Sand for Icy Drive

[radios1]

I think zinc electrodes mounted under your car/tractor would prevent rust. it works great on boats in salt water, the zinc corrodes instead of the steel!..

 

[Fallon]

I think zinc electrodes mounted under your car/tractor would prevent rust. it works great on boats in salt water, the zinc corrodes instead of the steel!..

That prevents galvanic corrosion. Well actually the weakest material (zink, magnesium, aluminum) gets eaten up instead of the steel. So more redirects corrosion to things you dont care about. It doesnt help much with other form of corrosion.

 

[LouNY]

My driveway requires a considerable amount of sand when it gets iced up.
I normally scrape it quite clean which gets some dirt showing.
I have sanded it twice this winter, it takes between a yard to a yard and a half each time.
I also use the ashes from my coal insert, I dump them in the sander first then the salted sand that I have,
I'll sand down the driveway first then back up towards the house so the ashes go on the main drive and not up by the house.
I use salted sand that I have delivered by the tandem or tri axle usually every 2-3 years.
I'm not a fan of salt but 18-20 ton of frozen sand wouldn't work very well either.
Even with the salt in I get a frozen crust or chucks at times that I drive on to crush,
or when they pile on the grate of the sander I'll use the bottom of the bucket to push them through the grating.

 

[radios1]

That prevents galvanic corrosion. Well actually the weakest material (zink, magnesium, aluminum) gets eaten up instead of the steel. So more redirects corrosion to things you dont care about. It doesnt help much with other form of corrosion.

read this. rust is galvanic corrosion. How Does Salt Water Rust Metals? | Sciencing

 

[mike paulson]

I think zinc electrodes mounted under your car/tractor would prevent rust. it works great on boats in salt water, the zinc corrodes instead of the steel!..

I don't see how zink will prevent a salt soaked tractor under carriage from corroding. I'm not using salt anyway because after being a diesel mechanic for 30 years here in the Northeast I know better. Just asking for practical solutions here, not scientific remedies for salt use which I already stated I won't use.

 

[groundcover]

Years ago I was hot to get a spreader. Was talking to a contractor friend who talked me out of it, he made some good points. You are out in the worst of conditions with an overloaded truck and that’s before things turn bad ! Have a friend that comes over and sands mine takes him a couple of minutes when needed, I have him sand any of my plow customers that need it, win win !

 

[rScotty]

I agree. Zinc doesn't hurt, but it's tricky to get much good from a single zinc unless all the metal on the tractor is at the same potential. Nothing wrong with the sacrificail zince idea, although it would sure work better if we put individual zincs on each metal subsection of the tractor .... or else make sure that ALL the metal components are well grounded one to another. And getting them all to a common ground does lead us to the hassle of connecting all the metal components to one another with a single grounding harness.

Of course with metal hulled boats you already have have a single grounding harness called a boat hull. Zincs work works pretty well for a metal boat hull if everything metal is separately grounded to the hull. Getting the same effect is somewhat harder to do with a tractor.

Add a zinc if you want, but It kind of comes down to what Mike is saying, by the time you get the zincs to working right, it might just be easier to avoid salt in the first place.

rScotty

 

[rScotty]

. I use my bucket loader with an adjustable steel gate I made to spread sand on ice.

I've wondered for years what a decent sand spreader would look like.

In my imagination a sander would be something simple that would fit in the front bucket and simply dribble sand evenly over the ice as I drove. That's all, but in a couple of decades I still haven't made anything up yet. I'm still using a loader bucket full of sand, cleats on my boots, and a shovel to throw the sand around.

If your system works better than mine - and it probably does - then I'd sure like to see it.
rScotty