The 'Today's Job' thread

[hiluxman]

That a pretty fair description of how I’ve done ponds. The smallest was about 40 square feet, the biggest was 40 acres, for a multi-millionaire farmer who wasn’t too concerned about how long it took, which was a good thing. He wanted no straight lines, and the slope to change continually all the way round. This was a pain as I’d just come off a run of drainage board work where you had to stick to batter angles, and even lines between pulls were frowned on.
As you say, a faff without a tiltie, but do-able. So there’s two idiots on here. I may have another small pond coming up later this year.

I dig several ponds a year and I've not got a tilty

 

[JD450A]

Tbh if your pond is smeered to perfection it's going to be s**t for what lives in it..... Randomness is king

As long as it's sealed your never going to see the bottom anyway..... If you can something has gone wrong

 

[Furniss]

liner in this one

 

[Storrsy]

Whilst we are on the subject of ponds has anyone used Bentonite clay granules to seal ponds? Dug a load of wildlife ponds back in Autumn as customer thought they'd hold water naturally- they did untill recently but he's keen to persist with them. I've never used Bentonite but seems a bit of a gamble to me? There's 5 of them

 

[V8Druid]

Whilst we are on the subject of ponds has anyone used Bentonite clay granules to seal ponds? Dug a load of wildlife ponds back in Autumn as customer thought they'd hold water naturally- they did untill recently but he's keen to persist with them. I've never used Bentonite but seems a bit of a gamble to me?

use it to seal canal beds

 

[Lancs Lad]

Whilst we are on the subject of ponds has anyone used Bentonite clay granules to seal ponds? Dug a load of wildlife ponds back in Autumn as customer thought they'd hold water naturally- they did untill recently but he's keen to persist with them. I've never used Bentonite but seems a bit of a gamble to me? There's 5 of them

Tell em to build em up here. Tracks in the field have held water since last October...

If I ever move I'm moving to Arizona

 

[JD450A]

Whilst we are on the subject of ponds has anyone used Bentonite clay granules to seal ponds? Dug a load of wildlife ponds back in Autumn as customer thought they'd hold water naturally- they did untill recently but he's keen to persist with them. I've never used Bentonite but seems a bit of a gamble to me? There's 5 of them

Ring me tomorrow, I can sort you some puddling clay

 

[Storrsy]

Ring me tomorrow, I can sort you some puddling clay

Thanks Rory. I'm not really in control of this job (just doing the digger work side of it) and the chap has already ordered the bentonite. But to me id be amazed if the scattering of bentonite into the top 20mm of soil will be sufficient to seal them over the long term.

 

[JD450A]

Thanks Rory. I'm not really in control of this job (just doing the digger work side of it) and the chap has already ordered the bentonite. But to me id be amazed if the scattering of bentonite into the top 20mm of soil will be sufficient to seal them over the long term.

It won't.

Bentonite is grand stuff but not for that application.... Needs sitting there and fathoming. Probably a land drain

 

[6feetdown]

It won't.

Bentonite is grand stuff but not for that application.... Needs sitting there and fathoming. Probably a land drain

I could have del 400 ton of clay in the last few months f**k all goes through it apart from your boots or machines

 

[Storrsy]

It won't.

Bentonite is grand stuff but not for that application.... Needs sitting there and fathoming. Probably a land drain

It's just too shillety. I think they were hoping the water table would remain into the summer months but anywhere that's good enough to have been turned into agri land is unlikely to do that imo. Puddling clay would probably do it or at least far more likely to hold rain water obviously going to be more expensive procedure though. The ponds I've done that haven't needed any liner in my experience are where there's consistent rising springs not simply wet in the winter via a fluctuating water table..

 

[Giles]

Whilst we are on the subject of ponds has anyone used Bentonite clay granules to seal ponds? Dug a load of wildlife ponds back in Autumn as customer thought they'd hold water naturally- they did untill recently but he's keen to persist with them. I've never used Bentonite but seems a bit of a gamble to me? There's 5 of them

yes, had to get some bags of it to add to the bund around the small drinking water reservoir we reconditioned last year, still got 5 bags in yard,

reading up on it you can sprinkle it on the surface and its sinks down and plugs the holes etc

seems like good stuff

 

[Lancs Lad]

use it to seal canal beds

Actually the repair on our canal was done with puddling clay. A lot of it!!

 

[JD450A]

It's just too shillety. I think they were hoping the water table would remain into the summer months but anywhere that's good enough to have been turned into agri land is unlikely to do that imo. Puddling clay would probably do it or at least far more likely to hold rain water obviously going to be more expensive procedure though. The ponds I've done that haven't needed any liner in my experience are where there's consistent rising springs not simply wet in the winter via a fluctuating water table..

"Nature ponds" piss me off. If there is no water source they shouldn't exist.

 

[DaveDCB]

View attachment 81071

Digging holes for what will hopefully be my house soakaway..... Niggles me somewhat paying for a drainage design..... but will be cheap if it accelerates and reduces aggro with planning.
Pits ranged between 20min and 71 minutes..... At 1.5m the engineer specified..... Then I got pissed off and cracked out the BHL, 2.3M deep.... water goes in under 5 minutes.

Agro and planning are two words that will never be separated!
If there’s one thing that puts me off doing what I do , it’s planning!! Good luck

 

[doobin]

Yesterday- very impressed with this things capabilities, my first proper landscaping job with it and perfect conditions and soil. I could actually strip turf pushing up a steep hill.

Tidying up for a long term client after thicko groundworkers subbed to the builders had trashed it. Grabbed the e19 to riddle the weeds I’d seperated from the top of the stockpile, not ideal but it was in the shed. Worked ok for ripping the dumper tracks too. It’s not a patch on the e27 for this kind of work but it was only needed for an hour.

The t450 nearly replaces a digger for this kind of work on good soil. Even without the 4 in 1 bucket it’s amazing how you can convince fairly small rocks to flick in. Backdragging is king, you won’t see me conditioning the supercross championships track for a while yet but for only having a day on this kind of work I’m pleased. You soon learn how to blend levels, and I think a tilt coupler would be a great purchase. It’s such a different animal to the multione, it just sets a level with the bucket and then straight away you’re on course.

Fuel usage averaging 5.5 litres per hour. The customer said ‘those other blokes would have been a week with a digger and a dumper and it still wouldn’t look as good’. I reckon I’d have been at least a couple of days with the multione and e27.

 

[doobin]

Today- I used to hate work like this, but with the right tools and commercial rates it’s a pleasure.

New m12 sprayer is just the ticket. I’m using nhl 3.5 here as the whole pavement has no sub base so a bit of flex in the mortar and pointing sure won’t hurt.

 

[Bri963]

Yesterday- very impressed with this things capabilities, my first proper landscaping job with it and perfect conditions and soil. I could actually strip turf pushing up a steep hill.

Tidying up for a long term client after thicko groundworkers subbed to the builders had trashed it. Grabbed the e19 to riddle the weeds I’d seperated from the top of the stockpile, not ideal but it was in the shed. Worked ok for ripping the dumper tracks too. It’s not a patch on the e27 for this kind of work but it was only needed for an hour.

The t450 nearly replaces a digger for this kind of work on good soil. Even without the 4 in 1 bucket it’s amazing how you can convince fairly small rocks to flick in. Backdragging is king, you won’t see me conditioning the supercross championships track for a while yet but for only having a day on this kind of work I’m pleased. You soon learn how to blend levels, and I think a tilt coupler would be a great purchase. It’s such a different animal to the multione, it just sets a level with the bucket and then straight away you’re on course.

Fuel usage averaging 5.5 litres per hour. The customer said ‘those other blokes would have been a week with a digger and a dumper and it still wouldn’t look as good’. I reckon I’d have been at least a couple of days with the multione and e27.


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Have you bought the T450 now?

 

[Lancs Lad]

Yesterday- very impressed with this things capabilities, my first proper landscaping job with it and perfect conditions and soil. I could actually strip turf pushing up a steep hill.

Tidying up for a long term client after thicko groundworkers subbed to the builders had trashed it. Grabbed the e19 to riddle the weeds I’d seperated from the top of the stockpile, not ideal but it was in the shed. Worked ok for ripping the dumper tracks too. It’s not a patch on the e27 for this kind of work but it was only needed for an hour.

The t450 nearly replaces a digger for this kind of work on good soil. Even without the 4 in 1 bucket it’s amazing how you can convince fairly small rocks to flick in. Backdragging is king, you won’t see me conditioning the supercross championships track for a while yet but for only having a day on this kind of work I’m pleased. You soon learn how to blend levels, and I think a tilt coupler would be a great purchase. It’s such a different animal to the multione, it just sets a level with the bucket and then straight away you’re on course.

Fuel usage averaging 5.5 litres per hour. The customer said ‘those other blokes would have been a week with a digger and a dumper and it still wouldn’t look as good’. I reckon I’d have been at least a couple of days with the multione and e27.


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How long till we see you with a Brodozer Stetson?

 

[doobin]

Have you bought the T450 now?

Yes, had it a couple of months I think.