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@aol.com>
To: <towertalk@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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