Sunday, August 5, 2012

Reground Asphalt

I mentioned a few days ago that the reground asphalt apron from the telescope garage is hard enough for the smaller telescopes, but Big Bertha just punches right through.  I can see several possible solutions:

1. Have a concrete apron poured in place of this (probably many hundreds of dollars).

2. Have an asphalt company come and pour hot asphalt on top.  Not as good as several inches of asphalt, but probably hard enough for Big Bertha.

3. Is it possible to use Cold Patch or some asphalt sealant to get a similar effect?  One problem with #2, besides the cost, is availability--it is not at all easy to find unemployed asphalt people at the moment.

UPDATE: I may have jumped the gun on this.  Only the left side (where the Jaguar sleeps) of the apron has been driven over extensively.  The right side, where the telescopes roll out, has not.  After talking to a very helpful person at Home Depot, I spent some time rolling over the surface with the Jaguar, and the surface is definitely hardening up.  A bit more small rocks in the surface would probably help, too.  I might still want to apply some Cold Patch (a trademark, by the way) to the surface to get a more uniform look, but use the same approach.

5 comments:

  1. Pouring your own slab is actually pretty easy.

    You could also lay tight fitted pavers, and seal over them.

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  2. Argh! Don't mention asphalt. I just got scammed by a pack of pikeys on that count.

    I didn't know we had pikeys in the US. But now I do.

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  3. The problem may not be the ground you're rolling over, it might be that you could use more wheels?

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  4. There are four wheels underneath Big Bertha. The total load is less than 200 pounds.

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  5. For any granular material, vibration with weight is the best way to compact it. Rolling your car works. Your local Home Depot might have hand vibratory compactors (they look like a lawn mower with a smooth bottom); anything larger will be a pain to transport and use.

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