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make or buy a wrecking demolition ball

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earthwrks
Join Date: Dec 2003
Posts: 3853 Home Office in Flat Rock, Michigan
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2006-07-18          132339


Anybody seen, used, or made a wrecking ball of laminated steel plate? A one-piece wrecking ball is too expensive ($3-4000 new). Any opinions on making one of stacked-and- bolted 2" plate that would form a wrecking ball? I need to pick this up and drop it with a skid steer loader to break up 12-18" thick footers and slab floors here in South Miss. A skid steer mounted breaker is another option but out of reach for me right now (new $7000). A local suggested filling a spherical 3' diameter propane tank with concrete but I think it would pulverize the concrete inside after awhile. Am I wrong?



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SG8NUC
Join Date: Jan 2006
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2006-07-18          132340


What difference would it make if it got pulverized. You still have the weight. I have seen weights made out of steel plates 3'X 3' X 1" thick. Steel is 42lbs for 12" X 12" X 1" thick. How much weight would you need and what shape would do the best job. ....


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earthwrks
Join Date: Dec 2003
Posts: 3853 Home Office in Flat Rock, Michigan
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2006-07-18          132343


If it were pulverized inside it would have the impact of a lead-shot dead-blow hammer, or like dropping a 100 lb. bag of dog food on the floor versus 100 lb. chunk of steel. In either case the nrgy would be absorbed into the ball instead of vice versa.

The shape would be sort of pear-shaped, or like a lead fishing lure weight to some extent, versus round which would tend to roll away; the pear shape would roll in a circle. About 2000lb. I think is what I'm looking at. ....


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SG8NUC
Join Date: Jan 2006
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2006-07-18          132347


If money is a concern it sure is for me. Stack the steel plates for the weight required and weld them together with a padeye centered on top. This could get pricey.

I understand what you are saying about the dead blow hammer, but would this not give you two licks for the price of one. Concrete is cheeper than steel. Maybe lead as a filler dont know the price of lead.

I agree with the pear shape, what if the bottom of the pear shape had a cone. Do you think it may pearce the concrete and help with the seperation. ....


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earthwrks
Join Date: Dec 2003
Posts: 3853 Home Office in Flat Rock, Michigan
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2006-07-18          132355


Stack the steel plates for the weight required and weld them together with a padeye centered on top.
>>>>>Stacking was the plan but bolting may work too. A padeye is a good idea but I will grabbing it with a gapple bucket and dropping it from 10 feet up so it will fall how and where it feels.

This could get pricey.
>>>>Yup.

but would this not give you two licks for the price of one. Concrete is cheeper than steel.
>>>>The propane tank or ball is $50 plus about $400 for a short load of concrete. So rather than experiment($) I figuredI'd put that money into the semi-real thing.

Maybe lead as a filler dont know the price of lead.
>>>>Lead would be even more susceptible to denting the steel ball.

I agree with the pear shape, what if the bottom of the pear shape had a cone. Do you think it may pearce the concrete and help with the seperation.
>>>>It doesn't have pierce, in fact if it pierce it will blow a crater shaped hole from below about 5 times the size of the piercing, like a bullet hole in glass. Removing the concrete is no problem with the equipment I've got--it's the intial breaking that is a problem as the footers or "chain walls" as they call them can have multiple rows of rerod in them making it difficult to crack it. The pear shape will concentrate the impact rather than pierce it.

....


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yooperpete
Join Date: Jan 2004
Posts: 1413 Northern Michigan
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2006-07-19          132360


The wall thickness of a propane tank is not very thick. If concrete is poured inside and hardens, it gives strength to the tank. Once the concrete breaks up inside (pulverizes) it will not give the tank the same support as before. The tank will then crush or have large dents in it until it fractures.

How about welding together a set of barbells from a garage sale and weld an eye on it. Stacking large (in the middle) to smaller sizes outward you get kind of a RedGreen sphere shape. It should do the trick! ....


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earthwrks
Join Date: Dec 2003
Posts: 3853 Home Office in Flat Rock, Michigan
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2006-07-19          132361


Thanks Harold (aka Yooper). If anybody knows about propane tanks it's Red Green.

Barbell weights are cast iron aren't they? I haven't been in a gym in some time so I forget LOL. Cast iron would end up in pile of shards. ....


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yooperpete
Join Date: Jan 2004
Posts: 1413 Northern Michigan
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2006-07-19          132363


I've never had a set. I've always thought they were cast steel. ....


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kthompson
Join Date: Oct 2005
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2006-07-19          132368


earthwrks,

Have you looked at a steel salvage yard? There is a large one about 50 miles from here and they had all kinds of steel items. The one that makes me think of what you are doing is the about 8 foot tall anchor. I would be surprised if you can not find something suitable either at such a place or old construction site/company.

Is the 10 foot drop sufficient to work? Are you able to drop it at speed sufficient to work? It will need to be a free fall.

Is it such you could use one of the chain saws for concrete or would the rebar be a problem for them? There there is blowing them. That may be what the person who suggested the propane tank had in mind. LOL.

....


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earthwrks
Join Date: Dec 2003
Posts: 3853 Home Office in Flat Rock, Michigan
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2006-07-19          132373


KT: An anchor? errr? It's gotta be nearly round to concentrate the energy in one small place. Ten feet is as high as the skid steer reaches, so it will have to do. There ship yards supposedly in the area, so I need to look into them. Man, it'd be sooo much easier to find a cheap wrecking ball close by! ....


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Iowafun
Join Date: Jul 2004
Posts: 955 Central Iowa
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2006-07-19          132383


This reminds me of a unit I've seen busting up concrete. It looked like a fork truck, but the front end used a pulley system to raise a wide steel blade like a guilletine. The blade was maybe 3-4 feet wide and 3"-6" thick and probably 18"-24" tall. The impact end was tapered to provide a concentrated impact line on the concrete.

Raise and drop. Raise and drop. A few hits and then it would move forward 6-18" and do it again and break off more concrete. How it would do on footers that thick? I dunno. But concrete can't handle that concentrated impact. So it might work.

Man, a sister-in-law joke just came to mind for concrete busting. I'd better keep it to myself in case my wife checks my postings. ....


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dsg
Join Date: Jun 1999
Posts: 528 Franklin, Maine
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2006-07-19          132396


Would an Engine Block work? May be cheap enough.

David ....


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earthwrks
Join Date: Dec 2003
Posts: 3853 Home Office in Flat Rock, Michigan
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2006-07-19          132400


I may have stumbled upon a solution: I local pile driving co. nearby has a drop weight he said he let me borrow for free. We'll see if I a.) get the job and b.) test it out. Stay tuned...

The weight is about 12" in diameter and 2.5 feet long. He said it weighs about 3,000 lb.

Any engineers out there to calculate the force of it dropped from ten feet? ....


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Murf
Join Date: Dec 1999
Posts: 7249 Toronto Area, Ontario, Canada
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2006-07-20          132418


Earthworks, we have had to do this lots in the past. I suspect, just as we did at first, the power required to break up concrete if you don't do it right.

There are only two ways to do it effectively. One is to use a *lot* of weight hitting a very small point at once. The other is to use a fraction of the weight, but get the concrete up off the ground. Concrete with good solid soil underneath will withstand an awfull lot of weight without breaking.

If you look around there are vertical breakers available fron the same people who make farm fence post-pounders. In fact it is just a post-pounder with a pointed hardened steel tip on the business end.

We now use the excavator for doing it, usually old barn foundations and floors. We have a thumb on the excavator and just put the teeth of the bucket underneath the edge of the slab and lift up, it either breaks on the way up, or the thumb comes down and snaps it. This way it is already in the grip to be loaded out too.

Best of luck. ....


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earthwrks
Join Date: Dec 2003
Posts: 3853 Home Office in Flat Rock, Michigan
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2006-07-20          132427


I agree with you Murf. I've got a backhoe with a thumb but it's 1200 miles away. I've seen those drop hammers like you're talking about; they're pretty effective. I've used a skid steer with a hydraulic breaker on it to demolish an inground pool that had Gunite 2' thick and 5 layers of rebar in places. I'm going to give the piling drop weight a shot and see what happens. Also, pallet forks ar very effective fr breaking (lifting and flipping) concrete flat work. As far as having concerte off the soil yes that's true to. I've seen a study that it takes 4 times the impact energy to break concrete that is contacting soil as the energy travels through the concrete and dissipates into the surrounding soil versus concentrating into the concrete resulting in breakage. Down here in Miss. they use what are called "chain walls" wchich are slab floors with thicker outer egdes. Some of these have 3'x4' oter edges that have rebar the thickness of my wrist--somtimes two to four of them. In hindsite, these over-built footers did absolutely nothing to preserve the homes on the Gulf when 30 feet of storm surge water came through here. In many cases al that was left were the anchor bolts---no bottom plates at all. ....


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jeanreyes7
Join Date: Nov 2013
Posts: 2 United States
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2013-11-15          188336


i have a wrecking ball on the top of a pole it is four feet wide and about 1 1/2 thick. I want it removed and would give it to who ever removes it. ....


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jeanreyes7
Join Date: Nov 2013
Posts: 2 United States
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2013-11-15          188337


Clearfield Utah for free ....

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