Advice on building trail structures?

Lol. Yea im a pussy.. Just threw dirt for three hours by myself filling holes…i should post some picts.. Oh wait , its my culture its what i do..

Lol. Yea im a pussy.. Just threw dirt for three hours by myself filling holes…i should post some picts.. Oh wait , its my culture its what i do..

:kiss:

I wouldn't waste time sifting for a regular trail surface, building takes long enough. A good example of the benefits - here's a stump drop with a dirt topped ramp that wasn't sifted. Looks great here new, but after the dry weather this summer the top was a layer of pebbles and will need dirt replaced.

The other 2 sifted dirt projects we did in the above posts have had no issues.

i wont lie, that's pretty posh lookn…

:kiss:

i really got to you w/ those ham sammie comments didn't i ?

i have since learned what goes on between an adult man and his ham sandwich should stay on fromme…

kind of like vegas..

pffffft

yet another way to dumb down the trails and make them easier for all you flow loving, wood fearing, hipster wannabe pussies. this is why there's no stones in trail riding anymore, they've all been removed like the paved trails filled with sifted dirt.

:rawr:

i had to read this again.. you were so filled w your usual bs i just skimmed it..

but really? you would call me a hipster wannabe?

thas cold even from an in the closet super creep like yourself…

Question about the two methods of dirt topping:

It's pretty obvious how the slats hold the dirt in place when you go that route, but when just going with stringers (as mentioned by Wernie), you'd pretty much have to have landscaping cloth to keep the gold in wouldn't you? Or are the stringers just packed right together?

yes, if the gaps are small they are easy to plug with rocks. i don't think you need much of a gap for drainage to happen.

with a chainsaw it's usualy pretty quick to get the stringers sitting together reasonably well. if not, i fire in some old growth scraps where needed.

So for longer spans with the stringer method, what do you do to maintain stiffness in the center? Meaning, what keeps the stringers from flexing apart during use? The constant weight of riders must force the fill and rocks down, which would wedge the stringers out wouldn't it?

I've got to admit I wasn't familiar with this method but it's very interesting for me and I think it'll be useful for a project nearby, but I want to make sure I understand the concept fully before trying it IRL.

So for longer spans with the stringer method, what do you do to maintain stiffness in the center? Meaning, what keeps the stringers from flexing apart during use?

usually take some 10" or 12" spikes and nail it all together as i typically have only three stringers wide. or make some short pieces of wood that span the stringers in a few spots and nail those to the stringers with 6"ers to keep it together.

there's really a lot of different methods though. i've also built short spans using random flat chunks of old growth nailed together. this was really quick. it also depends on the wood you have. if you only have large diamater old-growth cedar i would tend to mill beams and build it differently than if you're dealling with narrower diameter regrowth cedar.

the main thing is that unless you're hauling the gold from far way, it should be faster than splitting rungs. i'm sure some love splitting rungs, and i used to, but i'm over it.

Real life pics

I wouldn't waste time sifting for a regular trail surface, building takes long enough. A good example of the benefits - here's a stump drop with a dirt topped ramp that wasn't sifted. Looks great here new, but after the dry weather this summer the top was a layer of pebbles and will need dirt replaced.

The other 2 sifted dirt projects we did in the above posts have had no issues.

Now that there is truly innovative stuff, exemplifying proof of uncertainty (one method did not work as well as another) and experimental development to improve the end product….want me to write up a SRED* tax credit claim for your materials cost and labour (at cost) rate?

*http://www.cra-arc.gc.ca/txcrdt/sred-rsde/menu-eng.html

something i try to keep in mind when building with wood, especially nailing large stingers and supports together is to use two smaller nails rather than one big one and space them from each other enough so you can get a wedge between them. that way if you want to change something or even replace or reuse a piece of wood latter you can easily hammer in two opposing wedges and separate the two pieces of wood leaving the nail straight and ready to hammer back it. this has made it alot easier for me to replace a stringer when a small tree fell on a ladder and only broke the one stringer and for when after nailing together a support i realized it was to tall. getting a good draw knife and knowing how to sharpen it has also been really helpful to get cross pieces lay down nicely.

pffffft

yet another way to dumb down the trails and make them easier for all you flow loving, wood fearing, hipster wannabe pussies. this is why there's no stones in trail riding anymore, they've all been removed like the paved trails filled with sifted dirt.

:rawr:

Stones on the trail have been removed as well as the rider's stones. OMG, slick woodwork? No can do, must ride paved trail of gold.

something i try to keep in mind when building with wood, especially nailing large stingers and supports together is to use two smaller nails rather than one big one and space them from each other enough so you can get a wedge between them. that way if you want to change something or even replace or reuse a piece of wood latter you can easily hammer in two opposing wedges and separate the two pieces of wood leaving the nail straight and ready to hammer back it. this has made it alot easier for me to replace a stringer when a small tree fell on a ladder and only broke the one stringer and for when after nailing together a support i realized it was to tall. getting a good draw knife and knowing how to sharpen it has also been really helpful to get cross pieces lay down nicely.

Somethings I try to keep in mind are sentences and paragraphs

Wow - tough crowd :S

I do a lot of [trail] building and maintenance here in the South Okanagan, but just ground-trails, few structures. That said, I'm currently building a bridge with raw 1X4 cedar planking (actual 1X4 dimensions) laid across pressure treated 8X8's/16ft. This is a gig on BC Parks property (with permission), so I have access roads fairly close by, and two of us are teaming up to hike the wood in.

The thing is pretty straight-forward. Lay crush rock for pads/platforms to encourage drainage beneath all four points where the 8X8's bear on soil

Lay the 8X8 PT stringers across and level em' both ways

Spike the stringers in place at four points with 3' rebar; pour canola oil down with the bars in order to 'seal' the vertical faces of the bore holes that I pound the rebar down into

Deck the thing with the cedar 1X4 decking using 4" galvanized ardox nails

Will post a few pic