Creating a Workshop & Home

[Bird]

</font><font color="blue" class="small">( Isn't the black clay what they call "caliche?" )</font>

No, caliche is an entirely different chemical composition. I inquired about buying some caliche once and was told (whether right or wrong) that it simply wasn't available in my area. It's supposedly a good road base. The local soil engineer who does most of the perk tests for septic systems called what I had "Wilson Clay Loam"; does not perk well at all. However, it grows crops, grass, etc. quite well with the right amount of moisture and a little fertilizer. It tilled well when the moisture was just right, but if a little too dry, it tilled like 1" to 2" crushed rock, and if a lot too dry, it either tilled like dust or not at all. /forums/images/graemlins/wink.gif And you really didn't like to dig in it when it was too wet (or walk in it) because it stuck to your tools, boots, etc. It was almost black when wet and light gray when dry.

 

[8NTX]

</font><font color="blue" class="small">( Isn't the black clay what they call "caliche?" If so, it will dry almost as hard as a rock...

)</font>

No. We generally call that black clay all sorts of names, but not caliche. Generally fertile and good for frowing all sorts of things, esp. cotton. Caliche is a layer of hardened or calcified soil that is light in color. Caliche rock is used to build roads and parking lots around here.

 

[EddieWalker]

This is the road I'll be using to get in and out on. I've been building it up over the last two years. It's up four feet right down the middle with hundreds and hundreds of yards of clean red clay.

There are red flags going up and down it ten feet apart for the rock driver to lay his trail of material exactly where I want it.

 

[EddieWalker]

We started right at the bigining with the first load. Each load is in the mid 24 1/2 tons range and good for just over 100 feet long by ten feet wide and four inches thick.

This material is quite a bit darker than what I'm used to, which I expected since it's from a quary that I've never used before. A guy I know told me how to find it and who the owner was. Nice guy, another California transplant!!!

 

[EddieWalker]

I'm paying $13.75 per ton delivered for this. The other main quarry is in Will Point, which is about midway between Tyler and Dallas. It's also about an hour each way, but that quarry is about a buck a ton cheaper for material, but over $2 more expensive for delivery. Some companies are even more proud of their service than that and want $20 a ton for the same material from the same quary.

These belly dumps really are the way to go for this type of application. After he's gone, it just takes a few minutes to spread it out and make it pretty.

 

[wroughtn_harv]

We have seven varieties of clay in North Texas. It runs in colors from deep black to a light yellow. We have a little of that red stuff that discolors all those vehicles who get off road a bit in that state just north of the Red River.

The only stone we have is a limestone. It runs from a chalk soft to a hardness about like sandstone but not as a abrasive. We call it Austin Chalk but if we were in New Mexico, Arizona, California, or Nevada chances are most likely we'd call it caliche. But the caliche I'm familiar with is quite a bit harder than our Austin Chalk.

At my house I've been down ten feet and only found change of color in the clay, black to chocolate brown. A couple of miles from here I'll hit white color that precedes the chalk immediately. A couple of miles west of there the chalk will be from the surface to a couple of feet deep maximum. It'll range from nothing to harder than a bad girl's heart when it comes to hardness.

When we moved here in 85 we got introduced to the black clay we call "gumbo". I remember my dad shaking his head and saying, "your grandpa was from Texas. He used to tell us stories about the clay. How they'd have to use a shovel to scrape it off the wagon wheels so the horses could pull the wagon. We thought he was exaggerating. But now I do believe it's the only time I can recall him understating something."

I have personally have a love-hate relationship with the clay. I love to hate it. One of my sayings is "if my ship ever comes in there won't be a blackland port." /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

 

[wroughtn_harv]

A buddy of mine in the aggregrate trucking a long time ago told me that your figure five hundred square feet of coverage for a ten-twelve yard load. That's at four inches. So you're twenty yard belly dumper confirms bud's statement.

 

[Bird]

Harvey, the first "power washer" I ever saw was in the service station my Dad bought in Marietta, OK, in '56. We washed cars by hand with a wash mitt. The power washer was strictly for the underside of cars and pickups. The nozzle wasn't like anything you'd see today; it only shot one solid pencil sized stream out, and with enough pressure that you sure didn't want to let it hit you. We put the vehicles up on the lift and washed the underside before greasing them (wonder how many TBN members remember when all vehicles had grease zerks in the u-joints, tie rod ends, ball joints, king pins and bushings, pittman arm, A-frame, etc. /forums/images/graemlins/wink.gif). It wasn't unusual at all to knock over a hundred pounds of dirt and clay off the bottom of a vehicle. And if we hadn't had that machine, it would have been a job to dig out all the grease fittings. And of course that meant I had shovel all that dirt out of the pit into barrels on a trailer and periodically haul it off. /forums/images/graemlins/frown.gif And we got a buck and a half for a wash job and a buck for the grease job. /forums/images/graemlins/laugh.gif

 

[sneaky_pete]

</font><font color="blue" class="small">( The only stone we have is a limestone. It runs from a chalk soft to a hardness about like sandstone but not as a abrasive. We call it Austin Chalk but if we were in New Mexico, Arizona, California, or Nevada chances are most likely we'd call it caliche. But the caliche I'm familiar with is quite a bit harder than our Austin Chalk.)</font>

Geology lesson for the day: /forums/images/graemlins/cool.gif

Chalk, Limestone, and Caliche are all different physical forms of the same mineral, Calcium Carbonate, CaCO3. Chalk and Limestone were originally deposited under water, usually by the shells or seceretions of small organisms. As you said Harv, Chalk has a very fine texture, and Limestone is more coarse rock.

Caliche is Calcium Carbonate which is precipitated out of hard water in the soil, and forms nodules and sometimes whole layers in the soil. It is extremely hard, and will break in pieces sharp enough to cut truck tires. It is used for road beds and surfaces because it is hard and because it is cheap to mine, since by nature it is close to the surface. It's much more common in west Texas because ground water there is so much more hard than here - water hardness being only a reflection of how much calcium carbonate and calcium sulfate is dissolved in the water.

There is sandstone in north Texas, but you don't often see it because the sandstone formations we have (Principally Paluxy and Woodbine) are soft and friable (crumbles easily) so what you see of it is sandy soil and specific tree types that like sandy soil, for example Post Oaks. The Paluxy Sand is an aquifer in the subsurface that many people out my way have their water wells in.

We now return to the regularly-scheduled discussion of roads, workshops, and tractors. /forums/images/graemlins/laugh.gif

Lookin' good Eddie!

 

[Farwell]

Question on a use for Caliche. There is a soil product that I have read about that is used to line the bottom of ponds and seal the bottom to prevent water from seeping through, but I do not remember the name. The product comes from Texas. Could this possibly be Caliche?
Farwell