Repairing potholes - how?

[The Natural Philosopher]

but only to the car wheel.. ;-)

[Bruce]

You clearly don't understand what I wrote.

I'm sorry that you don't.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

I'd guess your tunnel will be about 5 miles long, so I could probably live with it. ;-)

[Dave]

I'll bet it is.

I should add that it is the hand held and hand powered version I am talking about.

Dave

[Dave]

But you just did :-)

Dave

[Dave]

Isn't that the one that is fuel powered? I was thinking along the lines of a hand powered one

Dave

[Bruce]

Yes, that's the one. I remember needing one when I worked for a contractor, for compacting asphalt around manhole covers, gully gratings etc.. I went to several suppliers of construction tools and none had one in stock. Finally, one of them told me that they didn't keep any in stock because the "boys from the black stuff" always used to have them made.

They posted me a sketch and I got the welding foreman to have one made up. It looked very professional and did the job well. The thing was bloody heavy to pick up and use, though!

[Bruce]

The "Jumping Dalek" is properly called a rammer. It isn't best suited to compacting asphalt because it can jump around a lot, and it could easily collapse a steel toe cap boot. Rammers are designed to compact granular material in trenches where they tend to be confined by the walls of the trench.

Nowadays, vibrating plate compactors are used more widely than rammers. They are more effective and less brutal.

[Rod]

It might make sense. But on my local road there was no salt - only belatedly a bit of coarse sand. Still got lots of potholes.

[dennis]

Does a wheel actually move much in the ~0.01 seconds they are over the pot hole?

lets see..

250 kg force 50 kg unsprung weight about 5G acceleration

gives about 2.5 cm of vertical movement on the wheel

I would expect no damage at all unless its a really silly profile tyre.

[Grimly Curmudgeon]

We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold. I remember Bruce saying something like:

Or "Whacker Plate" around here.

[John]

Why do manhole covers sink? Is it due to poor brickwork and footings at the bottom of the shaft?

[Bruce]

No, you're thinking of a "Wacker Plate" (brand name) which is a vibrating plate compactor.

[Bruce]

Sometimes it is down to poor compaction of the ground beneath the base of the manhole. However. it is more usually a failure of the mortar bedding on which the manhole cover frame is seated.

Call me old-fashioned, but in my experience of roadworks, not enough attention was paid to the quality of the mortar, nor to the quality of workmanship, probably because it was all hidden by the blacktop.

[Dave]

I'll bet.

Many thanks for you information.

Dave

[Grimly Curmudgeon]

We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold. I remember Bruce saying something like:

Correction - the small ads here have it spelled thusly, more often than not, and I suspect it's become a generic term for anything road or soil related that bounces up and down.

at the beginning of the chemical company.

The Wacker Trench Rammer looks a bit of a beast.

[Bruce]

My pleasure! ;-)

[Bruce]

Unfortunately for the company, "Wacker" has become a generic name for plate compactors, a bit like Biro and Hoover.

Effective, no doubt. ;-)

[djc]

A few years back the main road that runs outside my house was so worn out it was completely rebuilt down to the foundations. The process of reinstating all the drain and manhole covers: Place steel sheet over hole; resurface road; dig up road above hole; remove plate; drop in cover; fill in the gap between edge of cover and new surface.

So even a new laid road has a weak spot around the covers which tends to break up.

[Grimly Curmudgeon]

We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold. I remember "The Medway Handyman" saying something like:

There's a trucking firm here who make them for free.