Progress.
This morning we got on the phones and called a bunch of equipment rental places in search of a hydraulic jackhammer. No luck. Although some did have skid steers with attachments for the jackhammer. Likewise, it appears the bobcat at RMBL is a no go. It will not start. So we went to the site.
3' and 4' anchors went in the ground by method of digging, backfilling and brute strength. Within a few hours we had towers 2 and 3 up and permanently guyed. Spent the rest of the day planning our next moves.
Gary has agreed to bring us an electric jackhammer and other requested items. Hoping that now we have the correct attachments the jh will work.
Tomorrow is a down day as we await the remaining gear needed for final anchors. It is also Steve's Birthday. Happy Birthday Steve!
Just a few photos:
All 3 35' towers erected:
Digging out to bury the 36" augers:
The 36" auger buried.
Rain.
With brute force, 3' to 4' anchors were set today. To much psychological benefit, we have one 35' tower raised and guyed. Dan provided insight into anchoring and tower section building with the davit. He has since returned to his life. We wrapped up work on site at 2:30 due to poor conditions.
Tomorrow we plan to contact DOE about the bobcat at RMBL. We intend to test our jackhammer with it and potentially use it to drive mantas later in the week. We'll also seek out some rental equipment from nearby towns to get the complete set up for manta driving. The team will likely split up in the morning with one team heading out to pick up equipment and the other driving augers into the ground at the site.
Items we need:
Tensiometer
Shackles
Chains
Slings
Safety wire
Weather: rain in morning, still were able to navigate the road in and out.
People: Steve, Chris, Tony, William, Bob, Dan (who left at the end of the day: Thanks, Dan!)
Mary Cal brought the big screw anchors (thanks, Mary Cal!!), so we tried them out. The 46" pull tested at 1800lbs, which is more than adequate. However, we thought we still should have a backup of another anchor. Thus, our goal is a 46" and 36" at each anchor point for the 35' towers. Unfortunately, after peppering the ground, we often were unable to fully seat aa 46" in the ground, and sometimes it was difficult to get a 36" in the ground. At the end of the day, we had a 46" and 36" in for ue, so we added the last 5' to this tower and fully erected it. We also got 5 36" anchors in for d, though one of even these anchors we accomplished by digging out the first 2' of rocks, pre-punching a hole with the big steel pick bar, screwing in the anchor, and then back-filling (with tamping) the hole. It felt pretty solid, but we'll have to do this yet again to be finished with d.
Tomorrow, places should be open again, so we'll continue the Manta saga....
Weather: occasional rain yesterday and heavy at times today that painted the surrounding mountains white
The full crew is here: Steve, Tony, Chris, William, Reva, Bob, Dan, Jude (Bob's dog), but....
Bob brought the hydraulic jackhammer that he picked up yesterday and we hooked it up, but it wouldn't run (always caused the hydraulic compressor to die). We fussed with it for 2 hours and gave up. This was the only available jackhammer from the place we rented from, Williams Form in Golden. Thus, we had to stop work since everything now depends on having anchors to get the towers vertical. There are a lot of options we are working on, but all have issues and few could be resolved over the weekend.
We called on Isabel to locate the large (36" and 46") screw anchors, the "drill" to install it, and she also went on a Boulder odyssey to locate a socket to drive these. We then called on my wife, Mary Cal, to drive all this stuff out here. Hopefully, we'll be able to get these into the ground to erect at least the 35' towers tomorrow, while Dan is still here. Thanks, both of you, for graciously accommodating an abrupt change of plans!!
Anyone else is free to summarize any or all of the options we have considered!
This morning, we arrived at the site and unloaded the remaining equipment needed to install manta anchors. The jackhammer wouldn't hammer. We troubleshot and called Williams Form, but couldn't get it running. Attempted driving anchors with sledge, but decided this could potentially damage the drive steels. Thus begins the quest for solutions... Cresty-Quest.
We investigated other towers anchoring systems in the area and found auger anchors in use. Dan helped us greatly today by sharing his experience and confirmed that we have not used the small augers for large (Rohn) towers in the past. Also that the orientation of the anchor is critical to loading.
For the short term we picked up these:
We plan to use these or larger auger anchors tomorrow for the 35' towers. The larger augers are on the way and will be ready for use tomorrow morning. This will hopefully get us vertical while Dan is still here to share his experience/knowledge.
For the long term:
There's a bobcat on site at RMBL. Chris has contacted Erik H. about using this at the site. If we get the okay we may use it to drive mantas. Another option is rent a (the) jackhammer from Crested Butte Rentals but then we would need to rent a compressor as well, because it's pneumatic. They do not have a compressor. Which means a rental compressor from another town. Or we may rent a jackhammer from another town. The nearest rental would be confirmed Monday. Rental places in nearby towns (gunnison, montrose, grand junction, etc) are closed until Monday. There was also some discussion about digging holes and then burying manta anchors with heavy stones and earth. Or using concrete blocks.