Today’s task was something quite different, it was to begin replacing the failing platform coping at Muckleford.
We’d identify 7 lengths of coping that had reached the end of their life, about 30 years of service they’ve given.
We started at the Down end and progressively worked towards the UP end.
We had some digger action in handling the timbers, as they’re particularly heavy lumps of wood.
The hardest part of this was getting a decent grip on the head of the hold down bolts – which in the timbers that still had some meat did prove a bit of a battle but we managed.
To make it much easier for next time and to save having to drive the bolts hard into the surface, we have this time routered a countersink in, which proved to be a massive time saver – certainly now to be the standard way of doing this task.
We used a mix of new seasoned and second-hand seasoned timber – this will help stagger the replacements in the future. It is harder to work with than green timber, but not considerably so in this application.
The only very slightly tricky bit for the whole exercise was the very down end upright, which for some reason extends higher than all of the others. Anyhow, about 30 seconds of chainsaw art and a suitable cut out was made.
The process is quite simple, the timber is trimmed to length, then test fit on the uprights.
Once it’s in the correct position- which is dictated by the concrete facing and uprights and when it all looks right and measures up within tolerance, we run a pilot drill a few mm through the holes from underneath, then take the timber off, flip it over and drill through with an appropriate bit.
It’s after this that the countersink is carved out, then a really simple job of placing it back in the correct location and dropping the bolts through – tighten bolts, backfill and job done.
It comes up a treat once it’s done. It’d be pretty reasonable to assume they’ll last another 20 to 30 years.
The downside of using various timber is that no two pieces – even if delivered at the same time – were the same thickness. Wherever this was significant enough, a suitable bevel was installed to smooth the edges.
We’d allowed 2 days to knock over this task. However, we’re miles ahead of that, having completed all 7 pieces comfortably today, we’re very pleased with our efforts.
This does mean that next week’s work will be a bit different than first planned now – however, it’ll definitely be something based out of Maldon on Monday and Tuesday from 8am.
VGR Civil Blog 