[TowerTalk] Moving big rocks

[Dave - AB7E]

Hi, Steve.

Depending upon the composition of the rock, you're probably looking at roughly 3,500 to 4,000 pounds for each rock.  That's going to take a lot of rock splitting to reduce them to chunks movable by hand.  A really good jackhammer would eventually get the job done, but I think you'd need to haul in a pretty good sized engine-powered compressor to power it.

Another possibility would be to drill holes and pour in liquid nitrogen, or chisel larger holes and pack dry ice in them, so that the temperature differential cracks the rock.  In this part of southern Arizona some of the "wells" are basically just deep (1,000 to 1,200 feet or more) shafts in solid granite bedrock that rely on water seepage from microfissures the whole length of the shaft.  The water collects at the bottom and gets pumped out.  Sometimes people would toss dynamite down the shaft to create more fissures, but supposedly a preferred alternative is to drop a few hundred pounds of dry ice into the hole.  I've never seen it done, but I've been told that it works.

Just curious ... if you can't get large enough equipment in there to move the rocks, how are you going to dig the hole for the tower foundation?

And I guess there is always the possibility of hiring a large helicopter ;)

73,
Dave   AB7E




------Original Mail------
From: <K7LXC at aol.com>
To: <towertalk at contesting.com>
Sent: Thu, 1 Apr 2010 11:57:24 EDT
Subject: [TowerTalk] Moving big rocks

Hiya, TowerTalkians --
 
    I need to do something about 2 big rocks sitting on  top of a new tower 
base hole. They're about 5x3x2 - looks like about a cubic  yard each. It's 
not very possible to get a piece of machinery to move  them so we'll have to 
do it by hand. Should I drill some holes and then  split the rock or would 
a jackhammer work? Any other methods to try? Tnx.
 
Cheers,
Steve     K7LXC
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