Hauling Rocks on a Stone Boat, Sled, or Dolly
donrawson
14 years ago
Hauling Rocks on a Stone Boat, Sled, or Dolly (Part 2)
Now that we've talked about how to move rocks and boulders using a stone bar, what methods can be employed for moving them greater distances?
Wheelbarrows and Wagons
Heavy duty wheelbarrows and wagons with large tires can handle large loads that need to be moved short distances. This one made by Huanya is equipped with a very wide tire, to handle the additional weight without sinking into the ground. Ive hauled many large rocks up to 600-800# in my wheelbarrow. Just make sure you have good footing, and an extra person to help you guide the load. (Tip: get a heavy guage steel wheelbarrow. Even though the rocks will leave dents, a metal one won't split out like a plastic one.)
Wagons with large pneumatic tires can handle even greater loads. TheyÂre very useful, and more stable than a wheelbarrow. This one made by Little Giant is rated to haul loads up to 3000# and is available from Amazon.com for $399.
However, the problem with moving rocks in a wheelbarrow or wagon is that a rock or boulder must be lifted 2 or 3 ft. to get it in. Even rolling a boulder up a plank into a wagon can be tricky. ThatÂs why a stone boat, sled, or dolly (hand truck) is a better choice for moving boulders.
Stone Boats
A stone boat can be built using a variety of materials, but the most common is wood. Constructing a stone boat with hardwood planks from a sawmill, such as oak or maple, are more durable than the pine boards found at a lumberyard. Bolt the planks together securely to make the stone boat as strong as possible.
An old car hood is ideal for a stone boat because the front edge is shaped like a toboggan, and the bottom is smooth and slippery. Once youÂve bolted a chain to the front, youÂre ready to load it up with stones and rig it behind your riding lawnmower or car. YouÂll be surprised how well this works! (Tip: remove the hood ornament before using.)
My own stone boat is constructed from a 3 x 5 length of conveyor belt. IÂve bolted a piece of ¾" plywood to the front and attached a chain. IÂve moved a lot of rocks on it. Of course, the advantage is that I can easily roll rocks onto it, or load a boulder on it using the technique described in the previous posting, i.e. rotating the rock with a stone bar. (If you need a piece of conveyor belt, send me an email.)
In the winter once the ground is frozen, large boulders can be moved without tearing up the lawn.
Stone Sleds
Similar to a stone boat, a stone sled has runners to raise the bed off the ground. While this provides a little ground clearance, the disadvantage is that you'll have to roll a boulder up a ramp to get it onto the sled.
Here are a couple of pics I found on the Internet:
Boulder Carts
Lastly, a boulder cart (aka tree dolly, hand truck) is very handy and well worth the investment if you have a lot of boulders to move. Get one with large pneumatic tires. Some are rated for loads up to 1800#!
You can even get motorized hand dollies, although they aren't rated to haul as much weight.
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Comments (25)
Janice
14 years agolast modified: 9 years ago
Babka NorCal 9b
14 years agolast modified: 9 years agoRelated Discussions
Where can I get the rock border for my pond
Comments (19)Hi all! Just a little warning about collecting rocks on your own from piles...Don't make the mistake I made. I noticed a nice pile of stone in a field, asked if the owner if he would be willing to part with some. He was a nice older fellow, said the stones had been there for a few years and he wasn't going to be using them or working the land anylonger, so take what ever I wanted. Well I took a walk out to the pile and lifted one, yep one rock. Stirred up a nest of yellow jacket wasps! Luckily I moved quick enough and only got whacked by one. So if you're not sure how long the pile has been there, be aware of what is buzzing around the pile. I must have been by the back end of the nest entrance or I probably would have seen or heard the wasps coming and going. Lucky me. I told the owner about the wasps so he wouldn't go near them. He told me to come back in the winter if I wanted the stone and thanked me for the warning. Well, I did go back and collected a few really nice stone for a wall that was going in. the nest was huge! the rock were on top of an old tree trunk which the yellow jackets were nesting in....See Morehow to transport very big granite rocks??
Comments (17)Well, it happened! We did it! Yesterday the rocks "magically" moved to my house. Last week I went to my friends house and Farmer Ed used his loader to pull the rocks from the woodsline. I was worried because I thought he had a farm tractor, but it was a heavy duty loader and it treated the boulders like they were bowling balls. Once he got them all out of the hedgerow, there were a few more than I thought - 26! Probably 5 or 6 BIG (bathtub sized) 12 Medium (32 inch TV) and the rest Small (microwave sized). Seeing how easily he handled these rocks was very reassuring, so I made arrangements for the loader, truck driver, and unloader for the following week. The weather was terrible here all week. We had a tremendous windstorm with gusts up to 65 mph that uprooted a few of my newly planted trees. Then we had a very heavy rainstorm. Then a spell of our first "winter weather" - 40 degrees, crisp, biting wind. But Saturday dawned warm and sunny and still, a great day for moving rocks. Farmer Ed and his son both arrived with loaders. For some of the big rocks, one loader would push the boulders into the other loader. You could see that the smaller one would not have been able to lift the heaviest of the rocks. They were quite skilled at what they did, I took my four year old son to watch and he loved it. Mike the truck driver was great. Acted as if he did this every week. He said he had hauled some very unusual things in his time, and raw boulders was another on the list. He took longer to tie everything down than it took to load. He was very thorough and professional. Made a phone call as we were leaving so Dick the backhoe driver would be there when we arrived. Dick and Brian were waiting when we arrived. Just immediately drove up in the backhoe and started tugging them off and they rolled away. It was slow and steady work, but happily was done without incident. Just like that! Wow! Now we still have the work of moving them from behind the barn to be placed in the backyard, but that seems a lot more doable than having them magically move 30 miles south. With the fall rain we've had the ground is rather soft for heavy equipment. We'll move them next summer. So watch for another post then asking how to move them into position. But for now I am quite happy! I'm sure enquiring minds want to know, how much did it all cost? Things improved from my initial conservative estimates. The $150/hour was for a quarry loader, which we didn't need because the farmer's loader was one of those BIGGGG ones. Farmer Ed did me a huge favor and did all the loading for $150 plus various baked goods and bottles of wine. Really he was being nice to my friend who owns// owned the rocks. Truck driver Mike was very professional and very reasonable, I thought, for $250 since it took his entire afternoon. Dick would only take $100 for his work since "it didn't take him very long" and he lives just around the corner. So total transport cost was $500 for 25 very nice sized granite rocks. $500 isn't a small sum of money, we've just blown the landscape budget for 2006, but at $20 rock it seems fantastic to me when I think how much work was done. I'm still working on getting a very nice something for my friend too, who was so fabulously generous with her stones. What a long winded post, as you can tell, I'm excited. Here's some photos, I've never done photos before so we'll see how they work....See MoreWhere do you all get your rocks?
Comments (104)If you're in Southern California, visit one of our 6 rock yards to get an idea about what types of rocks are available from a natural stone supplier. If you're a rock lover or rockhound, you'll be in heaven! It's worth taking a look just to be inspired. A rock yard is similar to a quarry in that it has large bulk quantities of stone, but everything is organized in piles and bins that can be easily browsed through or strolled around (or take a golf cart if you don't feel like walking). It's open to the public and safer than a quarry site. There isn't a minimum purchase, so even if you only need a couple of small rocks it's worth checking out. Since rocks are stocked from a number of different quarries, the variety is impressive. But be warned - it's hard to go back once you see the possibilities and options at a rock yard! Best of luck and happy hunting to all in finding the best rocks for your landscaping and other projects!...See Moremoving large rocks
Comments (21)hmmmm,.. ok. problems: when impacted the EPDM "stars', which eventually causes a leak that will break the liner. ANY installers must first agree that if any, any, any impact occurs, there is no embarrassment, none, just that you need to know. Check for a whitish mark.. that is the star. Repair with patch. Take no chances, whatsoever. -It should be installed after compacting the subbase with a compactor using sand as the slidable material instead of gravel. Be absolutely certain that there are no stones, rocks in the base that will rise over time. Since temperature changes are not extreme there should be little movement of any rock. - do spray water on the sand after tamping, and tamp again. add 1" of sand all around. Where large boulders fit into pre-excavated cavities place carpet under the liner, more sand, and then the liner with carpet on top, then 1" or to grade to fit of sand - course btw. (the pre work is a large bowl shape? and has shelves or ? What about the stream?) No tripods. Counter-balanced rotating tripod with a long/short boom may be used on the edge where machinery can not enter. Fit stone exactly into place by strapping which will come out from the sand. No wire slings. Place 1/4 inch plywood 'rounds' on edges under each side, so that there is no stretching of the fabric. Stone is set or is rolled off the plywood, final fitting is done with a strap and boom/people lifting juggling. Sand is the medium that supports the stone. The pond would be lined with small gabian stone NO SHARP EDGES ALLOWED, if stone has a break or edge then ensure that these stones are used soft curved side down, sharp edges up. or use flat stone disks that are mixed with sand... over the layer of sand, then stone side to side, (patterns may be achieved), and at the edges, they are installed at the same angle as the bottom ground with a slight inward tilt at the heel (toe is out, heel is into the side). This wedging effect will suport the large stones that fit into the cavities. This method displaces the weight over a larger area than just that immediate spot where the stone rests. Try to ensure that these pieces look like a rhombus so that you have almost a castle wall effect showing on the sides. Stones may then be fitted to overhang in the water so that fish may swim under (simialr to a deadman.) Sweep sand over the entire, this will be a cleaning layer, that will slide down the stones, will hold plants, acts as a natural filter in the movement of the water. This layer will be replaced from time to time, 7- 10 years it gets thinner.. or is scooped out when cleaning the bottom. No free running water, except in the installation process, mist so that the sand enters the crevices of the stone and settles. The more compact this layer is the longer the liner will last and the more weight it will displace. Now you could probably use a tripod with foamed load distributors,.. but the work is already done... but you could use a tripod ladder if needed. all this means that the size of the pond in depth and widths will need to be 12" deeper and 24" wider than planned for a natural surface to show. where abouts are you located? jpegs needed? there is/are other ways of doing this and more I would add, but do not know what stage you are at.. ie: using concrete to float sharp edged stones,.. and this should be a separate thread... (apology to others) feel free to ask offline, just that replies may not be immediate.. edzard...See Morehostamanfred
14 years agolast modified: 9 years agodonrawson
14 years agolast modified: 9 years agoken_adrian Adrian MI cold Z5
14 years agolast modified: 9 years agoswmogardens
14 years agolast modified: 9 years agoford8nn
14 years agolast modified: 9 years agodonrawson
14 years agolast modified: 9 years agoCountrygarden wrote,
"I'm confused as to what you are doing with them. Do you plan to place them here and there, perhaps in groups, or just as they are? There sure is a lot of potential."
I use rocks in a variety of ways: retaining walls, walkways, as specimens in my flower gardens, etc. In the pics below, I've used them in mass to cover a large area at one end of my house...all of which are 3 ft. and bigger. It required an awful lot of boulders to get the "wow factor", and the project is only about 75% completed after working on it for several years. I still need about 50-75 more big rocks in order to finish it! (As I've said, I find the rocks and haul them all in myself.)
In this pic (which I took today) you can see the end of my house.
The bank of boulders continues outward about 100 ft. and extends the other direction over 200 ft.
I hauled this boulder from a farmer's field about 25 miles away. It's 7 ft. across. (Of course, I didn't move it by hand. I have a front end loader for the really BIG boys.)
jerry_br
14 years agolast modified: 9 years agoken_adrian Adrian MI cold Z5
14 years agolast modified: 9 years agodonrawson
14 years agolast modified: 9 years ago
cyn427 (z. 7, N. VA)
14 years agolast modified: 9 years agodonrawson
14 years agolast modified: 9 years agoworldlywarren
12 years agolast modified: 9 years ago
koffman99
8 years ago
BungalowMonkeys
8 years agovtbrit
8 years agoin ny zone5
8 years agojohngibson1992
8 years agoin ny zone5
8 years agocknmlbwlmb
8 years agoSteve Berry
5 years ago
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