Druidic exploits of a various nature!!

[v8druid]

...............Going back to the “more on that again” comment ref. the Cranab’s gripping abilities .... and another comment I made a while ago regarding the possibility of needing some additional plumbing mod.s.

Been noticing, since adding the Hill’s QH valve that .... I’m not getting the grip that I had with the grab .... having thought about this, I’ve concluded that the dump valve in the QH valve must be set lower than full circuit pressure as it would appear to not be giving the grab’s close circuit ‘dead end’ pressure, before dumping to tank !

So......an additional valve is required, I think, to isolate the grab’s close circuit, or effectively, to close off the QH valve’s ‘T’ line when the grab’s close circuit is active to enable it to ‘dead end’ and allow the grab’s check valve to maintain FULL circuit pressure on close.

Having had a scout about .... I can’t find a straight forward solenoid op, open/close line valve, if they exist (which I dare say they do), so I’m considering a 3 way diverter, with the ‘T’ line feeding into it and the ‘A’ port (inactive/default) feeding to the tank return line. The ‘B’ port, could then either be dead ended with a blank plug .... or could even be tee-ed into the grab’s close circuit, but I don’t think it would be necessary to go to that length to achieve the desired effect

The 3 way diverter’s solenoid would be activated in tandem with the close circuit’s solenoid, thus diverting full dead end pressure to the grab’s close circuit only and the QH valve would retain it’s constant full pressure ‘top up’, whenever a motion is activated.

Your thoughts gentlemen please?

Been a busy week again, hunting for water leaks, .. but more on that again .......


Had hoped for a few comments on this quandary before I start spending on a valve and re-plumbing things, as outlined above


Anyone care to have their two pen'orth on my thoughts, or have any knowledge/wisdom to share, on QH valve pressures, etc. ????

[ianoz]

My toe nails now require 3rd party intervention..................................

But you did beat this .
13872707_935515253243634_6303490905845476196_n.jpg

[Muz]

V8.............. I commend you for not opening up your Hydrema and ripping your whole homestead apart , because , that's what it was made for .. instead you have tamed it into a household garden implement .. with immense dexterity , that in its self is a showcase of what these machines are capable of, with some modding skill,... scratch that.... a lot of skill .. and its something I have witnessed before now where good operators on these machines command a premium for their abilities , and perhaps those abilities are only limited by the attachments their owners provide for them to use ? But ofcourse in the wrong hands... great expense on attachments could be wasted .. none the less .. a facinating read sir

[v8druid]

V8.............. I commend you for not opening up your Hydrema and ripping your whole homestead apart , because , that's what it was made for .. instead you have tamed it into a household garden implement .. with immense dexterity , that in its self is a showcase of what these machines are capable of, with some modding skill,... scratch that.... a lot of skill .. and its something I have witnessed before now where good operators on these machines command a premium for their abilities , and perhaps those abilities are only limited by the attachments their owners provide for them to use ? But ofcourse in the wrong hands... great expense on attachments could be wasted .. none the less .. a facinating read sir

Why thank you kind sir ..... I take it from the commentary that you've plowed your way through it all ..... no mean feat in itself ... I'd guess, ......... not having done it !!

she was bought for a duck's versatility ..... and with a few 'add ons' she's even more versatile

I'll take your commentary as a real compliment Boyo, coming from a 'dyed in the wool' plant man like yerself ...... glad you enjoyed it

Been leak seeking for the best part of a week now ..... and cured the bastard yesterday ....... so time for a.n.other catch up soon!!

[245dlc]

I saw that rock pile you've got there Druid maybe time to consider building yourself a 36" rock crusher?

[Muz]

Why thank you kind sir ..... I take it from the commentary that you've plowed your way through it all

No .... I keep up to speed ... just do it every few pages or so .. but every time I do so .. its a revelation of skill, technique, and interest

I saw that rock pile you've got there Druid maybe time to consider building yourself a 36" rock crusher?

Havent seen you about for a while dlc .. hope the world is cool with you fella

[245dlc]

Hi Muz yeah everything is alright or as good as it gets. lol I'm working on getting my business going I'll post up a thread so the guys not on FB or haven't talked to me directly are up to date.

[v8druid]

Well one busy week turned into a busy 2 weeks and still not quite finito !!!

Waiting on our neighbours, who’s ground our spring and tanks are on, to give me the nod to sort the last bit!

So ...... where to start?

As said previously ... plenty of water coming in .... and going out, but to where, was anyone’s guess? ... very complex plumbing set up here, courtesy of previous owners, over the years and several ‘upgrades/alterations’ !!
Basically the spring feeds a header, which then feeds our storage tank, a quarter of a mile from the house, which gives us a head and about 1200 ltrs storage. Ours then feeds our neighbours’ header with our overflow, which feeds their storage tanks at their houses .... ones has 1500 ltrs and t’other has 3000 ltrs cap.
The spring consistently produces a gallon (4.5ltrs) per minute, 24/7 ... damned near 1500 gallons a day, so for them to be running out of water, said system had to be losing 1500 plus gallons a day.
His answer was more storage!! Mine was find out WTF it was all going !!!! No matter how much storage he/they had if it was leaking at more than a gallon a minute, yon spring was never going to keep up.

Obviously, no issues with our own line, as our tank was always full and over flowing filling their header. So had to be on their line .... somewhere .... ???

Had a rough idea where their line ran from / to, from an aerial photo I have of the place taken many years ago and several conversations with a previous owner, who did a lot of the work/alterations and who I know really well ... fortunately!!

The line that feeds them, just to complicate matters, also runs on down into the fields below us and they are tee-ed off it, so we’re talking upwards of half a mile of pipe ....... that could have a leak!!!
No obvious wet spots, so it was a case having to isolate the various ‘circuits’ to try to decide just where to look.
The tail end / field feed runs through our place ..... I know exactly where it all is and have several taps, etc. tee-ed into it for ‘outside’ water, plus a 1500 ltr tank buried in the garden, for garden water, which is always full.





Down stream from this is a stopcock which is always off, as there is no stock, or water trough for them in the fields .... plenty of streams though!

So we had to find the Tee point from this line feeding the neighbours below us. After a tel. con. with Alistair, the guy I mentioned above, ‘twas time for some more digging so we could isolate their circuits to test the pipe run from tank to field stopcock.

We eventually uncovered what we christened ‘spaghetti junction’ at the top of the neighbours’ bank below our drive ....



....and a pig’s guts of pipe work it was too!!

The blue MDPE at the top of the pic is the feed from the main line, which we eventually traced by getting out the dousing rods and tracing the run ....... but not before I’d been told it was elsewhere and dug a bloody trench across the entire width of our old driveway looking for the bugger!!



Started with a spade ..... and soon went and dragged ‘old faithful’ out as it was seriously tough going.
Started where I was told it was .... on the left ..... and eventually found ‘a pipe’ on the far right!!!!
Not the bugger I was after though .... feed to an outside tap ..... from ‘spaghetti junction’ ... we eventually determined, so out came the dousing rods.

Sometimes I can do it .. others I can’t .... rods were going berserk this time so was an easy task and having sussed categorically that they tee-ed off to the neighbours, ‘twas an easy line to test.
Sealed/capped their line off at the ‘blue’ in ‘spagheti’ and hey presto ... no water loss and the header tank filled rapidly, in fact almost visibly!!

After a few hours of struggling to try to uncover the various runs down the bank from ‘spaghetti’ some ‘bigger guns’ were required ..... enter Jake into the foray ... big mistake, should’ve stuck the VA-r on the ‘Drema and rolled her down ..... Jakey did the job .... but also disgraced himself by splitting a gland seal on the front end and dumping some of his ‘blood’ on their drive !!!!!!





Having sussed just what went where in the rat’s nest of plumbing, isolated the two neighbour’s individual circuits, found a n other defunct line and tested that too ...... the leak was on the guy’s own line .... much embarrassment/egg on face and attitudes changed dramatically ....

Bearing in mind that I’d already proven my circuits, days before, much humble pie was consumed !!
Much deliberation and discussion later a plan was formulated ..... to lay in a new line for him .... no way were we going to dig up his tarmac-ed drive, trying to find a leak of epic proportions with no sign of where the bugger was!!
The even bigger guns were deployed, complete with VA-r and suitable trenches excavated around the edges of the tarmac-ed drive ....





Would’ve been a tough one without the VA-r , but even with it a few branches had to have it ..

......and finding bedrock did not help with achieveing a major depth ...



Bit of a convoluted route ....







To incorporate some of the existing plumbing that had been proven good .... but we eventually ended up where we needed to be !!

While we were at it, his tank also got a damned good clean out ....



Can still just about get in one of these OJ tanks ... tight but do-able . It then all got pressured up and left ‘open’ for several days, to make sure we had no signs of leaks.

We now all have more water than we know what to do with .... tanks fill in a few hours from MT and stay that way.
Today (well the afternoon anyway) got spent reinstating everything, filling trenches, ‘landscaping’ the ‘Somme’ that was ‘spaghetti’ and the various trenches leading off it.

I have to say ... the VA-r performed brilliantly this afternoon and left the bank looking better than ever .....




I was pleased with what I’d managed ...... his missus was over the moon.

I also used that new little clamshell quite a lot, the last couple of weeks, for shifting piles of spoil about down there and damned good that’s proved to be too, under the VA-r. Saved a hell of a lot of effort, work and handballing with the 1RB.

[v8druid]

Obviously this hasn’t taken up the whole of my attentions the last two weeks .... quite a bit, but not all and I’ve managed to get some more of my digging done ..... no where near as much as I would’ve without this ‘crap’, but I have made progress .... more on that later.
Plus ...... I had 2 days last weekend on this ...



.....back in Ross ... performing bloody miracles!!!!!

You may recall my comments about Herefordshire planning being a lot easier going, re- building on boundaries .... well they ain’t!!
Architect fkd up by 1250mil with his drg .... so had to go re-dig it all and try to refill and compact/wacker what I’d already done weeks ago ..... It was a very looong weekend!!
Coupled with every bucket having teeth and finding 3 pipes and a cable ... without damaging any of ‘em .... I was fried by Sunday evening.

as usual ........ lots more pix in me Photobucket


bloody pee-ed down all last night and 'rained off' for the first time in weeks today ..... forecast for the weekend looks dire too


It's been a busy-ish couple of weeks ... could've been done a lot quicker without hindrance, if I could've just got on and ripped into it without major discussions every ten minutes


The cover, although shallow-ish, is as good as can be gotten, without a lot of rock ripping .. one major advantage of a spring supply is that it's always running/flowing and is set up to maintain a constant flow, virtually everywhere.


Our first winter here in 2010, it was -12C to -14C, for best part of two weeks with snow laying for months .... now't froze, so reckon it'll stick most winter's tribulations ..... 'less it gets real polar

Judging by the volumes of water we are now 'blessed' with, I'd say the guy's system has been leaking for years, as he and the neighbours before him have always had 'issues' ....... God only knows where it's all been going .... probably tracking a fissure and returning to the water table, which has made sussing it an even more interesting task.
Hopefully this'll have sorted it ..... permanently!!


The amount of time and effort I've put into it has certainly drastically changed/improved attitudes of late ..... and saved them a bloody fortune, in not 'getting someone in' ..... who'd have had no idea where to start anyway and made a hell of a lot more mess !!




We might be back on their Christmas card list this year !!!


The most annoying part of all this is I could've been spoil shifting instead and have been serenading the neighbour's ears with the 'Drema's dulcet tones most evenings, trying to at least get summat achieved .... I have made progress, but much more slowly than I would've liked ........ given the ideal dry weather

[v8druid]

No .... I keep up to speed ... just do it every few pages or so .. but every time I do so .. its a revelation of skill, technique, and interest

cheers again Muz

[v8druid]

OK ..... me dig ....

Tidied up the batter a little more from down below and shifted a few more loads of spoil,









before ripping out a few more ‘lumpers’, with Mr Akerman’s finest !!





They’re getting bigger ...





...... and ‘squarer



And the stack gets ever higher......





Pretty fair view from the top of the pile .....





..... and a long way down. Those last couple took some getting up there .... they’m bloody heavy!!

Stuck the VA-r on, with the forks and had a n other big juggle about with a load of stuff up top, so’s I could widen the ramp ..... yet again, to allow me to rip the side of it out...again, to pull the lower area back in to where I’ve gotten to so far and give me a better area to start dropping stuff from the top down.

Having created some space to stand,





...... what was now clear, ‘got the treatment’.....



Left the VA-r on as needed to get the angles and wasn’t exactly ‘hard digging’ !

Had a few finds ......







And plenty more rubble, lumps of tree and the odd ½ sleeper !!!



Another seven loads later and I’d got me own M1 up top .......



133 dumper loads’s the count so far

This has all had to be juggled in, mostly of an evening, in between *****ing about with the water pipes, two days in Ross, a day in the hospital, for me 6 monthly MOT, several ‘Clara days’, etc., etc., .... so not the greatest of progress !!

Now it’s bloody raining .... pee-ed down last night, all of today and severe weather warnings for the weekend in S. Wales !!!!!!
BUGGER!!
Ground is like cheese cake .... AGAIN !!

As per usual ..... for the sad, the mad or the just plain interested .... lots more pix here guys ... in the various albums

http://s1275.photobucket.com/user/v8...?sort=3&page=1

[245dlc]

Now are you wishing you had some tracks? Lol Oh wait you found a piece of rail you could make it a hi-railer. LOL Are you going to build a block wall with all those rock and blocks you keep finding? Keep them damned Romans out.

[v8druid]

Now are you wishing you had some tracks? Lol Oh wait you found a piece of rail you could make it a hi-railer. LOL Are you going to build a block wall with all those rock and blocks you keep finding? Keep them damned Romans out.

'Drema'd get about on the 'cheesecake' easy enough Bert ..... so would the dumper, but the bloody mess they'd make tracking it all about the place would be horrendous It's dust when it's dry and 'stays put' !!
Same issues at the tip end ..... mess!!

Might rock armour the bottom of the batter, if I've enough decent shaped boulders when I stop uncovering them all ...... we'll see

Lots more to come out yet, BTLs of it

[245dlc]

Do you know what kind of rock that is? It almost looks like somebody cut it to shape once upon a time. I don't know if you posted it in this thread or a different one but I'm curious as to the story about your little digger there that says Micron on it?

[v8druid]

Do you know what kind of rock that is? It almost looks like somebody cut it to shape once upon a time. I don't know if you posted it in this thread or a different one but I'm curious as to the story about your little digger there that says Micron on it?

Some sort of grit Bert, possibly mill stone ..... a lot of it is green?

The lil' walker is a Fleming (Manor) Micron .... have had it 20+ years and's a damned good little tool .... digs real well, but at only less than 1/2 a ton tends to drag itself about in hard going ..... I've shifted some stuff with it over the years and beats the hell out of a 1RB



Has another set of wheels which pin into the sockets under the leg roots and a draw bar I pin to the back anchor to tow behind the car ...... 5.5hp Hodna runs on fumes and'll dig all weekend on a tankful ...... doubt I'll ever part with it ..... too handy and will go through a 28" doorway.
Down side is it's a PITA in a corner ..... I made a 3 ft grader for it years ago and will load out with it no prob.s, but have to be a tad wary coming round a bit far with it full.

As said ...... beats a shovel