clay problems

JimMorrissey · Oct 9, 2005

Clay is a nightmare! It is without a doubt the nastiest working material one can encounter. I'm attempting to excavate for a road project and have found that the "dirt" won't even slide out of a trailer that tilts up 80 degrees. I had to maunually dig it out with a shovel...not fun.

My plan was to fill a dump trailer and make runs to the back property. That's not going to work, so now I'll have to pile the mess on the sides of the road and wait for a good freeze. Once the ground is frozen or near frozen and before the first heavy snows the traction is amazing, so when the time is right I'll bust up the piles with the hoe then turn and dig it clean with the loader. I wanted to avoid piles of dirt everywhere because I wanted to keep the mess to a minimum....so much for that idea.

Cliff_Johns · Oct 9, 2005

</font><font color="blue" class="small">( Clay is a nightmare! It is without a doubt the nastiest working material one can encounter. I'm attempting to excavate for a road project and have found that the "dirt" won't even slide out of a trailer that tilts up 80 degrees. I had to maunually dig it out with a shovel...not fun. )</font>

Would it be possible to throw a bit of sand on the bed of the trailer before you put the clay in? Perhaps this would work sort of like putting flour in a baking pan before cooking. Adding sand to the clay certainly wouldn't hurt it.

Cliff

JimMorrissey · Oct 9, 2005

That's a good idea Cliff....However, it was such a nightmare getting the clay out of the trailer I can't risk another afternooon testing that theory. Sounds like it would work sort of like little bearing for it to slide on.

I think what I'll do (what I'm currently doing /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif ) is pile it off to the side, put the fabric down and some gavel, then get a truck in here and load from the new road and work my way back.

inveresk · Oct 9, 2005

You could also put a sheet of polythene on the bed of the trailer before you fill it. . . .

JimMorrissey · Oct 9, 2005

The problem is that I have 40 or 50 trailer loads of wet clay to deal with. I think I'll have to wait for a real dump truck or wait for it to dry out and/or freeze. Unfortunately, the weather forcast is rain for a week and we just had a 20 hour rain....so it's wet. I can't remember it raining for as long as it just did in quite a while.

JimMorrissey · Oct 9, 2005

The problem is that I have 40 or 50 trailer loads of wet clay to deal with. I think I'll have to wait for a real dump truck or wait for it to dry out. Unfortunately, the weather forcast is rain for a week and we just had a 20 hour rain....so it's wet. I can't remember it raining for as long as it just did in quite a while.

Cliff_Johns · Oct 9, 2005

Some of the best excercise known to man is trying to walk through wet clay. It's astonishing how much clay can hang on to your boots. At some point, the laces can't handle it and your standing there on one foot, trying to get your other foot back in your boot before it fills up with clay juice. Then you finally get the boot to start to move and it makes this disgusting sucking sound as you pull it out -- a bit like moose flatulance, now I think about it . Then you realize that you had to use a lot of leverage to get that boot out and now, you're up to your knee on the other foot so you call you wife to come out with the tractor to pull you out and she just laughs and calls the neighbors to come take look, maybe take some pictures. So you figure to crawl out, hoping that your body will provide enough surface area to keep you on top of the clay, but soon find out that the clay actually sucks. All they find is one boot, your watch and the elastic from your underwear.

Cliff

Highbeam · Oct 10, 2005

Sounds about right. Turns your tires blue too.

Westonium · Oct 10, 2005

Blue? I saw blue clay in Indiana, but everywhere else I've been it's been red red red.

Me? I 'd just turn the muck into adobe (assuming you have no intentions of growing anything there for a good while). Hand scatter a bunch of hay over it, then spread out a load of sand. Then work the hay and sand in. Then flatten.

I redid my drive with a load of sand, worked it in, and then big rock (clean) then little rock (3/4 minus). Neighbor went straight to the big rock and...its a nasty mess. The clay mud is just too goopy and the new section of road he put in (right across from the driveway I re-did) has had a ridiculous amount of rock dropped on it and has been dragged umpteen times. The fines from the 3/4 minus he's been dropping on it are slowing helping, but if he had just spread sand to begin with, he'd be done by now - in my opinion at least /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif

wroughtn_harv · Oct 10, 2005

Back in the day we used to cover our cars with diesel when running on clay. I'm not so sure we could get away with that today. /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

However, you can hose down your trailer before you put your gook in it and it'll dump fine. If you're using a sprayer to water down the bed consider adding some dishwashing soap to the solution.

Here we have seven kinds of clay. All of them are referred to as "gumbo". And it isn't a term of affection. I like to say that if my ship ever comes in there will not be a blackland port.