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Thread: Have to Break Up Boulders - Any Experiences with Boulder Buster & It's Cartridges?

  1. #41
    Boolit Buddy butch2570's Avatar
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    I don't know what things cost where you are ,but a 4 x4x5 rock is fodder for a small dozer and at 55 to 70 bucks a hr for a rental or a contractor for 4 or 5 hrs work , that's small potatoes compared what it will cost you if you gut that little john deere tractor, sometimes you are better off to annie up and do what you need to do , instead of wasting who knows how much time and ending up spending 2/3 of what it would cost to have it done anyway, on trying different tactics.

  2. #42
    Boolit Grand Master

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    Here is an interesting method:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qQ4vFtlNtug

    Similar to something my father told about an old stone mason he had make a granite fireplace about 70 to 80 years ago except he said the old stone mason used copper rod driven into the holes to split the rock.

    Drilling the holes would be the worst part unless you have a hammer drill or core drill. If you have or can get one then the rest is pretty easy.

    Me, I like the blasting method better but... no worries of flying debris this way.

    Longbow

  3. #43
    Boolit Master
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    The word "vinegar" derives from sour wine, and at least the Romans used it in drinking water to combat bacteria. (Just like the Royal Navy in the age of sail were issued a gallon of beer a day - "small beer" of low strength, but enough for that purpose.) I do remember that 1960s Latin texts said Hannibal used vinegar. I think the main reason for the rock-breaking was to get the elephants over, and as almost all the elephants died before reaching Italy, he might have been better served by an issue of spiked boots and winter clothing.

    There are rocks and rocks, and I think about all the techniques mentioned except explosives would work on soft, stratified limestone or sandstone, and fail on hard rocks like granite. The limestone of Bath in England can be cut with a carbide toothed handsaw, and in former times steel toothed ones worked for quite a while. But for granite I would put more trust in dynamite or blasting gelatine than black powder, unless you were to use a lot of it, and do a lot of hard drilling.

  4. #44
    Boolit Master
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    A company I used to work for was based in Barre, VT "Granite Capitol of the World". It was pretty common to get jobs at or near the "sheds" where granite had been worked for years. This resulted in areas where the scrap stone, "grout" in stone shed parlance was dumped for many years. Trying to excavate on a grout pile was a major pain. The goal was to get the foundations on a solid base and grubbing the sometimes huge scrap out with disturbing things for several feet down could be virtually impossible. Even the sheer size/power of modern excavators sometimes had to take a back seat to old technology to eliminate the occasional slab that could not be removed by brute force without loosening a large area around it.

    We had a couple options available to us, one being a power rocksplitter like the one shown here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6oHz-_hn5g These things are totally awesome, I have seen one split slabs that were 6x6x2 feet with only one hole in the center.

    On smaller obstacles we would use feathers & wedges. Being in Barre we had access to Trow & Holden who make stone working tools. Our warehouse had several sizes of feathers & wedges on hand and it was hardly enough to slow the job down to drill a few holes with a compressor and drilling hammer, then set F & W in the holes and pop a section of the obstacle away.

    That was 30 years ago, maybe now, with the advent of hydraulic breakers on small to mid-sized excavators the hand tools don't come out as often.

    If I had to deal with the rocks the OP has I would probably rent a compressor and hammer, or try to find one of the gas powered rotary hammers in the video, and use F & W in the resulting holes to make small rocks out of big ones. Probably not particularly quick but not really hard work either. Two men could git-er-dun fairly easily and without a huge cost.
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  5. #45
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    I had one like this in my backyard. I rented a large jackhammer and compressor. It worked but I only had one to get rid of.

  6. #46
    Boolit Grand Master jmorris's Avatar
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    We had a couple options available to us, one being a power rocksplitter like the one shown here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6oHz-_hn5g These things are totally awesome
    I like that. Not unlike an tubing expander except for the 800 ton part.

  7. #47
    Boolit Master

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    Buy a hilti or a Bosch right now. I never had any problems with rock. Many types drill easier than concrete. Granite I don't know we don't have much of that here, but I know there is a bunch up there.

    good luck keep us updated. I like the wood idea best for fast results and cheap. Try the water freeze too maybe do a little test for all us rock people.


    best of luck

  8. #48
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    Here is a video splitting a large rock.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=orBZoJbqhPg
    Paul G.
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  9. #49
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    Granite can be soft or hard... around here it is a bear to drill. I remember when they were testing it with a seismic crew back in the early 90's. They kept cleaning me out of freeze spray(used to cool electronic components when testing) to cool their rock drills they used to plant small charges. Granite here is some of the oldest exposed granite in the country.

  10. #50
    Boolit Master opos's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Petrol & Powder View Post
    Seems like a waste of good wine......
    and elephants!

  11. #51
    Boolit Master

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    Bosch hammer drill was $269 at menards today.

  12. #52
    Boolit Master
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    The trouble with not having any boulders, is not getting to play around with all these fascinating ideas.

  13. #53
    Boolit Grand Master

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    Good video! It is amazing what a man with a hammer and wedge can accomplish. That is pretty similar to what I posted. Drill a hole or two and drive in cones or use wedges and feathers and the rock will split. And yes, it does work on granite.

    If you don't have a core drill or hammer drill it would be a lot of work but I am sure you could rent one. Once the hole is there the splitting is the easy part.

    Longbow

  14. #54
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    Splitting them looks like a lot of fun, but I think I would put an ad in Craigslist first and see if anybody wants them.
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  15. #55
    Boolit Master
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    This looks like the easiest way to bust it up I've seen. Unless you decide to bury em.

    I too, suggest puttin em on craigslist first. May be able to trade em for something you want.
    “To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.”― Ralph Waldo Emerson

  16. #56
    Boolit Master

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    Any luck with your bolder removal?

  17. #57
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    go rent a hammer that fits the back of the tracter

  18. #58
    Boolit Mold
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    Quote Originally Posted by wgr View Post
    go rent a hammer that fits the back of the tracter
    There is a very easy way to do it. SierraBlaster. Legal without explosives license. The video below explains it. I have busted up boulders in as little as 5 mins start to finish. And have busted boulders 8'x10'. Here is the video http://www.sierrablaster.com/ Its a blast, pun intended

  19. #59
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    Hire Mexicans ! nobody else wants to do this work.

    This one came down from the Mountain above Montecito CA,

    It's still there a month later.

    Randy
    "It's not how well you do what you know how to do,,,It's how well you do what you DON'T know how to do!"
    www.buchananprecisionmachine.com

  20. #60
    Boolit Mold
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    Hi Randy that is a big one, never done one that big. But do know that Calif Dept of Transportation bought a SierraBlaster recently, maybe related to all the slides. Actually blowing up boulders is fun, I enjoy it. If in doubt as to how to breakup a boulder, blow it it, it is a blast, no pun intended.

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