reject concrete sand over the top to act as a blotter. don’t remove the sand for at least a week, but you can just leave it there.

Usually if it is staying sticky, it has been contaminated with diesel or hydraulic fluid.

 

[jigs_n_fixtures]

Having compared the results side by side, that is just simply not true. Obviously depends on the material to some extent. Clay a plate tamper is no good for. In well graded aggregate it's the vibration that is effective.
Pack an area of road base or traffic gravel with the tires on your compact tractor, and run the tamper over it. It will pack down wherever you run it. Pack an acre well with the tamper and drive the tractor over and it won't mark it.
There is no way you can claim that "isn't doing anything"
The problem comes from people not knowing how to use them. You can't just dump everything down and run it over top. They're only effective in 4-6" lifts. If you try using it like a smooth drum roller obviously you will be disappointed.

Considering it is typically $100-150 a day to rent one, $5-600 is what I would consider extremely cheap. They work perfectly well and will last for a number of years if maintained.
The heavier diesel tampers are expensive, but they hit substantially harder. Enough to be effective even on clay.

I agree. And my knowledge is based on using sand cones, and nuclear gauges to actually measure in place densities. Wheel rolling gets you to between 80 and 85% of the lab density, Impact tampers will get to around 88 to 95%, and a vibratory roller will get you to 95 to 98% of the lab density.

Lab density, most common method of measurement is a “Proctor” test. Briefly, the maximum density, is found by drying out the aggregate and then adding known quantities of water to known quantities of aggregate, and then compacting that mix into steel cylinders with a special dead blow hammer, for a certain number of blows, in three even lifts. This lets you determine what the optimum moisture to compact the material at is, and what density you should expect to be able to get with normal construction equipment.

To measure the density in place you can use a nuclear gauge, which exposes teh surface to a nuclear source, and counts how many particles bounce off the aggregate and get detected at the sensor, more reflection is better, or inserting the source to the bottom of the compacted layer, and counting how many particles come through the aggregate to hit the sensor, less is better.

The referee method, around for a hundred years, is a sand cone, or water test.
Where in you dig a hole in the aggregate and measure how much the material you took out weighs, and then fill the hole with either sand of a known density, or water in a condom to determine the volume of the hole you just dug. From that you determine the density of the material before you dug the hole. Nuclear gauges are lots quicker, but may not be accurate in clay or gypsum soils, as both have quite a bit of water trapped in them chemically, and will give high moisture level readings which results in low in place density values.

 

[deereman75]

And it should also be remembered that there is a BIG difference between wheel rolling with a large payloader or a motor scraper, and a compact tractor.

 

[3 Horse Ranch]

$40 extra per truckload to "tailgate it"

That was just a part of delivery here, no extra charge because it really takes very little extra time. Set chains, lift box, drive. It might take a few extra minutes, but not $40 worth. That's to spread it. to "tailgate" lift box until the load shifts, start rolling, trip gate, progressively lift the box until empty. Lays down much thicker and less even and takes almost no extra time.

 

[3 Horse Ranch]

A plate tamper isn’t heavy enough to do anything beyond what you could do by just rolling it back and forth with your truck or tractor. And they’re expensive. $5-600 for a very bottom of the barrel to a couple grand.

I would have to disagree. I leveled a 36x36 pole ban floor compacting it in 2 to 3 inch lifts with the cheapest plate compactor I could find When I was finished it was almost like concrete, nether my tractor, pickup or trailer left a mark in it. I still have it and use it for compacting base under paver or retaining wall jobs which it what it is really for.

 

[nikerret]

Can you post pics of the finished compacted recycled asphalt? Curious how it looks compared to a regular asphalt driveway.

Here is what my driveway extension looked like, when first finished:

This is a more recent picture that shows some closer up.

 

[Egon]

And it should also be remembered that there is a BIG difference between wheel rolling with a large payloader or a motor scraper, and a compact tractor.

Don’t forget the ladies wearing high heels!

 

[PILOON]

When I first used recycled asphalt 20 years* ago the contractor had the last load in a truck that had bald tires and the tires did the compaction.
For my last summer repairs** I simply drove my car up/down and overlapped my tracks.
Worked just fine.
My only fear was a heavy rain B4 the sun could cook it.
Now one year later and I declare a total success.

*back then it was very chunky, not shredded.
** this recent material was nicely shredded and very easy to compact, also it could be rake spread where needed.
I had the trucker do a 'tail gate' spreading for the most part and had him create a small 'reserve' pile for missed spots and/or touch ups.